I find myself browsing Interesting Items on Google Web History a lot lately as it managed to dig up fairly great stuff that I didn't know about that's actually related to my searches (thus interests).
Yesterday I discovered Webkinz.
Webkinz are just like any other stuffed animals that we have come to grow up with. But Webkinz are special in that they have a "Secret Code" on their labels that allow owners to "adopt" a virtual version of the toys to interact with online.
Here's a screen-capture of the tour:
I don't have a Webkinz yet so I can't speak from first-hand experience, but based on the tour it looks pretty neat. It is a lot like The Sims, where you get some money where you can upgrade your room with new decoration, food, furniture, etc. It also has some social features to allow kids to hang out via chats.
I tried to login yesterday but I could not because I don't have a special code. Trust that I shall look forward to getting one from Amazon soon.
©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Stuffed animals go social
Monday, January 14, 2008
You can do it if you want to
When I first got into Yale, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I studied pure science classes in high school and I was very good at it. I took science classes because the tests have absolute answers: if you put in the right answers, you get an A.
The problem with studying science in college is that I know that I can never be better than my sister. My sister is a genius. While I dominated the awards at high school, she swept them. Since she also went to Yale and was studying Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, I decided that I had to study something else.
Originally I picked architecture, because it appeared to combine art and science, which is the synergetic focus that I have always been interested in. Before the class of 1999, all architecture students were required to take Basic Drawing from the School of Art. They dropped that requirement for my year, but I thought that it must be a good thing so I took it.
I had zero art education before I went to Yale, so when I was faced with charcoal and paper, I was fairly scared. Most students attending the class had extensive art education, and have impeccable skills. I didn't really know what to do with my materials. When questioned, my professor just told me to draw what you see.
I had never touched a charcoal in my life, and I spent my whole semester trying. Looking back, it appears that I am most satisfied with work that I really put my heart to. I don't think that I can draw still. But it appears that if spend enough time on anything, I can do it.
Here are some of my favorites from the old days:
Yale School of Drama
Still Life
Remember, you can do it if you want to.
©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Optimus Maximus Keyboard is Out!
That's right kids. The fully customizable OLED-keyboard is out and is now shipping:
http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/
Each of the 113-keys have a min. 10 fps OLED display with a 48x48 resolution that's customizable using the included software. Mac and Windows compatible. All for around $470 USD. I'll take one for any holidays but I can't afford it yet.
via IconSpam
©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Search Wikia alpha sign-up now available
Wikia Alpha
For the past 2 weeks, Jimmy Wales announced on the Wikia list that private alpha is available, resulting to a flood of sign-ups reply on the mailing list. That situation is no more, as a public sign-up is available. Go to http://alpha.search.wikia.com/ and get your free account. Bug reports at end of the page.
via Loopzilla in the comment area on a Flickr photo
(Un)related: Gmail greatness
The situation on the Wikia list + sign-up reply, on the other hand, helps me truly understand another greatness of Gmail single-subject chaining UI. Unlike IconSpam which gets annoyingly long (and flooded) in the Outlook email inbox as topics become popular with many respondents, the Gmail interface allocate a singular dedicated row. The result is a clean and much more user-friendly UI.
Web 2.0 Features
I just signed up and it appears that Wikia has some Web 2.0 features (ability to social network by adding friends) but there is currently no way to link directly to the user profile. There are lots of fields for adding personal and professional information, together with the ability to tag those information.
Search Results
I don't really know where the search index is coming from at the moment, and searching my name does not give a lot. It did managed to match me in the user area though so that's a good thing:
©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Flickr Analytics: The making of interestingness / SML Analytics
As part of an ongoing effort to document myself to better understand myself, I posted this design concept I created for Eric Roos' music business Dangeroos onto Flickr in August 2007.
The piece was designed back in 2002, and was a quick sketch or mood board for the Dangeroos Web site. The identity Dangeroos is a play on Eric's last name, so the choice for Interstate (the typeface) was obvious. Red was chosen because it suggests danger. Wave morphs, color rectangles and circular compositions dropped in to support the idea of sound.
Shortly after I started a project called Flickr Analytics to analyze Flickr's interestingness algorithm. Because of that, I become fairly aware of the individual image's ranking over time. To my surprise, this design stays consistently within the top 20 most interest images, and over the past few months, reigned as the number one most interesting image on my entire Flickr stream.
What was even more interesting to me is that the image also drives much traffic: more than 4000 views within the last 5 months, which amounts to 25+ views a day. That's a lot for an image with no human element.
So when Flickr Stats launched on 2007-12-17, it was a God send, for it enables me to analyze traffic and get a better understanding of where traffic is coming from.
How to get to Flickr Stats
To the bottom right corner, below the list of tags of an image on Flickr is what I would call the utility area of the page. This is also where you can access the Photo stats of the image in question. Clicking on the link will bring to a page similar to the one below:
Photo Stats
At this time, Flickr Stats only allows you to view detailed traffic information from the last 28 days, which is not as flexible as most site analytics tool, but is still much better than none at all.
The first time I saw this page I was stunned. Previously I had guessed that the reason why the Dangeroos design was popular had to do with that it was the first image on my 100 Most Interesting Design (set), which is why I had kept it on my Flickr homepage all these time. Data suggests otherwise. In fact, 54% of its traffic (1,041 visits) came from images.search.yahoo.com and 30% (572 visits) came from flickr.com.
Really? What were people searching for on Yahoo? I clicked on the domain name and get to the referrer detail page for the Yahoo Image Search:
Apparently, I'm getting a lot of hits from Yahoo from people search for graphic design. FlickrStats has a nice feature which allows you to click on the keywords to go directly to the search results in question. This is where I noted that apparently back in 2007-12-18, searching for graphic design on Yahoo put this piece on the first 5 results:
Image Search Algorithm
If you think about how difficult it is to develop a useful text search algorithm, you can image how challenging it must be to create a good image search algorithm. Indeed, until most recently, Google Image Search relies on the image's file name alone to feed you results.
Aside from gaining a huge user base, Yahoo's decision to buy Flickr is obvious: image tagging data.
Tagging is a voluntary act by the user: creating meta data to organize his collection fo photo much easier. To the search engine, however, tagging is free metadata association. One strategy is deciphering whether the tags are accurate can go like this: each time someone search for a search term, say graphic design, my search engine will throw 20 images associated with that tag on the search results page. An image that's more related to that search term will more likely to be clicked on by someone searching for that result.
With time and patience, it would be possible for me to figure out which tags are valid and which tags are not. People who search for the search term and then either favorited or commented on that photo would mean that image is more relevant (and thus "interesting") to that search term.
The same strategy can be applied to Flickr Groups. When you post an image to a particular group, the group usually is associated with certain keywords. When users click on an image among all others, they are functioning as bots with very advanced algorithms to do things that machine cannot yet do: identify the good images from the rest. I call humans participating in these activities BioBots.
The key in these systems is to identify the experts. Once you have collected enough data on a user and noticed, for example, that they have a degree in graphic design, working in the graphic design field, and perhaps are members of mostly graphic design groups, it may be fair to say that their opinions on graphic design matter more. You can thus put in your algorithm to give their opinions more weight for the same reason why KOL (key opinion leaders) in pharma talk has their role in medical sites.
©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.
AdAge 2008 Annual: LBi International = top 25 marketing organizations
The print edition of my Advertising Age arrived in the mail today and I noticed that I have missed out an important fact to report: LBi International (parent company of IconNicholson) is ranked #19 in the top 25 marketing organizations globally according to net revenue.
The rest of the figures are:
- Omnicom Group
- WPP Group
- Interpublic Group of Cos.
- Publicis Groupe
- Dentsu
- Havas
- Aegis Group
- Hakuhodo DY Holdings
- aQuantive (bought by Microsoft in Aug. '07)
- Asatsu-DK
- MDC Partners
- Sapient Corp.
- Carlson Marketing
- Epsilon
- Aspen Marketing services
- Cheil Communications
- George P.Johnson Co.
- HealthStar COmmunications
- LBi International
- Media Square
- inVentiv Communciations
- Cossette Communication Group
- Harte-Hanks Direct
- Clemenger Communications
- Doner
©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.
LinkedIn store now open
How do you make money off of social networking sites? Besides selling AdSense ads, here's another way to do it: open up a store and sell branded materials. Professional social networking site LinkedIn is doing just that. As I hook up with my 380th connection today on this popular site, I noticed this banner ad on the page:
which links you to the LinkedIn store. Right now the items are not very imaginative: but one can just imagine the magic of it all if they would allow customization. Something like See-ming Lee, proud LinkedIn user. Connect with me at http://www.linkedin.com/in/seeminglee would attract customers like never before.
Truth be told, you don't even need a high-tech solution to do the job: You can do as as simple as giving people the option to write their URL or their name on a designated area with a water-proof marker (which can come with the shipped package) and people can create customize content by drawing directly on the t-shirt. That'd be fun!
©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.
