Andrew Wirtanen » Websites

The 2010 Social Networking Map

Andrew Wirtanen — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 17:41:07 +0000

Flowtown has wisely and cleverly updated XKCD’s 2007 “Map of Online Communities”. I love how they organized the map. My favorite parts on the map: “Bay of Tags” surrounded by Flickr, WordPress, LJ, BlogSpot, etc.; “AIM Tundra” (if you haven’t noticed, many people don’t use IM anymore); “Former Kingdom of MySpace” complete with the “Lake of MySpace Bands”; and the “YouTube Triangle of Viral Videos”.

There’s a larger version of the map at Flowtown.

So why don’t you slide?

Andrew Wirtanen — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 17:36:59 +0000

Despite efforts like the reCAPTCHA project, we still hate CAPTCHAs.

Famed web form guru Luke Wroblewski posted on his blog about an alternative from They Make Apps. All you do is slide to submit a form. I can’t believe this would actually work. It’s pretty simple, but Luke notes that we still need an accessible alternative for those that can’t use a mouse. Anyway, this technique already has a theme song:

Do you wake up on your own/and wonder where you are? You live with all your faults/../So why don’t you slide? (Goo Goo Dolls – “Slide”)

Chatroulette Improv

Andrew Wirtanen — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:30:47 +0000

Ben Folds is playing with the NC Symphony this week, and I just ran into a fun video from March 20th of Ben having fun with Chatroulette in Charlotte (I love the irony):

Click here to view the embedded video.

Chatroulette is a very simple site that sets you up in a webcam chat with a random stranger. The site was created by a high school student in Russia and was launched in November 2009. It only took off recently, and on March 11th the first piano improv video was posted by Merton. The video has since gotten over 3 million views on YouTube and Ben Folds took notice, probably because a lot of people thought Merton was Ben Folds. Here’s the original video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Chatroulette brings me back to the early days of the Internet when a lot of simple sites existed. You could have your own web page on Geocities and live virtually in a community with neighbors. AOL and Yahoo Chat were both pretty big, and it was fun to talk to people around the world. It’s nice to have a website that makes the Internet personal again. I feel like so often I’m using the Internet, not signed on to chat, and not talking (or twittering) to anyone in particular.

Learning from Amazon.com

Andrew Wirtanen — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 04:37:41 +0000

Jared Spool (UIE) is always fun to listen to, and his latest work of art, “Revealing Design Treasures from the Amazon” is now on Slideshare. In the presentation, Spool introduces Amazon.com as a unique place on the Internet, where strange things happen, like the reviews for Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz. Some of the main points that stuck with me were: customer reviews are only helpful if you have the customers to drive them, users hate redesigns so roll out designs slowly, and sometimes making one small change to meet user goals can have a large impact on sales (e.g. Amazon’s most helpful favorable and critical reviews).

Personally, I’m a huge fan of Amazon.com and I place orders nearly every month. I’ve loved the tab-free design ever since I first encountered it in 2007.

One of the most recent oddities on Amazon.com is the Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt, which inspired this Pocahontas parody video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Web 2.0 Holiday Card

Andrew Wirtanen — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:00:04 +0000

First Round Capital has put together an awesome holiday video in the Where the Hell is Matt? style. They feature 70 companies in their portfolio, many of which are Web 2.0 companies. A few of my favorite organizations in this video are Mint.com, Stumbleupon, and Ambient Devices (I love my Baseball ScoreCast).

Click here to view the embedded video.

[via Laughing Squid]

If the World Could Vote?

Andrew Wirtanen — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:51:43 +0000

The President of the United States has a large global influence, yet the world has no say in who we elect president. If the world could vote? is a website that detects your location based on IP and let’s the whole world vote (albeit, entirely unofficially).

http://www.iftheworldcouldvote.com/

Google Reader in Plain English

Andrew Wirtanen — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:25:37 +0000

If you don’t use Google Reader or don’t know what it is, then you should watch this video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

This video is by the people at Common Craft, who are experts at explaining technology. One of their best and most popular videos is Twitter in Plain English. I actually think that video helped increase Twitter usage!

Facebook Crosses the Line (Again)

Andrew Wirtanen — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 19:30:01 +0000

Facebook is notorious for launching features seemingly without any user research. In 2006, Facebook launched the “News Feed”, which led to an unprecedented backlash in social networking. Ironically, two years later it seems that all Facebook users have gotten acclimated to the News Feed and now enjoy the feature. (It was actually the lack of privacy settings that originally bugged most users).

Today, while browsing my News Feed, I noticed this (image altered with sensitive info removed):

I’m pretty sure I read that Facebook was going to start doing this, but I did not think I would ever see it. Who possibly could have thought this would be a good idea?

Facebook’s “Pages” features allows users to become a fan of certain products, celebrities, etc. Somewhere in Facebook’s Terms and Conditions (I couldn’t find the clause when I looked), Facebook must have a condition that allows a user’s image and name to be used to promote a product to their friends on the site.

I am really amazed that Facebook continues to do things like this. They are pushing the limits of privacy, and are sure to see another backlash.

Firefox 3 Download Day 2008

Andrew Wirtanen — Fri, 30 May 2008 01:12:31 +0000

Firefox is going for the world record for most downloads in one day! Go to SpreadFirefox.com to pledge your download. There’s no set date for the download yet, but if you pledge they will send you an email reminder.

I’ve recommended grabbing a copy of the beta in my Firefox 3 UI Review, but it’s perfectly ok if you want to wait for Download Day.

UPDATE: Download Day is June 17, 2008.

Most Popular Social Networks Around the World

Andrew Wirtanen — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:48:57 +0000

This (French) visualization shows what the most popular social networks are around the world. I’ve always found it interesting how some regions will rally around a certain social network, even though others have clear benefits.

(larger image on Le Monde.fr; via Neatorama via Geek Like Me)