Dear IA People:
I love your Tokyo subway map of all the major Internet properites in the world. The “Google block” in the top-right corner is fantastic, and it really speaks volumes about the nature of P2P when The Pirate Bay sits alongside Flickr and Reddit. But, can you please get rid of the snap.com snapshots? And fit the whole thing above the fold? Thanks IA folks.

Edit: Whoops, forgot to actually link to it.

(Via the always-great information aesthetics).

Tags: ia, subway, internet

Google’s just launched Google Custom Search Engine, which lets you, basically, build your own search engine around a certain set of topics. Why would you do this, other than to show off? Well, Google will let you "make money from the traffic you receive through Google’s AdSense program." Now, why on Earth would Google pay you to make your own search engine when theirs works so well? Simple: your personal engine can make theirs better.

Experts are going to deliver more relevant search results than an algorithm almost every single time, simply because they are experts: they know where and how to look for information in their fields. Search engines only know how to look for information, and that’s not talking about highly specialized information. Essentially, you’re training Google in what’s relevant for your subject and giving them information that they can easily roll back into their own search algorithms. (AJAX titled search + lots of traffic = pretty good indication that Google should mark these pages as relevant).

Plus, Google is improving user experience on two fronts with this product: first, they’re making available a great resource for specialists to find what they’re looking for; second, they’re ensuring that all searches that end with a Google result return highly relevant, targeted information. Your search’s specificity makes Google’s search look better: it’s the halo effect. All for a little AdSense revenue.

technorati tags:google, custom, search, user, epxperience

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Chartreuese gives us Why Paris Hilton Is Famous (Or Understanding Value In A Post-Madonna World). No, don’t laugh when they point out what Paris Hilton does well (no, really): she drops names. What does this accomplish? Everyone loves free publicity, and she gets free stuff in return.

So, how can this help you, the web developer? Use Paris’s mantra: if you give free attention (in our case links outward), you’ll get free attention back (in her case, $2000 sunglasses, in our case, links in). If you want to be noticed, give notice first to those you want to take notice of you. You’d be surprised how many people will follow a trackback, and how many visitors you’ll gain from something so simple. Instant SEO based on this almost-Golden Rule: do unto others so they will do back to you.

technorati tags:seo, marketing, trackbacks

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QuickRef.org uses "active search" to give you very quick access to documentation on all kinds of programming languages. Type in a method name, language, or object, and, odds are, you’ll get very fast results that document what you’re looking for. QuickRef’s archive is drawn entirely from free documentation; most of it comes from the actual "official" doc.

QuickRef does its job well: it gives you fast access to information. However, it also does its job well because it uses a UI that supports the user and the search process; it’s a very user-centered design. From a graphic design perspective, there’s not much there: it’s a giant search bar. But, this is what it should be: the user’s primary focus is searching, so give them - what else? - a giant search bar. That’s good (user-centered) design.

But, there are a few other very solid UI gems that help give QuickRef a delightful user experience. QuickRef’s search results are color-coded by topic. This speeds visual browsing, helping users easily jump to and select the information they’re looking for. Is color the best choice? Probably, even though it’s not fully visually accessible. However, it ultimately helps users by promoting "browseability".

QuickRef also makes use of AJAX where it’s actually needed and does a lot of good. QuickRef allows users to minimize search results in little "windows" like a desktop app. Think of the benefit for the user: odds are, you’re going to be working on that project for which you’re tracking down information on the DOM for more than just one visit; persisting the results gives a huge benefit for the user. It’s something not often seen: AJAX for more than AJAX’s sake; it’s Web 2.0 building an intiuitive feature that’s beneficial to the user. In all, keeping those results around is a great use of technology that’s a big help.

QuickRef looks like it could be a very good user-centered resource.

technorati tags:quickref, user-centered design, user focus, ajax, reference

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GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Google Gmail account, allowing you to use Gmail as a storage medium.

viksoe.dk - GMail Drive shell extension

And I hardily recommend it. I’d actually used it heavily when it was first introduced, then I lost my previous laptop and the link to GMail Drive. I just stumbled on the link today (thanks to Digg), and I’m going to do the reinstall shortly. Definitely a solid piece of software.

technorati tags:gdrive, gmail, online storage

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Google Image Labeler, a new feature of Google Image Search that allows you to label random images to help improve the quality of Google’s image search results.

Google Image Labeler is Google’s attempt at crowdsourcing image tagging. Why have people do it? because computer vision is poor.

Google gets big benefit out of this: they get correctly tagged images, thanks to the double-team, you-both-must-agree-on-tags approach; they can then pop those tags directly into their image search results. What do the users get? Points. Prizes? No. Points? Yes.

This is less a fascinating study in Google harnessing people to do work than it is in the power of people to build a thriving community around something they enjoy. People are donating their time because they enjoy doing it: the only incentive is a little recognition and a small amount of human interaction. But sometimes, a little recognition is more than enough to pull users in: we’re all motivated strongly by the desire to get our name in the headlines. Often enough, this is what a website needs to build a thriving community: it needs a hobby with a scoreboard.

Looks like I’m getting a little pub. Well, indirectly. And, no, I’m not actually named in the article at all.

TheLadders.com Redefines the Art of the Job Search, and I wrote "the latest Web technologies" behind that redefinition. It’s really simple: CSS and JavaScript and DHTML. Hundreds of lines of each.

My Jobs is a slick bit of CSS, JavaScript, and DHTML, and has bits and pieces that spread across to other parts of the site, too. I feel like I’m at the cutting edge of Web 2.0. Now, if they’d just get a quote from me next time …

technorati tags:Web 2.0, TheLadders, DHTML, javascript, project

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