At @kakennedy's request, "more about using [Posterous]" (not Tumblr, sorry)

Identified by its creators as the “dead simple place to post everything,” Posterous is a blogging platform focused on ease-of-use. Because of its relative simplicity in comparison to more hefty platforms like Blogger and Wordpress, some consider Posterous and its main competitor Tumblr to qualify as a form of microblogging. For instance, in a 2008 review of Posterous, ReadWriteWeb identified it as “minimalist blogging.” A more accurate understanding of the capabilities of Posterous is evident in an Ars Technica side-by-side comparison with Tumblr, both of which Chris Foreman (2010) describes as “quick blogging tools…characterized by two main features that set them apart from more traditional blogging tools.” The first concerns a content-specific focus as text, images, videos and links appear “in a suitable format for its content type” and the second involves the relative ease and speed of posting content. Perhaps it is because of this second feature that some might be quick to declare Posterous as a microblogging service or tool, but, as its creators boast on their FAQ, “there are no limits to what you can post.”

In my experience of using Posterous and witnessing how students use the service, Posterous is quicker to begin and easier to maintain than Blogger. In part, this is because Posterous offers multiple methods of content production, including posting options by email, mobile and web. It also has to do with how Posterous handles the content a user sends. Text-based content, like a Microsoft Word document for example, attached to an email to Posterous appears onsite via Scribd, a free, HTML5-based document-sharing service. Posterous arranges images emailed or uploaded into a web-friendly gallery; music and video files show up on Posterous in web-based Flash players, too. 

This format suitability to content is important to note because not all students coming into college-level courses possess the knowledge necessary to deem the appropriate format for a particular kind of content. For instance, I required students in previous semesters to sign up for Blogger accounts. This was as much because of my own greater familiarity with that particular blogging platform as because of the potential for students to make their own unique, personal stamp on the blog they created. That it was possible to post blog entries via Google Docs was an additional positive influence on this decision. I also thought students might help me learn more about the particular possibilities of Blogger, that this technology could provide an opportunity for us to learn the technology together.

The potential complexity of Blogger caused some trepidation, though. The great freedom of choice led to some poor design decisions by students, including color and font size. There were additional formatting issues, too, as too many students composed blog entries in Microsoft Word and then copied and pasted the content to Blogger only to be upset by significant problems with alignment and spacing. Since the shift to Posterous, the vast majority of formatting problems have disappeared. So long as students attached their text-based efforts rather than copying and pasting direct into the body of an email, the all-important formatting of their blog entries remained intact on Posterous. As mentioned in the next section of this chapter, the autoposting feature of Posterous in particular made for a unique success across all courses.

While many things precipitated the move from Blogger to Posterous, the latter’s overall ease-of-use was a dominant determinant. Posterous has a sharper focus on how someone might want to provide content, that personalizing a particular blog space comes as much from the content as the format, that some bloggers might be more concerned with pushing content than anything else. Embedding documents, images and videos in Posterous happens with little to no frustration. There are also a limited number of themes to choose from to eliminate the possibility of color clash and font fiasco. Posterous features a streamlined process for blogging in my writing-centered courses; it has proven to be a better choice for students.

Some examples:
http://johnnyc2010.posterous.com/
http://savsanford.posterous.com/
http://kroby.posterous.com/ 

design difficulties and garbage gods: leaning toward level creation in LittleBigPlanet

This past weekend, M’s niece C came for an overnight visit. An avid gamer at nine years old, C is enamored with LittleBigPlanet (LBP). She often spends as much time outfitting her Sackperson as playing through favorite levels. Up until this most recent stay, C had no knowledge of LBP’s capacity for user-generated levels. When I informed her of this at a previous family gathering, she went about drafting an initial idea for a level on the back of her mother’s Mead notebook.

C presented a second draft of her level ideas at the beginning of her latest visit. 

That the sketches were an amalgamation of elements from previously played LBP levels didn’t surprise me. However, I was curious about how those aspects were among the most difficult for her to play through. She often nominated me to carry us beyond those harder sections. I was the one to make it across the wooden planks. I was the one to lead and sustain the escape from Skulldozer. I was the one to hold tight to the skateboard as it raced up and down hills and ramps. When I asked her why she had these challenging elements in her design, she replied: “I want to make the hardest level ever.” And she wanted to get started right away.

Rather than begin with a blank level, we elected to open up a familiar template, one from which C drew inspiration: The Islands - Endurance Dojo. The wooden planks just mentioned appear around the 1:20 mark.

With so much infrastructure already in place, though, our approach to level creation changed. The desire to experiment and play took over. We became "garbage gods," more interested in filling up the space with assorted junk just to see what would happen. The very top of the level template was soon marked by three layers of white balloons. Scores of beach balls piled upon a massive zombie. Odd shapes of metal and plastic toppled what were once thought to be sturdy sections of the in-game environment. Our Sackperson avatars hovered with glee over an LBP landfill.

Impeding this pollution-based progress were the tutorials. Any time C attempted to add something different to our collective mess of crap, we were taken to a different, instruction-based space. Most of the tutorials were informative and helpful, though the requirement to complete particular tasks before continuing proved a problem. For some reason, the audio tutorial was a specific difficulty for us, making for enough frustration that we abandoned level creation in favor of running around with Paintinators in the Metal Gear Solid levels.

My task now is to suffer through each of LBP's tutorials in time for C’s next visit. This way, I can better serve my secretarial function in transcribing her LBP vision.

"An illusory opt-out system is just one of the sophisticated sleights of hand in the privacy world." #wymhm

Consider Facebook's privacy options. Regulators in the United States have long called for companies to give users choices to control personal data. Facebook can proudly proclaim that it offers these choices - more than 100 of them. Therein lies the trick; by offering too many choices, individuals are likely to choose poorly, or not at all.

Facebook benefits because poor choices or paralysis leads consumers to reveal more personal information. In any case, the fault is the consumer's, because, after all, they were given a choice.

via sfgate.com

"What has happened with the web is that there is so much content that we have broken all the old filters" #wymhm

we are experiencing it as the completely overburdened and chaotic environment that it is. But that doesn’t mean people should stop publishing online. It just means that we need better filters. Because in fact, the over-publishing of content has been a normal problem since the invention of the printing press. It’s just that we had ways of ignoring things we didn’t care about. The problem isn’t getting people to shut up, the problem is creating filters to help people find their way to things they want.
via publishingperspectives.com

 

"a time-pressed global culture was bound to pounce on [Twitter's] 140-character haiku format" #wymhm

"It's about having a record of what both the first-person participants in history and its spectators were saying," Raymond says. "Wouldn't it be amazing to have the broad and immediate reaction of people to Pearl Harbor?"

No question. But for most people, Twitter's charm is the way it cuts to the social media chase.

"I used Facebook a lot, but Twitter is my new social outlet," says Sandra Springer, 42, a UPS driver from Mason, Ohio. She hopped on eight months ago and hasn't looked back.

"It may only be 140 characters, but oddly it feels so much more interactive than other social media," she says. "Maybe because it's real time, but it just feels more personal to me."

via usatoday.com

"Each game is a little feedback loop, allowing the player both to imprint his actions into a world" #wymhm

This is why videogames are so interesting; they are, in effect, bottled external worlds, into which we can momentarily plug our inner worlds to see what happens. Each game is a little feedback loop, allowing the player both to imprint his actions into a world, to leave his little mark -- even if only in a high score table -- and to absorb, from a simplified sketch with no social or practical consequences, a new way of being, a new way of doing things.

Some people are more concerned with leaving their mark, others more with expanding their horizons. Some give more, some take more. The point is that in their essence, videogames encapsulate this dynamic between the two. They are a study in cause and effect; the easier those worlds are to affect, the more useful a response they give, the more the player owns actions and consequences alike, the more satisfying the experience.

via gamasutra.com

"There is simply no reason undergraduate degrees can’t be finished in three years" #wymhm

Colleges should consider making the switch, too. Three-year curriculums, which might involve two full summers of study with short breaks between terms, would increase the number of students who can be accommodated during a four-year period, and reduce institutional costs per student. While there would be costs for the additional teachers and staff, those would be offset by an increase in tuition revenue.

Meanwhile, institutions that go quiet in the summer, incurring the unnecessary expense of running nearly empty buildings, would be able to use their facilities year-round.

Finishing in three years could be a challenge for students who need summer jobs to pay tuition. But three years wouldn’t be the rule, just the norm: like today, students could take an extra year or two if needed. And while it might be more expensive in the short term, getting out the door after just three years would allow young people to enter the workplace that much faster.

via nytimes.com

"From a visual perspective, Kirby is a McCloud abstraction" #wymhm

As the original NES game explains in the opening section: to depict Kirby you just draw a circle, some nubs for arms, shoes for feet, and then add a face. You can project anything you want into that because the face could be anybody’s. It’s interesting that the original game and several others have stressed and even encouraged people to draw Kirby. It taps into other aspects of people’s imagination because they can recreate Kirby however they like outside of the game. A quick doodle of Kirby looks just as much like the little pink ball as an expert rendition, there is no skill barrier to drawing him. Contrast that to something like Mario or Link, which people still love to draw, but can potentially be disappointed when their work doesn’t look like the original. Being able to draw Kirby easily removes a barrier to the avatar so that people can feel a greater sense of authority and control over it.
via popmatters.com

"[LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy] understands coolness so intimately it's become an almost academic pursuit" #wymhm

"There are some people who are just plain great at making music. That's not who I am," he says. "However, I can succeed at making music that works as dumb body music, but that can also meet someone in the middle if they want to investigate our songs in a deeper way. I know the things I can do: I understand music and I trust my taste. And taste is important." What this essentially means is that LCD try to make sophisticated music within the simplest possible parameters. Some might call such a goal pretentious; if they did, Murphy would not mind.

via guardian.co.uk