Jeffrey Zeldman's Blog, page 77
March 20, 2011
An Event Apart SXSW Interactive 2011 Guidebook – back cover ad
This ad appeared on the back cover of the SXSW Interactive 2011 guide, given to all 20,000 attendees of SXSWi in March, 2011.
An Event Apart SXSW Interactive 2011 ad on Flickr
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March 18, 2011
March 17, 2011
First three A Book Apart books
Jeffrey Zeldman's Awesome Internet Design Panel at SXSW
"WE KICKED OFF WITH a discussion on web platforms, perhaps the most widely-changing aspect of the web in the past 18 months. Zeldman began with a story about his efforts to check in to his upcoming flight to SXSW from a taxi cab in New York. He entered his details into his airline's mobile app and clicked the 'log in' button, only to be taken to their desktop website which required Flash to log in, which inevitably, his iPhone didn't support. How did this kind of user experience failure occur? …
"Moving on, the panel began to discuss publishing. The advent of plugins like Readability and a new product Roger Black is working on called TreeSaver allow readers to specify how they want to see content, and the advent of web standards means that content is generally separated from presentation, to the benefit of the reader. Zeldman made the point that the entire platform is for content, which makes it odd when some products are designed with the content being the last thing in mind."
"The paywall quickly came up and the overwhelming ethos from the panel was "if you have exclusive great stuff, people will pay for it". Dan Mall suggested that traditional publishers didn't understand alternative modes of publishing and were attempting to price them at the same rate as their paper-and-ink versions. Mandy Brown joked that many publishers saw the iPad as their saviour, just like they did with the CD-ROM back in the 90s. She also made the point that despite its web-savvy audience, the A Book Apart project's sales were 75% print. …
Jeffrey Zeldman's Awesome Internet Design Panel (13/03 @ 5PM)
Paul MacInnes is the editor of the Guardian Guide and Matt Andrews is a client side web developer at the Guardian. Full coverage of SXSW 2011 at guardian.co.uk/sxsw
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March 15, 2011
You are all in publishing!
ON SUNDAY, while leading a discussion on the future of web design and publishing, I noticed a slightly confused look appearing on some faces in the audience. The discussion had been billed as "Jeffrey Zeldman's Awesome Internet Design Panel," and I thought perhaps there was a disconnect for some in the audience between "design" and such topics as where content comes from and who pays for it.
So I asked, "Who here is in publishing?"
A few hands were gently raised.
Uh-huh. "And how many of you work on the web?"
Every right hand in the room shot up.
"You are all in publishing," I explained.
Now, I like a good rounded corner talk as much as the next designer. I've given my share of them. Also of line height and measure, color and contrast, how to design things that don't work in old versions of Internet Explorer, and so on. In the practice of web and interaction design, there will always be a place for craft discussions—for craft is execution, and ideas without execution are songs without music, meaningless.
But right now (and always) there is a need for design to also be about the big strategic issues. And right now, as much as design is wrestling with open vs. proprietary formats and the old challenges of new devices, design is also very much in the service of applications and publishing. Who gets content, who pays for it, how it is distributed (and how evenly), the balance between broadcast and conversation, editor and user—these are the issues of this moment, and it is designers even more than editors who will answer these riddles.
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March 14, 2011
March 13, 2011
Questions, Please: Jeffrey Zeldman's Awesome Internet Design Panel today at SXSW Interactive
HEY, YOU WITH THE STARS in your eyes. Yes, you, the all too necessary SXSW Interactive attendee. Got questions about the present and future of web design and publishing for me or the illustrious panelists on Jeffrey Zeldman's Awesome Internet Design Panel at SXSW Interactive 2011? You do? Bravo! Post them on Twitter using hashtag #jzsxsw and we'll answer the good ones at 5:00 PM in Big Ballroom D of the Austin Convention Center.
Topics include platform wars (native, web, and hybrid, or welcome back to 1999), web fonts, mobile is the new widescreen, how to succeed in the new publishing, responsive design, HTML5, Flash, East Coast West Coast beefs, whatever happened to…?, and many, many more.
Comments are off here so you'll post your questions on Twitter.
The panel will be live sketched and live recorded for later partial or full broadcast via sxsw.com. In-person attendees, arrive early for best seats. Don't eat the brown acid.
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The Twitters of Southby
20110312-NodeXL-Twitter-sxsw by Marc Smith.
From: www.connectedaction.net.
Connections among the Twitter users who recently mentioned sxsw when queried on March 12, 2011 scaled by numbers of followers.
A larger version (zoom for details) is available here: www.flickr.com/photos/marc_smith/5521097041/sizes/o/.
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March 11, 2011
Après Thursday, le déluge – or, recapturing the intimacy of SXSW
SXSW INTERACTIVE is an amazing festival, conference, and annual gathering of the tribes—a place to see, be seen, and find out not only what's happening on the web, but what will happen in the coming 18 months. The festival's explosive growth—from minor music festival adjunct to megalopolis attracting over 20,000 interactive attendees this year—mirrors the miraculous growth of the internet itself. And the festival's challenge echoes the challenge all internet community faces: in a word, scale. Not just the mechanics of scale, but the gauntlet of obstacles that must be overcome if a community is to grow wildly while remaining true to itself.
It is hard for someone who has not attended to imagine the scale of the thing—I flew here from New York on a JetBlue jet whose every passenger seemed to be attending this show; it was like a flying blogroll. For that matter, it's too big for attendees to completely comprehend. It's like New York City that way: you can visit, get a taste of it, you can even move there and be part of it, but you can never take it all in. And of course it is impossible for current attendees who missed the early years of SXSW Interactive to picture what the conference was like in the old days, when almost everyone attending knew everyone else personally or by reputation.
Each year I wonder if this will be the year the festival gets too big for its own good (or too big to be good), and each year SXSWi remains great—but great in a different way than before (again, just like the internet). Each year I salute the people behind this show. I could not even dream of putting on an event like this. I am a boutique guy at heart. I know how to make small things good for a select group of people with a certain taste and interest. The people behind SXSW cater to select needs and special tastes, too—but they also do massive. I'm looking forward to this year's show, which begins today, and to my own panel and the panels and presentations of my friends (including friends I haven't met yet).
As for the lost intimacy of SXSW that some of us long-time attendees lament, it isn't really lost. The first trick is to show up on Thursday, before most attendees get here. Register early with short lines, then buy a water and sit anywhere in the vast conference center. Within five minutes, you will meet new people; within ten, you'll see old friends. You can then go off with these new or old friends and enjoy a luxurious lunch table at a place you won't even be able to get into after Friday.
Always arrive a day early. You will not regret it. My experiences yesterday and the memories I will take with me have already more than justified this year's pilgrimage here.
And once the festival begins? Don't be afraid to occasionally skip a panel and go off with people you bump into (whether that bump takes place in the hallway or on Gowalla and Foursquare).
Coffee drunk, cold pills swallowed, mischief managed. All right, SXSW. Thrill me, baby.
Kristina Halvorson on the porch at Moonshine on the afternoon before SXSW Interactive begins. Part of this complete breakfast.
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March 8, 2011
Ava's Story
Here is a story my daughter wrote in school today. I've corrected the charming first-grade spelling.
I was going to school with my Dad. I did morning meeting lunch recess and I went to Miss Vickie's. We made stories. I wrote about Toys-R-Us. It was the end of the day. My dad picked me up from school. I played with my cats and with my Smurfs. I watched a movie. My Dad made me dinner. I rang my neighbor's doorbell. I asked for a play date but I couldn't 'cause she was taking a bath. So I watched the Simpsons. My Dad read me a story. I kept on wanting my water. I tried to sleep but I could not. One of my cats bit my hair. So my Dad put him in the kitchen. But I still couldn't sleep. I got scared but my Dad held me tight. So I wasn't. I looked at the ceiling. My Dad was snoring so I went to sleep.
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