This new flight search tool has a great interface. But I see they are missing Southwest in the search I tested.
Another sign of how successful WordPress has been at solving the blogging and CMS puzzle. You don’t have to be a WordPress expert to see strength in these numbers. I wonder how many of these new users are looking to customize wordpress layout.
Microsoft says that it decided that instead of building its own competing blogging service, it should go with WordPress’s fleshed-out feature set, which has 26 million users and powers over 8.5% of sites across the web. Users will be migrated through a process that preserves all of their content, and will automatically redirect visitors who head to their existing Microsoft Live Spaces sites.
via Windows Live Outsources Blogging, Migrating 30 Million Users To WordPress.com.
More amazing information design…
“2053” – This is the number of nuclear explosions conducted in various parts of the globe from 1954-1998.
AKA the “oauthcalypse“…
Twitter now requires all third-party app developers to use “OAuth” for user authentication. Twitter’s reflects a big trend on the social web, where basic authentication is being left behind for the more secure OAuth when services and applications connect user’s accounts
The biggest advantage of OAuth is you don’t have to tell your Twitter password to anyone other than Twitter. Connections will be token-based—once established, you can change your Twitter password without having to re-enter it into the website plugin (or app).
The only disadvantage is that old apps that haven’t updated to use OAuth will stop working this week. All of the popular ones (Seesmic, Tweetdeck, etc.) have already updated.
What does this mean for WordPress users? if you use Twitter Tools (or any other plugin that connects to Twitter) you will have to take extra steps to keep those tools working.
Twitter Tools is a plugin that creates a complete integration between your WordPress blog and your Twitter account. See: WordPress › Twitter Tools « WordPress Plugins.
Twitter Tools offers a useful step by step instruction for how to set up your own “app”. It’s pretty easy but takes a few clicks and I’m sure many users will not be happy this week.
Here’s how I filled out the form to set up my twitter app – these settings may be helpful to you too:
This Yelp post has a funny video about a barbershop in LA that advertises its negative reviews. They have a healthy attitude about it.
Three Things You Didn’t Know About Negative Reviews
1. Most reviews on Yelp are actually positive — about 85% are 3 stars or above. In fact, this is pretty consistent across the Internet: when people share information about an experience or product, it’s often because they’re happy.
2. This may seem counter-intuitive, but negative reviews can actually be a good thing. Some savvy consumers are actually suspicious of businesses that sport an unblemished record. On average, a restaurant with more than 20 reviews and a 4 star rating on Yelp has three times more page view traffic than a restaurant with more than 20 reviews and a 5 star rating.
3. No one takes the negative review as seriously as you do. Your prospective customers are sizing up the reviews and the reviewers just as much as they are sizing up your business, so give them a little bit of credit and trust their ability to discern the diehards from the blowhards.
via Yelp Official Blog: The Positive Side of Negative Reviews.
Most WordPress sites look fine on a iPhone – except any flash content (slideshows, music players etc) don’t show up. The Safari browser in iPhone is virtually identical to the one on the desktop – and there is a windows version too.
There are WordPress plugins that will sense when a mobile client (browser) is viewing your site and entirely reformat the html in a simpler way. the downside is that you lose all your formating and design – unless you take extra time customizing that new mobile theme.
I like WP mobile edition. sample here. It has a robust display of pages and posts and you can simply edit the mobile theme that come with it to customize the look.
I also used mobilepress. screenshots here. It works fine but the default mobile theme is less sophisticated.
An interesting blog post comparing software (and y extension web design) to film making and contrasting that metaphor with the process of building buildings.
Much beer has been spilled over comparisons of software to physical architecture, and while the analogy is interesting it is inherently flawed. For the industrial-age activities of designing and constructing a physical building are vastly different than the post-industrial process of designing and building a digital artifact of conceptual ideas, where cost is measured by time rather than materials and success measured by consumption and desirability.
2013 update: now this process is simpler than what I describe below. Just select “I’m sending money to family or friends” and it will clearly tell you there is no fee.
Recently, PayPal introduced free money transfers – I find it a convenient way to send and receive money. It’s fast.
In some cases, it’s free to “Send Money”. Sometimes there are fees. Here’s how it breaks down.
I’ve highlighted the 4 areas to edit to use “personal transfer”
The confirmation page will show you “$0” fee
see video with more details
see also: Send Money Free vs. Fees
A collection of end title stills from Western films throughout the years. Just a very tiny taste of the design goodness over at the Movie Title Stills Collection. Browse hundreds of title frames by decade, or go to the special collection of Film Noir and Westerns. In many cases, you can see both the beginning title and the end title frames. Fantastic.
This is a art project – but very much a UI exercise that is a cousin of web design. A year of crime data for San Francisco from 2009 was used to create these 3D maps. Interesting to read the comments…
