Only my second attempt at this and I am already late courtesy of two chaotic days at work. Lame excuses out of the way here are some fine reads from this week. A thrown together readlist/ebook version also exists if your are tab read lazy like me.
The inside story of the news website that saved the BBC
‘When the information superhighway arrived on a wave of hype, there was good reason to be sceptical. Dialup computer bulletin board systems (BBSes) had been around for a decade albeit with limited adoption from enthusiasts. The French version of Prestel, Minitel, had only reached its wide audience of about 9 million homes because the French government had subsidised the terminals. The internet remained just as expensive, at UK dialup rates, as the marginal BBSes.’
‘Microsoft is largely irrelevant to computing of late, the only markets they still play in are evaporating with stunning rapidity. Their long history of circling the wagons tighter and tighter works decently as long as there is no credible alternative, and the strategy has been the entirety of the Microsoft playbook for so long that there is nothing else now.’
Why People Really Love Technology: An Interview with Genevieve Bell
‘The different trajectories of technology adoption the globe over. We don’t do a good job of tracing the genealogies of technology, and I think when you start to trace those out, you see these interesting threads that are deeply cultural and historical.’
Designing for the social customer
‘Whenever you’re designing products and services for the customer, start with the question:
Will this help build trust between the customer and the company?
If the answer to that question is No, then everything else doesn’t really matter. Just icing on a cake that no customer wants to eat. No customer, no business.’
‘I Am A Brand,’ Pathetic Man Says
“It’s sort of like I’m the CEO of the company called ‘Me,’” continued the sad excuse for a man, briefly pausing to check for any comments on his latest Tumblr post about the future of social media.
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