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Hopefully we won’t be seeing much more of this on twitter from industry professionals. Think before you tweet!

 

Web 2.0 Assignment — better late than never

Let’s talk about Web 2.0 and online magazines.

www.cracked.com

If you were ever a kid, something I’m willing to put money on, you probably remember Mad magazine. You may even remember Cracked, which was like a less successful stepbrother. Awhile back, Cracked.com showed up to target the same audience that had bought its magazine as children, meaning that the content is adult-focused.

Fact:  Cracked is awesome now.

Aside from its writing, Cracked owes its success to understanding how to position itself online, largely with web 2.0 features. Many have poked fun at Cracked’s relationship with digg (including Cracked itself: see internet party 1 & 2), which is used prominently in the site’s design, allowing readers to simultaneously rate their favorite content and share it with other readers. This dynamic allows the editorial staff of Cracked to determine what is and isn’t working, and as a result the content is usually fresh and engaged with by the community. Typically there is a fair assortment of streaming video as well as articles, while the usual plethora of delicious, reddit, stumble and facebook sharing tools are available for those of us who avoid digg.

www.somethingawful.com – “the internet makes you stupid”

With over 120,000 registered accounts, the somethingawful forums are among the most popular and successful on the internet, and are the originator for many of the trends and memes that many of us are getting sick of today. Some attribute its success to a filtering of community members via the registration fee, and the unforgiving but often hilarious moderation endorsed by Lowtax, the site’s creator.

Lesser-known is the actual somethingawful front page, and one isn’t surprised to find that Lowtax’s famous contempt for the general internet public extends to the prevalence of web 2.0 tools on the main page — there aren’t any aside from RSS. Aside from articles written Lowtax’s hand-picked staff, the front page relies heavily on the content generated by the users of its forums. Yet, in order to interact with this booming community, one must fork over 10$ and then evade strict moderation and hazing rituals, some of which border on real-life harassment. The design philosophy of the somethingawful community is something outside of web 1.0 and 2.0 that draws on both, endorsing elitism and censorship in order to actually attract a creative and active community. While one can’t deny the benefit of an open web 2.0 community, somethingawful has positioned itself against many of 2.0’s principles in order to offer itself as a ‘haven from stupidity’.

www.rue-morgue.com

As something of an underground magazine, Rue Morgue’s ability to interface with its readers is important. While the website does contain web 2.0 features, such as facebook and RSS, I’m not sure it has really felt the pressure to maintain and work with these features. The twitter account, for example, has four updates and is only following members of the staff — not really in the spirit of web 2.0 or twitter.

The forum, however, boasts more than 5000 users and appears to be a thriving, vibrant community. Maintaining and improving their web 2.0 elements could not only bring in more users, but better communicate with those already present. Is this a priority for the website? Maybe not, though if Rue Morgue is left behind when the Publications Assistance Program transforms, they may regret not establishing a free infrastructure while they had the resources to ignore one. If Rue Morgue is comfortable where they are, well, who can blame them, but if they ever want or need to ramp up advertising revenue from their site, growth will require change to the tune of increased hits.

 

In the spirit of Watchmen

I think we should both take the Rorshach inkblot test. *

It was created in 1921 by Hermann Rorschach with the intent of giving psychologists another way to evaluate patients’ mental states, especially with regard to emotional stability and personality. The test ‘works’ by observing various criteria, such as response time, response time when first faced with a coloured card, rejection of cards, and to some extent the patient’s subjective interpretation of the ‘content’ of the inkblot (the blots themselves having no meaning). There’s also various scoring systems which include test scores like R, the number of responses, which are statistically meaningful. It’s complicated business, this test.

It's a bat flying away with a spider. Also, the bat has borderline personality disorder.

This is similar to laying on your back and staring at passing clouds, which are also inherently meaningless: if you’re only seeing decapitated animals as opposed to happy and headful ones, that’s a good indication that you’re all sorts of messed up and probably need to talk to someone about your relationship with your mother.

The test has been largely discredited by mainstream science, though there are those who still believe in its efficacy. A primary issue is that the patient can probably discern as much about the psychologist’s personality based on how they’re interpreting their interpretations. In any event, it’s a bonding experience we’re about to share.

Are you ready? A few things to keep in mind first:

- It usually takes about a minute, so you can play the video twice if it’s too fast for you. Keep track of how quickly you respond.

- Note how you react when first faced with a coloured card.

- Note if any card gives you extreme difficulty or emotional response, or if you see nothing after two viewings.

- Listening to music can alter your responses, so you should turn it off for the time being.

So what did you see? Leave a comment and I’ll tell you if I think you need to be institutionalized.

*I'm not yet a licensed psychologist, though who knows what the future
may hold, and in third grade I stole the cookies from my brother's lunch.
Sorry dude.

 

Two-tone gothic horror

I’ve been unable to resist buying these when I’ve I found myself in bookstores lately: Penguin’s gothic classics

The covers are just beautiful. And they look even better sitting next to each other. Of course, they’re even better to read, and anything that gets Lovecraft moving is something that I fully endorse. In case you didn’t click the link, here’s one of the covers I’m referring to:

The last time yellow was this scary, it was in a snowball flying directly at my face

Colour me impressed. When someone puts this much thought into getting me to spend my money, I feel as though we’ve both earned it.

 

Ahoy

Just finished updating the ‘about’ section. I have an assignment to post that I’m certain everyone is just dying to read. It’ll be up in the next day or so.