Holy Shit. Nielsen Norman Group hires Tog and Laurel (Straight Face 08-15-2000) That’s actually the title of the column by Mike Pell, but it’s also exactly what I said when I heard about it.

Some, ok most of the folks on the CHI-WEB list are a lot smarter than me. Take this quote for example: Which is to say that you favour a rigid application of the strategy of fitting every site’s content into a hierarchically organised space. For contextually sensible deviations from this model to be labeled ‘serendipitous' speaks volumes about the dominance of this approach.

Amazon fires up their new navigation interface. Kudos to Amazon for getting rid of the old stacked-tab nightmare. The directory method of organizing lots of information, ala Yahoo, has always proven effective. The directory tab on Amazon’s site is a very welcome addition. Time for all of the Amazon copycats to get to work (let’s hope they hurry.)

Guardian Unlimited | Second sight “Thanks to the profit-driven motives of big businesses, the internet is cheaper to use. So now it is our turn to exploit them, like they have exploited us”

Anyone have any suggestions as to readers for PalmOS devices? I’ve got iSilo, which I like for HTML docs. Also, iSiloWeb has replaced AvantGO for me. Much faster and smaller. I’m evaluating TomeRaider also, for larger reference works. Using the desktop version, I’ve got the entire Internet Movie Database at my fingertips.

MemoWare – The PDA Document Repository Wow, what a ton of good reading, available free for my Visor. I’ve got some Kant, some T.S. Elliot, some P. G. Wodehouse. Unlimited cool stuff at 160×160.

Lighthouse: Site searching II “To recast a Jakob Nielsen utterance, the average Web user is not on the page she wants to be on. She’ll keep using search to try and get there. The least you can do is devote some effort to helping her.”

internetworld: Nielsen and Fleming on Barnes and Nobles new site Nielsen: “BN.com has a small set of appropriate tabs with products that complement each other (unlike Amazon’s tabs for lawn mowers, kitchen sinks, and other products unrelated to books). The very first page view is the bookstore with a big search box in the middle of the screen. In contrast, when you type http://www.amazon.com you get an irrelevant page that requires an extra click to get to the books.

Bruce Tognazzini: The Evolution of the Interface One of the original Mac developers and all-around interface freak continues to question the direction Apple is taking with its OS.

Mayhem at the movies Here we go again! “What makes it possible is a platform called DivX;), which enables a 90-minute DVD movie to be compressed to about a tenth or less of its original size with little discernible loss of quality. The file can then be distributed with relative ease over the Internet, usually played back using Microsoft’s Windows Media Player (WMP). The smiley face ;) in the name satirises a failed DVD-esque technology, similarly called DivX, which claimed superior copy protection but was killed off as “open” DVD overtook in popularity.

Freenet – what for, exactly? So, I was toying around with Freenet for a few hours last night, trying to “get it.” I think I get it, but I’m not sure I’m “with it.” Ian Clark continues to talk about his reason for creating Freenet as being the Freedom of Speech. So far, it’s so difficult to deal with that only software pirates, pedophiles, and geeks like me will benefit. I don’t think that freedom of speech is an issue if no-one can figure out how to listen.

Redherring.com – The fantasy world of Jeff Bezos “But to still believe in Amazon is to believe in all of Mr. Bezos’s dreams: the centralized distribution centers, the efficiencies of his Internet platform, and the mystery that out of growth, profits just emerge. To question even one piece is to question the whole model.”