http://audioboo.fm/boos/111283-central-line-audio-holborn-station-recorded-on-my-phone-uploaded-when-i-came-above-ground-automatically-crossposted-to-my-blog-and-twitter-i-bloody-love-the-future

…about allowing users to create their own groups (’organic groups”) and how to create some conversation going.

Conversations via making announcements and/or starting topic(s) for discussion…

A job for Monday I guess..

A small step..the site now allows people to (easily) embed the player with information as to the contents of the audio.

Means the audio player will/can display anything I want ..language, date, location…might go as far as colour coding/grouping languages together…though one step at a time..

From a design and usability perspective…this is good progress

Site has been moved to http://www.pangr.org/

make_1_vid

Starting off with some good news. The IPA (the International Phonetic Association) has granted me permission to use their audio files, which gives me some really nice material to begin with. Thanks IPA !

The Iphone app idea hit a wall yesterday when I realised a web app does not allow uploading. However I think there may be other options, perhaps processing?

Remember Lucky Bite (Bishop Durrell, Tom Hulbert) has put together iProcessing, a framework for prototyping/developing native Iphone apps. I have yet to really look at it yet, but after yesterday and yet another talk with Graham, it is clear that app making should be put aside, as the ‘richness’ lies in the website.

——–stuff

Also been trying out Google Buzz since last night.  Feel like Twitter…

I think I may be the last person to watch any of the Randy Pausch lectures.

Links: guardian/bbc articles on language extinction.

Today has been mostly about fundraising for the degree show.

That’s all for now.

Tuesday, visiting lecturer;

Durrell Bishop from luckybite gave a talk today.

“Physical world has importance”, sky remotes; ergonomics, abstraction of controls, radio times is the content

Spoke to him about my project, mostly about struggling with who the audience is, am I taking a user-centred approach or, as I am going now – is it…somewhat being technology led (say the next facebook), and/or based on personal experience – what I would want (learning more about culture..where a story comes from etc..)

Q. why people are coming to the site. -

Q. is it an archive ? If so – of what?  If building from archive perspective (not doing it from an ethnographic perspective) – what is the content – the audio – something simple but done well?

Q. Keep it as a very open/flexible platform…possible? – (difficult to ‘engineer’ as it depends on users as no users = no site? Drawback is …will be ‘dull’/unspecialised?, degree wise.

What I DO know…

1. I want to create something of VALUE. User experience + content is high on my list, content is necessary.

Content  = need users

User experience X audio

…etc.

“Creativity is to discover a question that has never been asked.” – Kenya Hara

I’ve been tinkering with different lengths of audio, the original IPA files of the North Wind and the Sun where each section of the fable is broken down so that they are about 2-4 secs long each.  Initially I was not sure about the small file length but upon joining up a couple of sections for a longer file- I find that it might be difficult for the user (who is unfamiliar with the language) to understand where they are in the bit of spoken audio.  By keeping it small, means that the user knows where they are/whats being said….which I guess is why they have cut the audio up in the first place…Though I could test this with users, as I might be wrong.

At this point I think the text on the audio player will all be in english ..with an option for users to add/edit a translation nearby.  Need to make more decisions regarding this..

Another thing I was contemplating was how I would get users to sign up (come degree show and beyond).  I don’t mean Facebook connect…the more I think about it, maybe I should not go down that root…

What is the incentive to sign up.  What about on an invite basis.  I came across pinboard.in a few weeks ago, it is a bookmarking service very very similar to Delicious.com (free bookmarking service, taken over by Yahoo) but the curiousthing is they charge to sign up.  Pinboard.in gives this reason for it…

(taken from pinboard.in)

The signup fee helps discourage spammers and defrays some of the costs of running the site.

Thanks to the entry fee, Pinboard has remained spam-free since launch. Not having to expend resources on spam fighting means having more time to work on features, and keeps the site fast and small.

The fee is based on the formula (number of users * $0.001), so the earlier you join, the less you pay.

I’m not proposing that I charge users, but if Pinboard.in can do that and be semi-succesful then maybe I should too, think about adding a curious* element to registering.

*Curiousity – is mentioned in the Kenya Hara book Designing Design about tourists maps and the unadventurous nature that doesn’t (because it doesn’t intend to..) provoke adventure and discovery…if that makes sense…(I’ll get hold of the book and expand on this later)