Wednesday, August 15, 2007

don't buy 10 baby chickens because they are so cute!

went to a UX event last night hosted by Zaaz. pretty fun. among the speakers was the guy who is responsible for the above site (check it out, it's really fun) as was the man behind Common Craft (there is fun to be had here too) and Emma Rose a research at Design for Digital Inclusion (just the name gets my mind going) and Jason Carmel who works a Zaaz in site optimization (his talk was titled "Effective Use of Kittens: Site Optimization and User Experience" i'll just let you think about that. his side project is Wish Radar)

ryan has a great wrap up of the night here so i'll just let you read that if you're interested (couldn't say it better than him) but i will shamelessly take credit for this:

"Some great conversation followed in the panel q & a. In particular folks wondered whether social networks would adapt over time as their constituents aged or whether age segments would migrate from one demographic-focused social network to another. Obviously, today's 80 year old is different from the 80 year old of 20 years from now--how will social networks evolve as today's heavy users age and new generations emerge?" - ryan turner


this was my question! yeah for me. ha. just kidding but i did think the discussion was pretty good. i left wondering if the lines between all demographics are just becoming to muddy to really put money on particularly where age is concerned. jason also made the point that the future lies in portable profiles so your investment in one site becomes so much less that you can leave online communities as you move through demographics.

lots to think about. thanks Zaaz!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I'm glad you enjoyed it, Tyesha--and yes, I thought about you when I wrote the follow-up piece. Great question.

I'm inclined to think we're going to see (and maybe are already seeing) a fork in the road for social networks: some will become huge, generalized spaces, and others will be targeted niche players.

LinkedIn's ability or inability to survive the Facebook onslaught will tell us a lot about this.

I'll look forward to the next opportunity to talk profiles, identity, and social networking with you. Cheers-