I want to start a little collection of quotes I find on the internet or elsewhere. I have come across some really good ones and henceforce want to share them with you.

• “The value of an invention is based on how successfully you can commercialize it.”
  - Ron Kok
• “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. “
  - Thomas A. Edison
• “It is common sense that is the chief enemy of creativity.”
  - Picasso
• “The internet is fake, you can see the strings”
  - web
  comment no. 217 on The Secret Strategies Behind Many “Viral” Videos
• “Marketing is the view of the costmer towards a company”
  - unknown
• “The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten”
  - unknown
• “He whos laughs has not heard the bad news”
  - Bertolt Brecht
• “It might be true, but is it relevant?”
  - unknown

more to come…

A few posts ago I talked about how user experience will change. This will be one of the most significant changes on the web in the next few years and I truly believe this. I’ve seen some smaller experiments on the web and at conventions in this direction (I especially like the work of marcos weskamp). I’m coming across this topic more and more every day. Just recently I found the yahoo innovation group (now called next) and could see some of their amazing and beautiful work. Today I discovered the labs at digg and it was really happy to see confirmation in what I think will be seen more often in the near future.

I have a strong feeling that future social networking sites are increasingly going to have strong visual enhancements and a more playful touch and feel to them. An important role will be using vector graphics, which aren’t being used that often on the client side for functional reasons. The most obvious benefit of using vector graphics is the scalability of the graphic without loss of quality. It is mostly known in Flash games or Flash Ads, where it serves it’s purpose really well. But many web developers haven’t realized the power of vector graphics used in a functional manner that contributes directly to the application itself.

A nice example of this is what Geni.com implemented using ActionScript. Their usage of the scalability makes the whole web application actually interesting and is the core of their user experience. The basically same application was implemented in Flex by verwandt.de (or the English version itsourtree.com).

Unfortunately most browsers don’t support vector graphics without a plugin, like Flash Player or a Plugin for the SVG-Format. You also have to use some tricks if you are dependent on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). But sometimes it’s not necessary, too. Think about it.

I’m currently working on a concept for Identity Sponsorship for the Stuttgart Media University (Hochschule der Medien). As far as I know there are no current papers on this topic. If you find one, please let me know.

Thanks. Harry