Junyu's starred items

（图1，阿北很早时候的豆瓣截图）

如上图，阿北的豆邮有1206封未读。（如果是邮件处理的，算特例，在此不做分析。其实邮件处理对于普通用户来说是把双刃剑…）
注：豆瓣的站内信最早包括关注通知、站内信等信息，现在“在九点的关注”还阴魂不散的出现在这里。

（图2，UCDCHINA的百度站内信截图）

如上图，UCDCHINA的百度站内信有50封未读。（前面一百多封的时候我还在百度，有信息就处理，粘度高的不能再高。后来交给UCDChina的团队用，这些站内信就都懒得处理了…）
注：百度的站内信是整个百度线的沟通渠道，包括所有百度可能需要发给用户的信息、站内信，甚至新用户注册的时候也有几封信。最早的时候这些信息在站内信里面连分类都没有，现在有了。

在豆瓣、百度、facebook、Flickr、5Gme.com…，你的站内信有多少未读？

为什么这些站内信失去了作用？ 原因很简单：欲废此功，必先自宫。

别指望用站内信来教育新用户。
新用户不会对“站内信”产生很大的兴趣，如果不是有相对迫切的“需求”，用户不会专门跑到你的网站看站内信和听你用机器说一句“欢迎光临”。给新注册用户默认发“欢迎”的信件，坏多于好（具体得看你的用户层次和产品性质，“欢迎”是最俗的主题，可以想想有没有更好的主题）。
发一封，并同时给用户提供方便删除的途径，有时确实可以起到提醒、教育用户对“站内信”的认知作用。但，某些网站在一注册就收到“欢迎”“系统通知”“申明”“密码安全”等四五封站内信。无异于自毁城墙，对于大部分非“初级网民”来说，他们看看标题就直接离开了。留下”站内信(4)”这个烙印，永不再用。（有些是为了推卸“法律责任”，这么干是最没有出息的行为）

清零。让用户清除压力。
已读、删除功能很重要。如果必须发，没有必要的话不要默认预览太多内容。一封看了标题就能明白大致内容的信，如果不是很有兴趣或者必须要处理，用户不会打开同时也懒得随手删除。两封、三封、四封.. 人都有天生的“懒惰性”，再无聊的用户，看着数字到了两位数，就失去了感觉，对站内信产生了天然的“免疫力”。
必须很突出的展现给用户很方便的“清零”功能，让他们很熟练的运用“清零”手段。甚至不惜以牺牲体验为代价，设置一定的阅读门槛（比如，默认预览内容少）让他们“打开”（打开=清零）。

最好把“系统通知”和“信件”分开。
繁复的不停更新的“系统通知”会让用户失去对站内信的兴趣，进而影响对真正“信件”的兴趣。在重要界面上（往往是首页）开辟一个“通知”区域很有必要，这样可以增强用户对“通知”的重视，也会降低系统对于“信件”的干扰。因为，站内信一般情况都只是在导航上有一个“未读数字”的提醒，用户可以很快的视而不见；而通知在首页上会是一块内容，相当于“眼中钉”，“清零”动作也变成了随手的“任务”。某种意义上“通知”就等于“任务”。

“站内信”不是取之不竭的“金矿”。
最害怕给网站添加站内信功能，因为每次添加站内信功能的时候，最重要的工作就是“谈判、立军法”。不立“军法”，不敢开战。
因为，站内信一出来，肯定是没完没了的“这个活动需要给用户群发…”“这个促销需要群发..”“这个新功能需要群发…”
没完没了、没完没了、没完没了… …

特别是一些根本不懂互联网运营（大部分运营人员还是很强的，少部分如此）的人，特别是一些只知道盯着PV看自身网站资源能割多少肉，根本不去管产品会不会废掉的运营人员，特别是一些只知道眼前KPI的人。 他们真的想象力匮乏，站内信对他们来说就是一个“金矿”、“救命稻草”，甚至不停的告诉你“打开率很高、效果很好…”
就算你不停的给他解释“打开率肯定随着活动的越多在不停下降，这个打开率的下降就是站内信这个功能的慢性死亡的征兆”，他们也一样熟视无睹。只知道不停的说“老板要KPI…”
如果没有军法，如果你的运营搭档很XX。你必须的得罪他们。或者你死掉。

当然，我不是反对完全不可以用站内信去做运营和营销的事情。只是“必须有节制”，必须把这些内容当作“对会员有用的增值服务”，不附和这个标准的就是在屠杀产品。

很显然，当一个网站技穷到只能在自身产品核心功能，或者核心和用户的沟通渠道上，附加大量多余营销内容的时候，这个产品/渠道（包括短信通道，给用户的通知邮件等等）已经患上了慢性癌症，死亡的征兆已经来临。
往往运营一段时间以后发现功能已经无法运转了，不是因为“产品有问题”，而是我们在市场运营、产品运营的时候给这些基础功能强压了太多，他们本不该承担的“责任”。 最终导致夭折…

只要是对用户有价值的功能，用户不会嫌弃。绝大部分时候，是你，是你逼着用户嫌弃它们。欲废此功，必先自宫。

.
最后，附图一张：

（图4，我的的5Gme.com站内信截图）

未读信息为0。这是我站内信利用率最好的一个网站。因为除了私信就是私信。不是因为他是sns，而是因为他抄的和facebook一样，分开了处理，没有干扰。）

 写好了一次发过来，在别的地方看过的同学不用再看啦，都是一样的。

 -------- Part I ---------

这是第一次真正意义上的背起背包游欧洲，行前兴奋地整晚没睡着。四点多爬起来赶往机场，米兰一直下雨，日出前的夜里，气温接近零度，路灯周围弥漫着一圈湿润的暖色光晕。

算错了早班地铁的时间，很是慌乱了一把，好歹赶上机场大巴，在车上看到亚平宁的日出——离开了城区，便是大片的原野上橘色朝霞映衬下树的黑色剪影。同样的太阳，这个时候应该正在照耀着午后的北京城吧。

十点钟左右飞机降落在布拉格机场，天阴有雾，好在没有雨。不过这样阴沉沉的天气后来伴随了我们的整个行程，从布拉格到布达佩斯。运气实在不算好。然而换个角度想，在深秋厚厚的云朵下走遍东欧的大街小巷，倒也和这片土地的历史基调很搭。阳光明媚的天气，还是更加衬普罗旺斯或者阿姆斯特丹这样的地方。

去旅馆放下行李，先吃饭。循着导游手册找到一家捷克餐馆，点了这里的特产dumpling和烤牛肉。Dumpling按字面意思应该是饺子，但实际上是类似馒头片儿的食物，配上特制酱汁风味很是独特。同行的人点了啤酒，捷克啤酒也是享有盛名。

餐馆内部像一个酒窖

Dumpling和烤牛肉，酱汁味道很好

在街上走的时候云朵散开，露出蓝蓝的天，可惜好天气并没有持续太久。

路牌

橱窗里各式各样的酒

青石路，红房子，安静的布拉格。

之后大家向市中心的老城广场进发，城市不大，不一会儿就到了。这里有我叫不出名字的教堂塔楼，我叫不出名字的雕像和我来之前才叫得出名字的天文钟。和米兰教堂广场一样，空地上有咖啡厅的露天座位，还有米兰没有的马车。

第一眼的布拉格广场

天文钟

如果早点知道这里是卡夫卡当年上小学时天天要经过的路，我一定会看得更仔细些。

每到整点报时的时候，天文钟表盘上面的两扇小窗会打开，有做工精美的人像雕塑转着圈儿向外张望。钟塔下总会聚集一大堆游客。天色很晚，所以虽然手中有单反，还是很可耻地照糊了。

暮色四合，此时的布拉格十分有风情，广场中央的青铜雕像在晚霞中勾勒出孤独的剪影。

夜色升起来了。这张照片自己极其满意，于是到处贴～

上天文钟的钟塔俯瞰布拉格市景，在教堂门口看到这样的标志：

"for weddings only”，我们去布拉格结婚吧……

在钟塔上。

像一幅画。

房子和街道。

广场上的咖啡座。

下了钟塔之后，走过广场旁的小巷，墙上贴满了各种海报，博物馆，画廊，音乐会。布拉格果然是适合小资风雅的城市呐。

我喜欢这样暖色的灯光和暗蓝的天空。

下一站是查理大桥。去得晚了，错过了桥上卖各种有趣商品的的小贩，和拉提琴的流浪艺人。

路过的店里卖傻呼呼的捷克木偶。木偶之外波希米亚水晶也是捷克特产，可惜后者太贵，所以没有仔细看。

查理大桥。夜里游客已经稀疏。因为雾气，石板是湿润的。

回到旅馆的路上，沿着伏尔塔瓦河走了走，夜晚的雾越来越浓，十几步外不辨人影。

米兰没有这样安静的夜。错开旅伴们，一个人慢慢地走，不想被打扰。

河对岸雾气里的某座建筑，似乎是个博物馆？

照片中是我，拍摄技巧很糟糕，所以不是我拍的。

--------- Part II ----------

在布拉格一共呆了三天，不过第二天基本都在换旅馆和跑火车站买票中度过。彼此的行程和意愿协调起来很是费了一番功夫，好在没有太影响心情。

不过说来，旅行真的是最能揭露各人性格和观察大伙儿是不是相处得来的有效途径。日本有个说法，许多新婚夫妇蜜月归来，就在东京成田机场分手，因为蜜月旅行里发现对方让人不堪忍受。这个故事的教育意义在于，如果你想知道自己和另一半是不是真的适合，就去旅行吧。

扯远了。这个和我无甚关系。想说的其实是，投缘的朋友和异乡的景色一样难得。

Wish you were here.

---------------分割线分割线------------

伏尔塔瓦河贯穿布拉格的市中心，所以有意无意总会走到河边。天气依旧阴沉，河畔落了一地金黄的叶子，很有深秋的萧瑟意味。

河面上有一只鸟儿飞过。

有人在查理桥畔演奏手风琴，或者是波希米亚传统音乐。虽然有明显的商业气息，但并不显得突兀。大约是由于布拉格城市本身的气质如此。莫扎特曾在这里居住，他的许多作品诞生于这座城市里。

路上有不少人兜售教堂里古典音乐会的门票，觉得这个多少有点刻意，没有去。

查理大桥上有好多小贩卖各种有趣的纪念品。不过最有趣的还是这个。

他很害羞呀，看我拍照就躲开了。

这张很好玩，受难的圣徒和大大咧咧的水鸟。

第二天的主要战绩就是购物了。我们通过查理大桥一路爬山走上城堡，结果发现售票处下午四点就早早关门。不过城堡外面一圈的小店也的确很值得逛，只恨钱包不够鼓。

好漂亮的波希米亚水晶（其实就是玻璃啦），比什么swarovsky美多了，但是也好贵。

这家店叫做Manufaktura，一行人都没忍住给它贡献了不少银子。门口橱窗里那只鸟会飞的喔。

这是引起各界人士广泛反响的一张照片。那个鼹鼠手套我拿起来放下拿起来放下反复若干次……同行的Chris同学用他浓重的伦敦腔评价我:"You are obsessed to it."

me: "Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!"

然后Chris同学很囧地默默地走掉了。

不过最后还是没有买，价钱换成人民币要好几百块，舍不得呐。可是回来好几天了，一直惦记到现在……

干脆立志等以后tg了让gg买给我好了。

爬到山顶城堡门口，看了看风景就下来了。路上有老爷爷拉小提琴，琴声围绕着夜色慢慢降临的布拉格，俯瞰全城的红色屋顶，这真是美好的时刻。

城堡门口。刚入夜的时候可以捕捉到这样神奇的色彩。

这一天的旅程就此告终。他们打算晚饭后去犹太人区看纪念馆和公墓，我先回旅馆休息。

回去的路上，布拉格的地铁站。

 --------- Part III ----------

第三天，去了布拉格城堡和两个博物馆。

布拉格的博物馆好多，可惜同行者都不怎么感兴趣，不好单独行动，只能作罢。

留个遗憾，希望以后还有机会再去。

路过但是没来得及进去的博物馆之一。

去之前先在旅馆附近的咖啡馆吃了早餐，这家咖啡馆据说很有名，是卡夫卡经常光临的地方，爱因斯坦也来过——不过卡夫卡不是个喜欢躲在自家地下室的宅男么？

咖啡馆内景。很有生活气息的地方，有人聊天、看报纸、下国际象棋。色调暖暖的。

我在欧洲喝到的最好的卡布基诺，配苏打水，很专业的样子。

不过这个评价似乎对以咖啡出名的意大利不公平，因为我在意大利只喝自动售卖机里两毛五一杯的卡布基诺……

之后再次爬上小山坡，终于顺利到达城堡。学生票价只要125CZK，折合人民币40块钱，严重表扬一个，比布达佩斯可厚道多了。

城堡有重重院落。第一重是教堂，依旧是高大的彩色玻璃窗，不太懂西方美术史，看上去觉得和米兰Duomo大教堂差不多。这样的玻璃窗是外界自然光进入宏大昏暗的教堂内部空间的唯一途径，烘托气氛效果十分好。第一个想出这主意的人一定是个天才。

耶稣在光里，我们在黑暗里。

可我只是想要这样的驻足和对望。不需要悲悯的爱，审判的烈火和纯洁的伊甸园。我来自大陆的另一端，那里人们有自己的传说，神祗和爱人。

Chandelier，枝形吊灯。红宝书里的词汇，难得我现在还记得。

教堂的顶很高，要仰着头脖子发酸才能看到。

栏杆的细节，类似盾牌的形状，不知道是不是有什么特殊含义？

白银质地的祭器，有悬在空中的天使。

游客不那么拥挤的时候教堂显得很空旷。

之后进入王宫，大部分区域不允许拍照。倒也没有想象中的富丽堂皇，论到物质享受，怕是没有太多人能和古代中国贵族比肩。

半旧的木地板很有历史感，当年这里应该走过王子公主，现在有游客小朋友在地上爬。看到我的相机（或者是我的亚洲面孔？）小朋友很好奇地盯着我傻乐儿。

不能拍房间里，就往窗外拍好了。很满意的一张照片，只可惜布拉格不是晴天。

走过王宫后进入黄金小巷，这条巷子得名于此地当年的黄金加工业，现在则是卖各种工艺品的小店。房子很小，门也很袖珍，颜色十分卡通。仿佛童话世界。

22号是卡夫卡故居，现在是一家书店。

这样彩色的窗和暖融融的灯光，应该是在圣诞夜，外面在飘雪，房子里有壁炉、烤鹅和幸福的一家人，而街上走着赤脚的卖火柴女孩或者流浪的公主。

窗里。后来后悔了很多次没有买的木头老鼠。

小巷的尽头是一个塔楼。走下狭窄的石头台阶，是中世纪关押犯人的监狱。展览着让人毛骨悚然的刑具，石头墙壁的狭小空间，有更加狭小的窗可以看到外面，比密不透风更让人绝望。

中世纪不是浪漫的时代……

几乎到了城堡最高点。卫兵应该已经很习惯游客的镜头了吧……

城堡的尽头有一个小小的葡萄园，专们用来酿造王宫里的葡萄酒。站在这里俯瞰布拉格市区角度不错。只是这个时候天空又开始下起小雨。

原路返回，在城堡入口处的喷泉里投下硬币许愿。

之后前往卡夫卡博物馆，就在伏尔塔瓦河畔。河水很清澈，河里有白天鹅和丑小鸭一起快乐地生活着。

博物馆门口有这么一座雕塑，看得我们乐得直不起腰。

请注意观察，塑像的腰臀部是可以转动的，动起来更加富有喜剧效果。另外水池底部是用碎石子拼出来的捷克地图形状。

要是现代艺术都这么尖酸刻薄又有趣就好了XD

卡夫卡博物馆内部不允许拍照，很是遗憾。对了，博物馆的纪念品商店很值得逛，以后去的同学不要错过哦。

博物馆里有不少卡夫卡童年照片、著作手稿以及私人通信等藏品，想看八卦的话料很足。

环境设计很用心，黑白灰的色调，塑料和金属质地带来工业社会的气息。展览按照卡夫卡一生的时间顺序安排，每一段有德语和英语的开场白简介。后面还有每本著作的专题——相当珍贵的手稿和捷克语初版的书籍等等。《城堡》那个专题里，两面都是镜子的走廊尽头是一个纯白的房间，墙上有灰色的映像，是一个披着斗篷的模糊人影在一片雪原上无止息地前行。录像极其契合我对小说的印象，很是精彩。

（话说如果我以后投身这一行，能弄出这样水平的作品来，也就不枉了……）

第一个展厅里有捷克近代历史的录像，镜头划过坦克，广场，欢呼和哭泣的人群，明明是不那么久的历史，却因为黑白色调和粗糙的画面颗粒平添了许多距离感。捷克的近代史让这个国家平添了不少悲情气息，相比享乐主义的意大利，这样的悲情多少让我觉得亲切。不过也许他们对此根本不以为然。

各自有各自的故事罢。

从卡夫卡博物馆出来天色又暗下去。冬天的时候太阳总落得很早。我们赶往市中心的共产主义博物馆。

这里倒没有我想象的有趣，售票处卖的明信片都是拿共产主义开涮的笑话，而且尖酸太过，创意不足。后一点尤其不能原谅。

简单的文字展板加上实物的陈列。刚看过精彩的卡夫卡博物馆，这个就显得十分平淡。文字描述里对共产主义的仇恨显而易见，可以看出这个国家对近百年来的伤痕难以释怀。然而，过于强烈的情感倾向，无论是哪一种，都会影响叙述本身。于是让我觉得无趣了。

拐角处有个房间里放映一些历史录像，有苏军坦克进城和天鹅绒革命的实景镜头，算是比较有看头的史料。看到当时捷克电视台里新闻播报“广大不明真相的学生在一小撮居心叵测的人的煽动之下……”的熟悉台词，不禁乐起来。另一个方向上，学生被警察殴打的镜头、流血的镜头、哭泣的镜头，配上悲伤又温柔的歌手吟唱，也是极其熟悉的桥段。话说我记得天鹅绒革命是没有暴力的吧？

既然都是propaganda，也就没那么大差别了，最多只是技巧的差异而已。

我只是觉得累。

录像里学生冲过马路的片段。

整个展览里印象最深的是这张照片，那个女人的表情。

无论如何，年轻、激情和梦想，都是筹码，让我们有勇气相信这个世界仍然有美好的可能。

出门的时候突然反应过来，右转看到的那个布拉格中心广场就是叫做Jan Palach的学生烧死自己向苏联政府抗议的地点，后来年年人们聚集在这里纪念。

你们知道那个时候我会想到些什么。

可是，我不确定的是，是否真的存在这样一种崇高的理想，让人宁可献出生命也决不后悔？

（没有人知道他是不是后悔过）

而且，死亡最大的残忍之处在于，即使这个世界从此阳光明媚，有些人的生活中会永远横亘着巨大的墓碑。这未免太不公平。

有没有什么比生命更加重要，哪怕只是卑微地活着，活着本身有时候需要比死亡更大的勇气。

并且这个世界上伟大的事物杀死的人已经足够多，不是么？

我是一个虚无的不坚定的后现代主义者，在找到自我精神救赎之前，这样的人，怕是会被诅咒要下地狱的。

我在想，如果那个是我的爱人，我一定会告诉他，请活下来，为了爱你和你爱的人，这样滥俗的理由。

就算理论的困境无处解脱，想明白这一点也就差不多了吧。

摄于纪念品商店。许多这样的小东西记录着这座城市的记忆和伤痕。

Scar borrow fair.

最后晚上远远地望了一眼已经关门的犹太人博物馆，之后登上开往布达佩斯的夜车。

伏尔塔瓦河，很典型的欧洲景色。照片里有水鸟在暗色的天空下飞过。

三天的布拉格之行结束。

--------- Part IX ---------

布拉格到布达佩斯的火车八个小时，卧铺票的价钱和来回两张机票差不多贵。条件不错，一个包厢六张铺位，和国内硬卧车厢类似，但床铺更舒服一些，包厢门可以上锁，还有窗帘。之前在穷游网上看到不少对夜车的抱怨，还很是担心了一阵子，现在看来我的要求不高，适应能力不错，于是对以后一个人背包游欧洲的计划又多了几分信心。

经过一番折腾，上午十点多钟的时候到了布达佩斯市中心，又是一个阴沉沉的天，深秋或初冬的落寞风景诉说着历史上这个城市的辉煌。

多瑙河畔的铜像。

等车时候转身看到的青铜雕像，市区里这样的雕像随处可见，不知道代表的是什么故事。底座上放着花圈，系着匈牙利国旗色彩的缎带。

布达佩斯和布拉格的格局很相似，也是城市中间横贯着一条河，河上有座著名的桥，河的一侧高地上有城堡——不过所谓的布达佩斯城堡只有个名字，那篇区域遍布着许多博物馆，还有教堂和渔夫堡。后者是布达佩斯最有名的地方。

Chain Bridge，链子桥。

晚上要漂亮得多。

爬上城堡区的山顶看多瑙河。

正午时刻，天空涌起密云。

白色的渔夫堡。晴天看一定更漂亮。

石头的质地。

奥匈帝国的符号是青铜的骑士和鹰。

爬坡累了，吃匈牙利小点心休息一下。

在山坡上看到一只鸟儿，抓起某种坚果飞得高高的然后把果子丢下来。原来在书上看到说有聪明的鸟会用这种方法砸开果壳，好在我们同行的人中没有光头，不必担心被当成石头砸个包。

估计是怕果子被别的鸟儿抢走或者眼神儿不好找不到，它丢下果子的同时也放松翅膀做自由落体，临到地面一人高的时候又突然飞起来，堪比航空展的特技飞行，我在旁边看得目瞪口呆。

又是教堂，开始审美疲劳啦。

谁能看出这张照片的玄机？

路边随拍。

你们小时候玩过吗？

没想到这里也有。

从城堡区下来，再爬一次山，山顶有雕像，不清楚名字是什么。

天很快又黑了。

吃饭途中路过李斯特广场，由于天在下雨没有拍照片。

去了河畔的Basilica，“长方形的教堂”。

最后是布达佩斯夜景。觉得比布拉格更美，可惜没有时间再上山俯瞰全城。

本来还想去英雄广场，由于雨下大了只能作罢。

乘末班巴士去机场，在大理石桌子上睡了一觉，早班飞机回到米兰，上午居然难得地见到阳光。

还是喜欢布拉格更多，不过这一行并没有给布达佩斯足够的时间，这样的评价未免有点不公平。

留下许多遗憾，希望以后还来得及弥补。但欧洲美好的地方这么多，我怎么走得过来。

不知道如果有下一次的话，再来这里是什么样的光景。就像我前几天从手机里翻出旧照片，是2007年11月8日的未名湖。那一天风很大，阳光很好。我准备申请材料累得头痛欲裂，去湖边散心。那个时候怎么能想到，整整一年后的这一天我会站在渔夫堡的高处俯瞰多瑙河。

所以干脆不去想。生活中充满如此多的未知和期待，也是一种幸福对不对。

Where there’s victory, there’s also opportunity…

This Presidential election was profound in its results. Obama won both the Electoral College vote 364 to 163 and the popular vote 53% to 46% with roughly 120,000,000 votes cast. This election was the first in 50 years, in which there was no incumbent President or Vice President from either party competing for the Presidential nomination. Close to 65% of the American population voted in this election, its highest turnout since the election of 1908.

With Obama’s wins in key “swing states” including Ohio, Florida, Colorado, and Pennsylvania, this election was nothing short of a landslide victory that fundamentally redrew America’s political dynamics. A Democrat had not won Virginia and Indiana in a generation.

Credit: CNN

But let’s examine the election another way, one that may bring to life a different picture of how Obama earned his place in history. His campaign both redrew political lines and also forever changed the way candidates reach out to constituents.

Online tools such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter contributed to the netting of record-breaking campaign funding and the staggering galvanization of a younger generation of first-time voters who truly made an impact and a difference. The Obama campaign, for example, outspent McCain nearly three-to-one, which was a testament to the capabilities of technology and the corresponding impact of sociology let loose on the Web. The Obama campaign leveraged multiple technology platforms and social immersion strategies to engage constituents directly, raising an astounding $660 million in campaign contributions.

They went directly to the people.

The Obama team, for example befriended almost 130,000 friends on Twitter with an almost equal amount following him.

On Facebook, the Obama page boasted over three million fans compared to McCain’s 618,000.

YouTube also swayed towards Obama with a network of 358,000 to 191,000, with the Obama camp posting over 1,800 videos compared to McCain’s 330. These videos accounted for 110 million views.

If you compare the other social networks and communities from FriendFeed to MySpace to Flickr, the stats are asymmetrical in Obama’s partiality.

Many of these two-way tools however, were simply used as broadcast mechanisms to send updates, solicit contributions, provide updates, and to also rally and unite supporters, albeit successfully.

Reaching the other 46%

My question is: What if these same social media tools where deployed to not only communicate “to” constituents, but also to listen and interact with supporters as well as those who don’t currently endorse the President-elect?

Over 46% of America voted against Barrack Obama, with 22 states going to John McCain, regardless of weight in the Electoral College. Either way you look at it, that’s still a significant portion of America who didn’t believe #change or #hope were attributes of the Obama campaign. These voters believed their future lay with another candidate.

Whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, Independent or member of the Green Party, you cannot overlook the power of real world community relations combined with the reach and engagement of online social communities and networks to change politics as usual.

If Obama dedicates a team aside from the outbound crew that “pushes” content through social channels in order to strategically reach, listen to, and embrace the 46% who voted against him, he might be able to run a truly democratic term. It could also curtail the necessity to campaign as much while in office in order to focus on the issues we elected him to fix

All signs and words emanating from the Obama camp and Mr. Obama himself, point to a strategy of leveraging today’s powerful, two-way bridges of communication.

In a text message sent to supporters on the eve of the election, he reaffirmed that they will be part of the Presidency moving forward, “We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I’ll be in touch soon about what comes next.”

But perhaps the most revealing promise that showed Mr. Obama will run his office for all the people of the United States, not just those who voted for him, was shared through his words on November 4th:

I will listen to you, especially when we disagree…and to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your President, too.

His first step towards bringing the vision of running a cross-party campaign is the launch of Change.gov, a portal for transparency and interaction during, and hopefully past, the transition.

In a sense, Change.gov is a simple and engaging site, but also highly intricate in its goals to give voters a voice. It is a resource center for sharing information, updates, jobs, and also provides a channel for people who share their vision, concern, and ideas with the President and his advisors through text, images or video.

Mr. Obama offers this message to visitors:

I ask you to believe - not just in my ability to bring about change, but in yours. I know this change is possible…because in this campaign, I have had the privilege to witness what is best in America.

Change.gov is the first step in a long road of reshaping the dynamics of politics and communication with voters.

They’re on the right track however.

Obama’s history-making campaign that fused community relations with social sciences, after all, carried him to the Democratic nomination and also the Oval Office. Mr. Obama and his team have cultivated and collaborated with a database of millions of people that spans a sophisticated contact relationship management infrastructure that spans across the real world to all popular social networks.

With an elaborate and revolutionary channel that will only grow with his Presidency, Obama takes office with a powerful new medium that may eclipse the reach and drive of traditional broadcast media.

But, what about those who voted against him?

What’s the channel for Obama to ask, “Why didn’t I get your vote?” Is it Change.gov or is it through the combination of inbound and outbound engagement that will unearth the key concerns that offer genuine potential for not just listening, but also intelligent response and earned support?

It’s a two way street.

This isn’t just about broadcasting content through new channels or merely soliciting feedback, participating in popular networks or actively listening. It’s the ability to identify and internalize themes to precipitate change and earn support through action—not just words.

For the first time, the U.S. President can cultivate grassroots communities directly where people create, discover, and share information online. He is already thinking in this direction, as evidenced by his intention to record the weekly Presidential address on Youtube, in addition to broadcasting it over the radio. The videos will be hosted on Change.gov, with the first one already recorded.

Other opportunities to engage with citizens online include:

- Launch a social network at Change.gov and/or whitehouse.gov

- Create a citizen feedback and collaboration page at GetSatisfaction

-Solicit policy proposals that people can vote up or down on Change For Us.

- Open the blog to comments on Change.gov (with community moderation).

- Address the country on YouTube with updates, polls, and also address issues in between official State of the Union broadcasts.

- Capture behind-the-scenes footage of the inner workings of the White House and share across all video networks.

- Create a user-generated channel on Magnify.net that features content from constituents.

-Create an @obamacares or @whitehousecares account on Twitter and other micro-blogging communities to listen and respond directly within each network.

- Complement the Presidential radio show with a regular podcast or livecast on uStream.tv or BlogTalkRadio and also interact with the people online, in real time.

- Publish speeches and important policy documents on document networks such as Scribd and Docstoc to be shared and disseminated throughout blogs and personal social profile pages.

(What other ideas do you have? Add them to comments).

This is how a President, or any politician or business for that matter, can authentically connect with the people formerly known as the audience—in the real world.

Treat us like customers

Most, successful businesses around the world place customers at the center of everything. Before the Web, for instance, Nordstrom built its engendering foundation on world-class, and now world famous, customer care.

There’s an extraordinary opportunity here for the White House to leverage these new and influential channels of conversation to embrace and cultivate voters as if they were customers, winning market share, one person at a time.

This is an era in which information is democratized. The Web potentially offers a live and unfiltered looking glass into the office of the Presidency and also the thoughts, insights, support, satisfaction, and grievances of the American people.

The Web cuts through political tape to spotlight the issues that matter most to the electorate. It creates the foundation for people to participate in a truly democratic, crowd-sourced Government that can directly channel their discontent or new ideas.

It’s through this collaboration that any public official, particularly the President, could continually maintain a real-time pulse of the country to learn from the very human effects and responses to government actions to run a more in-tune and effective administration.

People shouldn’t only have a voice during an election time; listening and responding should be an ongoing practice and process of any office. This is a political ecology rooted in sociology and conversations. It’s the art and science of stripping down the politics to reveal the truth.

The President can’t satisfy everyone, that’s just the reality. It’s human nature to disagree. This President-elect is not purporting to be perfect, but it seems he’s honestly willing to learn. With a national chief technology officer in place, combined with an informed engagement team versed in social sciences and psychology, he can use technology and two-way channels to not only increase economic efficiencies and boost education and media literacy, but also to “listen” to those influential beacons in order to continue to redraw, or potentially erase, party lines.

In my techtopian dreams, I hope that these incredible networks remain a constant source of conversation to extend beyond campaigning, but also collaborative governance that unites people.

It’s not about being Republican or a Democrat, it’s about representing the majority of the people, their views, passions, ambitions and struggles, in order to be a representative of the people for the people. This is Obama’s opportunity to use the tools and channels of today’s emerging voter demographics to rewrite the future of politics, while serving the best interests of the American people in the process.

Sometimes the best advisors and cabinet members are the very people who elected that person into office, and maybe, just maybe, also those who voted against him in the first place.

If the Obama camp reads this, I’m more than happy to release @obamacares and @whitehouse cares on Twitter. I held them for you.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

The best thing I’ve read recently on experience strategy and design is Marty Neumeier’s recent essay for DMI, “The Designful Company.” (PDF) It presages his forthcoming book of the same name. It treads ground familiar to those who have read Subject to Change, though has some new research and datapoints to help bolster the case for organizations to embrace design. The results of a survey of 1,500 executives asked about their most challenging problems revealed this list:

1. Balancing long-term goals with short-term demands
2. Predicting returns on innovative concepts
3. Innovating at the increasing speed of change
4. Winning the war for world-class talent
5. Combining profitability with social responsibility
6. Protecting margins in a commoditizing industry
7. Multiplying success by collaborating across silos
8. Finding unclaimed yet profitable market space
9. Addressing the challenge of eco-sustainability
10. Aligning strategy with customer experience

And I loved the insight that companies religiously following Siz Sigma actually performed below the broad market average.

I’m also happy to announce that Marty will be speaking at MX 2009, where he’ll bring his insights from his work and research to our audience, helping them understand how they can make their whole company (not just their department) a designful one.

不久前我们曾贴出一段乔布斯斯坦佛毕业演讲的视频，为征集意见。后来，同学们的热情建议——包括字幕问题、字体问题、fade in/out 的问题——都被该段字幕的制作者 Shinman 采纳了，并且，一口气把整段视频制作了出来。唯一的问题是，貌似 YouTube 不接受 15 分钟的视频，所以他上传到了土豆。请欣赏吧:)

Column written for Interactions; ACM, 2008. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. It may be redistributed for non-commercial use only, provided this paragraph is included.

It is time for a review. As time and technologies change, as we have moved from individual to group, social, and even cultural computing, and as the communication technologies have become as important as the computational ones, how well have our design principles kept up?

One of our fundamental principles is that of perceived affordances: that’s one way we know what to do in novel situations. That’s fine for objects, but what about situations? What about people, social groups, cultures? The answer is the same, yet different. Yes, there are still perceived affordances, constraints, and conceptual models, but there is more. There are trails. There are behaviors. We know how to behave by watching the behavior of others, or if others are not there, by the trails they have left behind. As we move from the world of stand-alone objects to social structures, complex, intelligent products, and a heavy dominance of services, then new principles are needed.

Powerful clues arise from what I call social signifiers. A “signifier” is some sort of indicator, some signal in the physical or social world that can be interpreted meaningfully. Signifiers signify critical information, even if the signifier itself is an accidental byproduct of the world. Social signifiers are those that are relevant to social usages. Some social indicators simply are the unintended but informative result of the behavior of others. Let me illustrate.

Suppose you are rushing to catch a train. You know the train was scheduled to depart soon. You run across the city, run up the stairs in the train station and rush on to the platform. There is no train: did you miss it, or perhaps has it simply not arrived yet? How can you tell? The state of the platform serves as an signifier. People milling about the platform? The train has not arrived. An empty platform: oops, you missed it. This is an example of an incidental, accidental signifier. It isn’t completely reliable, working better in small towns with only occasional trains than in crowded cities where many trains use the same platforms, but that is the nature of signifiers: often useful, but of mixed reliability.

Social signifiers, such as the presence or absence of people on a train platform, painted lines on the street, the trails that signal shortcuts through parks or across planted areas are examples of signaling systems. Signals come in many forms, sometimes naturally evolved, sometimes conventions of culture. Cues carry evidence, sometimes completely unintentional, as in the emptiness of the train platform. A flag’s fluttering in the wind is a clue to wind direction and speed, usually unintentional, but nonetheless useful evidence to the observer. Sometimes the evidence is a trail or trace of previous behavior: desire lines, these are called in architecture and city planning, when the trails made by people’s footsteps across fields indicates their desire for paved paths.

I call any physically perceivable cue a signifier, whether it is incidental or deliberate. A social signifier is one that is either created or interpreted by people or society, signifying social activity or appropriate social behavior. Thus, although there are many possible signifiers of wind speed and direction, including flags, the movement of grasses or tree leaves, or traveling debris, if the signifier is a flag, it is also a social signifier, for it had to be placed in its location by people, presumably for a reason (which may have nothing to do with providing an indication of the wind).

Signifiers, Not Affordances

The concept of "affordance" has captured the imagination of designers. The term was originally invented by the perceptual psychologist J. J. Gibson to refer to a relationship: the actions possible by a specific agent on a specific environment. To Gibson, affordances did not have to be perceivable or even knowable -- they simply existed. When I introduced the term into design in 1988 I was referring to perceivable affordances. Since then, the term has been widely used and misused. The result has been confusions and a goldmine for academic scholars who get to write learned articles about the true meaning of the term.

People need some way of understanding the product or service, some sign of what it is for, what is happening, and what the alternative actions are. People search for clues, for any sign that might help them cope and understand. It is the sign that is importance, anything that might signify meaningful information. Designers need to provide these clues. Forget affordances: what people need, and what design must provide, are signifiers. Because most actions we do are social, the most important class of these are social signifiers.

We are all detectives, searching for clues to enable us to function in this complex world. Whether it is flags waving in the wind, the difference between empty or crowded train platforms, or the desire lines illustrated by footprints in the fields that suggest paths to follow, we search for significant signs in the world that offer guidance. In the social world comprised of people and technology, these cues are social signifiers.

Consider a bookmark, a deliberately placed signifier of one's place in reading a book. But the physical nature of books also make them an accidental social signifier, for the placement of the bookmark tells the reader how much of the story remains. Most readers have learned to use this accidental signifier to aid in their enjoyment of the reading. With few pages left, we know the end is near. And if the reading is torturous, as in a school assignment, one can always console oneself by knowing "only a few more pages to get through." Electronic book readers do not have the physical structure of paper books, so unless the designer deliberately provides a cue, they need not convey any signal at all about the amount of text remaining. The traditional browser on the computer screen provides a deliberate social signifier, with the position of the scrollbar showing how much more of the document remains and its length showing what proportion is visible at the moment. Hill, Hollan, Wroblewski and McCandless’s addition of usage marks – edit wear and read wear – is yet another clever way for designers to add signifiers to guide readers of electronic documents (Hill, Hollan, Wroblewski, & McCandless, 1992).

The signifier is an important communication device to the recipient, whether or not communication was intended. From the purpose of surviving in the world, it doesn't matter to an individual whether the useful signal was deliberately placed there or whether it is incidental: to the recipient, there is no necessary distinction. Why should it matter whether the flag was placed as a deliberate clue to wind direction (as is done at airports or on the masts of sailboats) or whether it was there as an advertisement or symbol of pride in one’s country (as is done on public buildings): once I interpret the flag’s motion to indicate wind direction, it does not matter why it was placed there.

Whatever their nature, planned or accidental, signifiers provide valuable cues as to the nature of the world and of social activities. For us to function in this social, technological world, we need to develop internal models of what things mean, of how they operate. We seek all the cues we can find to help in this enterprise, and in this way, we all act as detectives, searching for whatever guidance we might find. If we are fortunate, thoughtful designers provide the clues for us. Otherwise, we must use our creativity and imagination. (This is the premise behind Distributed Cognition: see (Hollan, Hutchins, & Kirsh, 2000).

Social signifiers replace affordances, for they are broader and richer, allowing for accidental signifiers as well as deliberate ones, and even for items that signify by their absence, as the lack of crowds on a train platform. The perceivable part of an affordance is a signifier, and if deliberately placed by a designer, it is a social signifier.

Designers of the world: Forget affordances provide signifiers.

Don Norman wears many hats, including co-founder of the Nielsen Norman group, Professor at Northwestern University, and author. It should not come as a surprise to learn that social signifiers play a major role in his new book, tentatively entitled “Sociable design.” He lives at jnd.org

Hill, W., Hollan, J. D., Wroblewski, D., & McCandless, T. (1992). Edit Wear and Read Wear: Text and Hypertext. Proceedings of the 1992 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '92), New York: ACM Press.

Hollan, J. D., Hutchins, E., & Kirsh, D. (2000). Distributed Cognition: A New Foundation for Human-Computer Interaction Research. ACM Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction: Special Issue on Human-Computer Interaction in the New Millennium, 7(2), 174-196. http://hci.ucsd.edu/lab/hci_papers/JH1999-2.pdf

Live video streaming seemed to be all the rage for a while, popularized by startups like Justin.tv, Ustream, Qik, Mogulus and Flixwagon.

Yahoo jumped on the hype wagon back in February 2008 by launching Y!Live, an ambitious effort put forward by internal incubator Yahoo! Brickhouse. Yahoo Live was supposed to tap into the troubled internet juggernaut’s vast online video audience by getting them to broadcast their lives in real-time.

Now Yahoo software engineer Keith Thornill has published a blog post announcing that Y!Live, which never really passed the idea stage, will effectively stop broadcasting December 3. Yahoo is hosting a townhall on Wednesday to wish the service farewell.

Live video streaming still presents an enormous opportunity considering the way people’s behavior on the web is changing, but it is of course extremely expensive and hard to scale. Serving the same video to thousands, let alone tens of thousands of people simultaneously generates higher bandwidth bills than serving them asynchronously like most video sharing sites do. YouTube, by far the most popular online video property on the web, is rumored to want to start experimenting with live video streaming some day, but so far we haven’t seen anything surface.

Perhaps the Yahoo from a year ago would have no problem continuing to test the waters and keeping the service alive a bit longer, but the way things are looking now they’ll be looking to cut costs in every possible way for a while.

It’s also quite telling for the service’s popularity that no one has cared to comment on the blog post yet (they were probably in moderation when I wrote this). Also, at the time of this writing there are exactly 1,379 people watching 48 live channels.

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