onfocus

Create stories using social media.

Insanely colorful sculptures and drawings.

Images that are liked on MLKSHK.

Matt's SXSW talk has lessons from 11 years of moderating a large online community. Quick summary: get the community to help, find patterns that lead to good/bad behavior, build tools around those patterns, find awesome moderators.

Matt Thompson discusses some ways Jessamyn approaches moderation at MetaFilter. This is great: "Let me model some good behavior for you. That person said something really s---y. I’m just going to ignore it. Watch me."

Wait for it...

The lesson: "Create a service experience around what you publish and sell." Some nice words about MetaFilter and an interesting way to view online audiences: "Why Wasn't I Consulted?"

Handy tool to help you find your delicious contacts on pinboard.

Interesting thinking about the current state of weblogs. Will all blog-like activity be consumed by Facebook, or will new tools emerge to help with privacy? And how do private blogs mix with public tools like Newsreaders? Complicated questions to answer.

Nelson has a good roundup of the issues surrounding the Wikileaks story.

"Whatever restrictions we eventually end up enacting, we need to keep Wikileaks alive today, while we work through the process democracies always go through to react to change. If it’s OK for a democracy to just decide to run someone off the internet for doing something they wouldn’t prosecute a newspaper for doing, the idea of an internet that further democratizes the public sphere will have taken a mortal blow."

"If you host your content on a commercial provider or on a social network, there are different points at which you can be cut off." The Wikileaks case is pointing out a weakness in the completely libertarian web ideal.

The case for Instagram. I must be a photography snob. I can not see the appeal of a community based solely on heavily-filtered photos. 

Nice sanity check in the mobile Web App vs. Native App debate. Often a Web App will do.

"A naval officer told the present writer that he had often, when on deck, been both amused and surprised at the accuracy with which some of these girls used this form of signalling out of pure fun." People have always found ways to communicate over distances.

Gloves that work with an iPhone. Great idea!

This post is a great antidote to all of the benchmark lists you see that tell you where your child should be. [via caterina]

Interesting discussion about different approaches to managing an online community.

A quick behind-the-scenes look at "20 Things I Learned about Browsers and the Web" that explains some of the unique features of HTML5.

Nicely designed "book" about the Web.

Interesting experiment that creates web icons with pure CSS.

"It's easy to say all of our choices and all the aspects of our identity can be shared if we don't face any serious social or personal consequences for doing so." [via jessamyn]

Beautiful photo galleries powered by user submissions.

Matt told some MetaFitler stories at GEL this year in a great talk about unconventional community lessons.

Looking at MetaFilter as an example for magazines. "Can the content produced by readers be a part of a magazine? This is crucial question that a lot of media are asking."

"He is not giving a speech or a lecture - he is giving a performance. And like any good actor, he knows that you have to learn your lines."

A peek behind the curtain at Facebook with an anonymous FB developer.

"...Brad's work was altogether more messy and funny and human and passionate and complicated, just like the man himself. I can offer no more succinct summation of the man than that he was a good man and a good friend, profoundly funny and profoundly kind." Anil shares some memories of Brad.

"...the hero is the most damaging person on a team, particularly on a team that’s supposed to be writing high-availability or otherwise mission-critical software." Interesting analysis of team dynamics. [via jessamyn]

"One user following another in social media is analogous to one page linking to another on the Web. Both are a form of recommendation." Amit Singhal on how Google ranks Tweets for real-time search.

Rules for PR folks who want to work with bloggers. "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE means FOR IMMEDIATE DELETE."