Jeffrey Zeldman’s article explains what sets web design apart from design for other mediums.

“Web design is not book design, it is not poster design, it is not illustration, and the highest achievements of those disciplines are not what web design aims for. Although websites can be delivery systems for games and videos, and although those delivery systems can be lovely to look at, such sites are exemplars of game design and video storytelling, not of web design. So what is web design?”

Jeffrey Zeldman - A List Apart

Scary stuff by Josua Porter Facebook’s Brilliant but Evil design

“Here’s a scenario: you go to Blockbuster.com and rent a movie. A little interface element pops up and tells you that Blockbuster is sending information to your Facebook account. It gives you ten seconds to say no…and then it sends it anyway. This is called “opt-out”. You only have the option to say no. It sends your personal information by default. “Opt-in” would be where no action is taken by default.

You then log into your Facebook account, and it says that “Blockbuster is sending a story to your account”. You have the option to say no to this, but it is not apparent at all. In fact, Facebook gives you the option “Don’t show me this again”, which seems to suggest that they agree this message is annoying. They have designed this screen for you to focus on the pain of having to read a silly message and dismiss it. But what isn’t very clear is that when you do so you’re also giving implicit instruction that all services can send information to your news feed in the future. This is a HUGE deal to Facebook…this is how they’re going to make money.”

Mark Pesce’s now famous Keynote speech for Web Directions is a must read for everyone.

“The net regards hierarchy as a failure, and routes around it.”

“In a future which looks increasingly like the present, there is no center anywhere, no locus of authority, no controlling power ordering our daily lives. There are no governments, no institutions, no businesses that look anything like the limited liability enterprises born in the Netherlands five hundred years ago. Instead, there are groupings, networks within the network, that come together around a project or ideology, a shared sense of salience –”

It seems that the operating system wars must really be over. This article by Erick Schonfeld at Techcrunch reveals what the future may hold.

“The platform wars are over. Long live the Web. That was the basic message delivered by Jeff Huber, Google’s vice president of engineering, in a ten-minute presentation at Web 2.0 a few minutes ago.”

Victor Keegan’s article for the Guardian, written after his visit to the Future Of Web Applications (FOWA) conference in London recently, reflects on the growing trend of the office less enterprise.

This article from Wired magazine offers information on how to integrate Gmail with your other email accounts, how labels and filters work and how to access Gmail from your desktop.

A couple of years ago we were all using desktop applications to get our work done. Now all you need is a network connection and a browser to do much much more!
This slide show explains how companies are using Web 2.0 technologies to create a truly global, social and efficient workplace.

“The irony is that Web 2.0 has been heralded as the dawn of a new era of community and togetherness. Through the financial eyes of a venture capitalist, this may appear to be true. For the rest of us, what this means is that community is now available to manipulate, choose and consume”.

This article by William Davies The cold heart of Web 2.0 is truly scary and exciting at the same time.

“Design a voice for your site and you do more than make words and images play nice. You engage your users in a discussion you both want to carry on.”

This article by Bronwyn Jones not only explains how important real communication is. It also offers some clever techniques to help develop a voice of your own.

“It appears to be essential to start thinking about adopting Enterprise 2.0 before fresh new graduates from the MySpace generation think your enterprise sucks and prefer to apply for your competitors.”

This fabulous article by Fred Cavazza What is Enterprise 2.0? really opens your eyes to the coming changes that will revolutionize how we could all work together in the future.