From Reboot With Love for REBOOT11

From REBOOT with Love I’m really glad I can do this presentation here, because at REBOOT, new ideas take root. At least that is my experience... R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E Copyright 2009 Almar van der Krogt @ VIRVIE.com

See for example my ﬁrst tweet (two years ago!) R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E http://www.tweet1.com/

Inspiration Earlier this year I gave a presentation for Smidswater, creative communication agency. I consulted on their webpresence, for that is what I do for a living. They showed me this book they made for their 35 year anniversary. It’s a beautiful book showcasing a lot of their impressive work, among which a few stamps for the Dutch postal services. R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E http://www.smidswater.com/

When is e-mail finally getting a ‘stamp’? That got me thinking. In the real world important people or special events get a statue, a building, a streetname or .... a postage STAMP. The physical stamp has the unique capability of conveying an additional message with it. This now seems to get lost. And is there, or will there be an online equivalent? R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E Copyright 2009 Almar van der Krogt @ VIRVIE.com

In the Netherlands, as in many other countries there's a rich history of stamp designs. Postage stamps were ﬁrst introduced in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland on May 1, 1840. The site “Icons of the Post” shows the rich Dutch legacy. I think it’s an incredible honour to either be on a stamp or to design it. R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E http://www.iconenvandepost.nl/

Broader Message Over the years, many (government) causes that got attention through stamps. They have been used to collect for charities (e.g. yearly “Childrens stamps”), remembering special events or persons, luring tourists, health advice, conveying norms and values (see “Global Warming and Green Energy” above) and even political propaganda. R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E Copyright 2009 Almar van der Krogt @ VIRVIE.com

Customization Many countries these days also allow personalized stamps. Sometimes causing controversies, for example when action groups start to use them. Also esthetics are an issue that should be kept in mind. R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E Copyright 2009 Almar van der Krogt @ VIRVIE.com

The stamp is history? However with the rise of stamping machines together and the expected decline of physical mail the cultural history of the stamp seems to get lost. I propose to pick up the legacy and continue it online! For the need is still there, and it’s already happening online... R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E Copyright 2009 Almar van der Krogt @ VIRVIE.com

Various causes See for example HelpIranElection.com, where you can give your Twitter avatar a green overlay; something like a ‘visual hashtag’. Judging from this trend there is a desire/need for an extra message. However, the green avatar is limited; it obscures your avatar which actually impedes communication. R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E Copyright 2009 Almar van der Krogt @ VIRVIE.com

There are some options to add a message. First is an actual stamp in the interface (optional per message), as shown here. Another is changing the URL of a domain via a redirect and ﬁnally you could use shortened URL for a ‘mini-message’. I’ll get back to this later, because links are actually really important. R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E Copyright 2009 Almar van der Krogt @ VIRVIE.com

When I was preparing for this presentation and developed the idea for the ‘mini-message’, I looked into various forms of URL-shorteners. But then, last week, this message got my attention: “Links are the currency of the Internet”. It was a statement made at the 140 characters conference (see next slide) R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E Copyright 2009 Almar van der Krogt @ VIRVIE.com

R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E

@dweinberger: See "Links as punctuation". Instead of stopping it triggers to continue "which is an act of generosity". So the links are actually, in different ways, the sweetspot of what I want to achieve here! THE LINK IS THE PACKAGE THAT GETS STAMPED! R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E http://www.flickr.com/photos/wendelboe/3659208405

A long list of URL shorteners Which brings me back to URL shorteners. This is a list made by @chrismessina: he stopped quite a while back at 108! They are very handy in saving your 140 characters, but there are some issues... http://www.flickr.com/photos/factoryjoe/sets/ 72157602178338004/comments/ R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E

It seems that they’ll be with us for some time to come The major drawbacks are pointed out in this article by Adam Hertz on Stowe Boyd’s weblog. The biggest issue being able to resolve shortened URLs. Maybe we should call URL shorteners a necessary evil, for the time being. http://www.stoweboyd.com/message/ R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E 2009/01/url-shorteners-please-resolve.html

Another issue is that most links and especially shortened ones, make no sense whatsoever, a topic that was discussed at UX London last week. This of course makes the task at hand even more difﬁcult: I want to shorten the URL, keep the message, AND add a broader message to it as well! R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E Copyright 2009 Almar van der Krogt @ VIRVIE.com

I think there is a solution possible by combining two types of URL shorteners. First there is SafeURL. The shortened URL takes you to an ‘intermediate’ page that allows you to see the full link, preview the ‘destination’ page and take note of the risk level. The drawback is the extra click of course. R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E http://www.safeurl.to/default.aspx

Next there is Doiop. “Doiop creates [..] a short URL with a keyword you choose”. This to ensure the shortened link still makes sense (or even more sense than the original one for that matter). R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E http://www.doiop.com/

As Dave Winer pointed out recently: choosing your URL shortener should be an option within different services and clients. So that’s the ﬁrst step in my “URL shortening, clear messaging, broader engaging” service. Let’s see what it could look like... R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E Copyright 2009 Almar van der Krogt @ VIRVIE.com

First: Choose your URL shortening service within your Twitter or Google Wave-client. For the sake of argument I’m calling my suggested service “mini-message”. I am adding the mini- message to URL’s because then I know there is an actual connection and action at the receiving end of the message/package. R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E Copyright 2009 Almar van der Krogt @ VIRVIE.com

Next you select the message that you want to accompany your link. This could be a default mini-message stamp or one from a growing collection, like the real world stamps. You can change this as little or as often as you like. R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E Copyright 2009 Almar van der Krogt @ VIRVIE.com

Then, when you add links to your messages from your client-application the service suggest a keyword for the shortened URL - based on the title of the site or article - which you can accept or edit.The keyword reﬂects the destination URL(!); the mini-message remains a surprise for recipient. R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E Copyright 2009 Almar van der Krogt @ VIRVIE.com

When the recipient of the message clicks on the link, the link takes you to a stamp sized pop-up, with the broader message, which automatically redirects to the destination-site after a few seconds. This you could vary based on the associated risk level: a risky link takes longer to redirect, for example. The risk-level is also indicated with a color-coding. R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E Copyright 2009 Almar van der Krogt @ VIRVIE.com

And eventually the destination site is shown. To recap the ﬂow: after setting up the service and selecting a mini-message for the time being, it is added only to those messages containing links. In these cases the recipient sees the mini-message for a couple of seconds, after which he is safely taken to the destination URL. http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/06/25/ R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E theMythOfPerfection.html?dsq=11720224#comment-11720224

I just want to go back to the possible value of the additional message for a minute, and argue why it should be graphical in my opinion. I consider my suggested virtual stamp largely ornamental, taking the categorisation above. And I think the “something else” they do is very subtle, but valuable. R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E Copyright 2009 Almar van der Krogt @ VIRVIE.com

Google Doodles Think of the Google Doodles for example. The are used to visually commemorate special events (like this one for 25 years of Tetris) or people in an appealing way. R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E Copyright 2009 Almar van der Krogt @ VIRVIE.com

And of course there are many, many examples of stamps with either ornamental or content graphics. Here are some of the stamps I collected as a kid ;-)

A long shot? The ﬁnal question is: is it a long shot? Let’s discuss: you can shout out or post on Twitter using the #e-stamp hashtag. Thank you. R E A L I Z I N G L A V I E V I R T U E L L E Copyright 2009 Almar van der Krogt @ VIRVIE.com

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From Reboot With Love for REBOOT11

by Almar van der Krogt on Jun 30, 2009

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From Reboot With Love for REBOOT11 — Presentation Transcript