Lucian Marin
Numbers and half true quotes
In this post I wanted to write about numbers and their contributions to user interfaces, mostly in today’s top web applications. But after some thinking, it just didn’t make sense. Numbers can be interpreted in different ways, depending on the user’s perspective.
For example Kevin Rose thinks that getting more followers on Twitter is better, but I tend to disagree. For me, it is more important to write a tweet that has more value in time than it has for my followers. The same goes for Digg: it’s not the number of diggs that matters, but the importance of a news story in time. For this, notice what Peter Schiff said about recession in 2006 or 2007.
The question that I want to address to Digg, Google or any other company: how do we measure the relevance of a news story in time? And yes, it sounds like: how do we predict the future with today’s available tools and technology?
“There’s no present. There’s only the immediate future and the recent past.” — George Carlin
Present is a complex state of mind. You can’t split it in two, three or one hundred, because that wouldn’t be right.
“Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.” — Jeffrey Zeldman
Design is also a structure or a form. And thinking this way around, it precedes content. It is actually the base that the content stands on; so without it, it won’t be content.
After all that being said, he wonders when his blog will hit (Digg) reddit’s front page.