Pleasure and Pain

Measuring the impact of new technology on human experience

Pleasure and Pain: photos by Whitney G. Hess

The Stranger Aversion

June 5th, 2008 · 3 comments so far

Social media has created a world in which everyone is interconnected. Forget six degrees of separation; we’re probably down to three. So have we completely lost the notion of a stranger?
Charlie O’Donnell, CEO of Path 101, recently wrote a post on his personal blog about the shift towards using social systems to connect with pre-existing [...]

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Social Feed Aggregators

May 30th, 2008 · 8 comments so far

There are hundreds, probably thousands, of powerful social networking platforms out there, with new ones launching every week. Send 140-character messages with Twitter. Save links with del.icio.us. Promote content with Digg. Share music with Last.fm. It’s endless.
Lifestreaming — recording your daily activities through text, links, photos, music and video — is quickly becoming the [...]

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Group Video Chat: A Usability Evaluation

May 23rd, 2008 · 2 comments so far

Back in January when I started this whole “getting to know the community” thing, I met a couple guys named @matto and @snook, a.k.a. Matthew Oliphant and Jonathan Snook respectively. Matthew had been following me based on David Armano’s recommendation, and I had followed him back because, well, I basically didn’t know anybody on Twitter. [...]

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PayPal’s Live Chat Falls Short

May 19th, 2008 · 4 comments so far

I just had a very strange interaction with a PayPal sales rep. I suppose I was sitting on the Website Payments Standard Pricing page for a while, so I was a prime target for a sell.
A pop-up appeared (that I failed to capture) asking me if I needed help, so I decided to say yes. [...]

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GEL 2008: Day 2, Session 4 “Success”

April 27th, 2008 · 6 comments so far

[Also check out other GEL 2008 posts: Day 1; Day 2 Session 1 "Connect", Session 2 "Twist", Session 3 "Make"]
Session 4: Success
Speakers: Nayla Al-Khaja, Marissa Mayer, Garrett Oliver, Bob Mankoff, Chip Conley
Nayla Al-Khaja, producer and director

Nayla is from Dubai, the first producer and director in the United Arab Emirates
35 years ago UAE was a blank [...]

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