Wow. I've just read the extremely complimentary post on Tim Cowlinshaw's blog (Sociable, Semantic, and Suitable) about little old Headshift and it's enough to make us blush. It's wonderful to know that people appreciate what we are doing (or even noticing at all!) and all the more so when they write so cogently and insightfully about what we are trying to do. Makes me a little embarrassed that I haven't written about or for Headshift very much (I'd say I'm too busy, but that's obviously just a pathetic excuse. I blame my youtube addiction...) I'll make a special effort to blog about what we build from our perspective from henceforth. Anyway, thanks Tim, and why not check out the sites we built to which Tim refers, gentle reader?
Arabic words in English language Map (click a word, any word...)
I'm quite pleased with the look of the 'tag cloud', I was thinking that they are generally rather dull and undesigned and I tried to make it looks at least somewhat spiffy. If I had time I'd go back and Ajaxify the word-definition pages a little, maybe round off those corners and add a few reflections and gradients, some scriptaculous fade-ins and the like, but alas I'm FAR too busy watching Ultra Brain videos.
I had no involvement in this - my genius collegue Rory was the designer on this puppy. I'm ashamed to say I haven't looked at it since it launched, but now that I have I'm LOVING the clean look and the subtle, accessible use of SiFR for those custom fonts. Way to go, chaps!
We've got lots of very exciting products/ideas/stuff in the pipeline and I have a few ideas of my own regarding urban gaming via social software/mapping/tagging mashups which I will be talking about soon...if you think you might be interested? (I just assume nobody who reads this even necessarily knows what a wiki is, so I might risk boring you all to death. Yes? No? Should I stick to crack squirrels and silliness?)
Spring is in the air, I've got a spring in my step and some fizz coming back to my neurons - I'm really looking forward to a fun and challenging 2006 at Headshift. I hope we can make some more stuff that makes a difference.
Woo! Go you!
That's some mad 'web 2.0' skillz you're gestating there, buddy.
The information-amid-the-world tag/folksonomy flagr-type thing that's going on now is sooooo what Douglas Adams kind of saw (in a faint, blurry way) and which h2g2 never quite got around to being.
"Give the world a better interface" is the battle cry.
Posted by: Chris | March 09, 2006 at 04:16 PM