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Introducing Typekit, an iTunes-for-fonts on the web that allows you to have rich typography in your designs and pages without resorting to flash or image hacks. (Old time readers will remember my yellow design which used Dante, the original WordPress logo font, and generated-image titles.) Typekit takes advantage of the current and upcoming browser support for embedded fonts and abstracts away all of the complications thereof like Feedburner did for feeds. Brought to you by my friends at Small Batch, previously of Adaptive Path, Measure Map, Start, and Wikirank fame. The people building the web have been waiting for this.

Google I/O 2009’s big announcement could be the open-source – e-mail – chat – wiki – social network – file share – Twitter hybrid: Google Wave. While it won’t be out for another several months Mashable offers a pretty good recap of what to expect.

AFP: Blogging guru chips away at Great Firewall of China — the Agence France-Press talked to me when I was in Hong Kong about the early days of WordPress.com and our experience with the Chinese firewall. Today we are still sporadically blocked, nothing official but enough that almost everyone in China uses WordPress.org. It’s funny that this story came out almost two months after the interview because I’m wearing that exact same sweater today.

Google I/O 2009’s big announcement could be the open-source – e-mail – chat – wiki – social network – file share – Twitter hybrid: Google Wave. While it won’t be out for another several months Mashable offers a pretty good recap of what to expect.

Google I/O 2009’s big announcement could be the open-source – e-mail – chat – wiki – social network – file share – Twitter hybrid: Google Wave. While it won’t be out for another several months Mashable offers a pretty good recap of what to expect.

GigaOM Pro is a new subscription research site from my friends on the GigaOM crew. It’s also the first major media site I know about powered by BuddyPress and it’ll be interesting to see how the social features influence the sites evolution. Here’s Mark Jacquith’s post about building it.

Today, Microsoft publicly unveiled its soon-to-launch search engine Bing! It’s expected to go live in the next few days, so keep a close eye on it. We will…

2009-05-28: The Web Applications Working Group has published the Last Call Working Draft of Widgets 1.0: Packaging and Configuration. This document standardizes a packaging format for a class of software application known as a widget. Widgets are full-fledged client-side applications that are authored using Web standards and packaged for distribution. They are typically downloaded and installed on a client machine or device where they run as stand-alone applications, but they can also be embedded into Web pages and run in a Web browser. Examples range from simple clocks, stock tickers, news casters, games and weather forecasters, to complex applications that pull data from multiple sources to be "mashed-up" and presented to a user in some interesting and useful way. Comments are welcome through 19 June. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity. (Permalink)

2009-05-28: The XML Processing Model Working Group has published an updated Candidate Recommendation of XProc: An XML Pipeline Language. This specification describes the syntax and semantics of a language for describing operations to be performed on XML documents. The status section of the document summarizes the list of changes since the Candidate Recommendation was first published. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)

Today, Microsoft publicly unveiled its soon-to-launch search engine Bing! It’s expected to go live in the next few days, so keep a close eye on it. We will…

Today, Microsoft publicly unveiled its soon-to-launch search engine Bing! It’s expected to go live in the next few days, so keep a close eye on it. We will…

Ask me a question here and I’ll pick the best and post a video answer here on this blog. This was always the intention of the Ask Matt category,  just never got around to doing it before.

2009-05-26: W3C announces today the launch of the W3C Senegal Office, hosted by the Ecole Supérieure Polytechnique (ESP), attached to the UCAD (Université Cheikh Anta Diop), in Dakar, Senegal. Ibrahima Ngom (ESP) and Alex Corenthin (ISOC Senegal) will jointly manage this new W3C Office. W3C looks forward to increasing interaction with the French-speaking community, especially neighboring countries in West Africa. The opening ceremony will take place 27 May. Read the press release and learn more about the W3C Offices, which assist W3C with promotion efforts in local languages, help broaden W3C’s geographical base, and encourage international participation in W3C Activities. (Permalink)

2009-05-26: The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group and the WAI Education and Outreach Working Group have published an updated Working Draft of Relationship between Mobile Web Best Practices (MWBP) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). This draft is complete and is provided as a last opportunity for public review and comment before publication as a W3C Working Group Note. See the announcement email.

We’re pretty excited about the imminent launch of the Palm Pre. but until we officially get our hands on one we’ve been enjoying these screencasts taken via the WebOS emulator. While it’s hard to get a good feel of the phone without multitouch the videos go into quite a lot of detail on most features.

Nice little product page for the new 2010 Toyota Prius. Still not sure about the car’s stylings but I love the animated infographics. I hear it also made The FWA’s site of the day.

We’re pretty excited about the imminent launch of the Palm Pre. but until we officially get our hands on one we’ve been enjoying these screencasts taken via the WebOS emulator. While it’s hard to get a good feel of the phone without multitouch the videos go into quite a lot of detail on most features.

Nice little product page for the new 2010 Toyota Prius. Still not sure about the car’s stylings but I love the animated infographics. I hear it also made The FWA’s site of the day.

2009-05-25: Today W3C publishes the report from the April 2009 Workshop on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social Development. Participants discussed how numerous services available on mobile phones could help people in underserved regions. Discussion underlined the need for a concerted effort among all the stakeholders (including practitioners, academics, regulators, governments, and the mobile industry) to build a shared view of the future of the mobile platform as a tool to bridge the digital divide. The Workshop was jointly organized by the W3C Mobile Web Initiative and the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Government of Mozambique, with the generous support of Gold Sponsors UNDP, the Web Foundation, Nokia, and Bharti Telesoft; and Silver Sponsors Opera Software, UNESCO, Microsoft Research, and MIT Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship. This work is part of the Digital World Forum project (European Union's FP7). Learn more about the W3C Mobile Web for Social Development Interest Group and the W3C Mobile Web Initiative. (Permalink)

2009-05-25: W3C announces today an extended and improved version of its online course to introduce Web developers and designers to its Mobile Web Best Practices. The course runs from 1 June to 31 July 2009. Participants will:

I recently saw J.J. Abrams talk on TED, and was literally woken up to a reality “of the future” which, ironically enough, is happening now.

At some point he mentions that film making is now open for anyone who wants to do it. It no longer has to be done in studios and wrapped up in tremendous budgets. Anyone can grab a camera and start shooting.

I remember years ago – but not that many – anyone who wanted to create a short home movie, would literally be limited to creating something very “cheap” in every aspect. Either it be the quality of the end result or the “special” effects, it was always a “home” movie…

This has changed. Dramatically.

On May 3d, a new breed of movies was unleashed to the public. Not to say that this hasn’t been done before, it’s just the first time it has been done with Hollywoods’ consent.

I’m talking about The Hunt for Gollum which is self described as a “Independent film inspired by Lord of the Rings” and is based on the characters by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The film itself came to existence with a mere £3000 since it was created with the love – and funding – of it’s makers, and a whole bunch of “Lord of the Rings” fans, which took part in this venture without any pay.

Normally this would only go so far due to copyright laws and lawsuits. But in this case, Hollywood just said do it. Tolkien Enterprises, Peter Jackson and anyone else legally bound to the “Lord of the Rings” brand just said… “OK, do it, so long as you don’t profit from it”.

And they did.

To say the least, the end result is stunning, and nowhere near the cheap stuff we used to do back in the day. And although this might not be exactly considered a home movie, I still see a few people doing “their thing”, with off the shelf equipment.

Think about it.

If Hollywood can open up to the public like this, just imagine how many more stories will be told, how many more movies will be made, and how many more people will be inspired. It’s tremendous, and it’s happening now.

I recently saw J.J. Abrams talk on TED, and was literally woken up to a reality “of the future” which, ironically enough, is happening now.

At some point he mentions that film making is now open for anyone who wants to do it. It no longer has to be done in studios and wrapped up in tremendous budgets. Anyone can grab a camera and start shooting.

I remember years ago – but not that many – anyone who wanted to create a short home movie, would literally be limited to creating something very “cheap” in every aspect. Either it be the quality of the end result or the “special” effects, it was always a “home” movie…

This has changed. Dramatically.

On May 3d, a new breed of movies was unleashed to the public. Not to say that this hasn’t been done before, it’s just the first time it has been done with Hollywoods’ consent.

I’m talking about The Hunt for Gollum which is self described as a “Independent film inspired by Lord of the Rings” and is based on the characters by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The film itself came to existence with a mere £3000 since it was created with the love – and funding – of it’s makers, and a whole bunch of “Lord of the Rings” fans, which took part in this venture without any pay.

Normally this would only go so far due to copyright laws and lawsuits. But in this case, Hollywood just said do it. Tolkien Enterprises, Peter Jackson and anyone else legally bound to the “Lord of the Rings” brand just said… “OK, do it, so long as you don’t profit from it”.

And they did.

To say the least, the end result is stunning, and nowhere near the cheap stuff we used to do back in the day. And although this might not be exactly considered a home movie, I still see a few people doing “their thing”, with off the shelf equipment.

Think about it.

If Hollywood can open up to the public like this, just imagine how many more stories will be told, how many more movies will be made, and how many more people will be inspired. It’s tremendous, and it’s happening now.

Looks like Google is cleaning up its act and getting their product logos standardized. While I love the fact that Google has fun with its brand the previous format of having a small product name applied wherever it fit below the logo always felt a bit random. No big change but an important one.

Looks like Google is cleaning up its act and getting their product logos standardized. While I love the fact that Google has fun with its brand the previous format of having a small product name applied wherever it fit below the logo always felt a bit random. No big change but an important one.

Wireframes are the foundation of a design before it even starts to formulate with colors, shapes and forms. And even if some of us find them ugly, or a waste of time – yeah, I’ve heard that too – there is always the greater part among us that find them extraordinarily useful, amazingly beautiful, and somewhat sexy.

Here’s a short list of my favorite wireframing resources, which apart from keeping me informed about how others do it, I am also inspired and lead to new directions.

Wireframes Magazine

Just as you’d expect form a site with a name like that, they serve great wireframing content

Visit Wireframes Magazine

I ♥ wireframes

This is more of a “Flickr pool meets twitter with a blog” kinda resource, but it still remains on my RSS Reader because it keeps serving top quality content.

Visit I ♥ wireframes

Flickr is also a great source for inspiration

Images always talk better than words, so here’s what a really quick Flickr search comes up with. Great inspiration minus all the jabber …

Check these Flickr groups for instant inspiration:

Everyday Information Architecture
IA Discuss
Information Architecture
Drupal Redesign

Software

If you’re looking for software to get started on wireframing, the following will probably suite your needs.

Axure for PC
OmniGraffle for Mac (+ templates)
Protoshare for online access

Wireframes are the foundation of a design before it even starts to formulate with colors, shapes and forms. And even if some of us find them ugly, or a waste of time – yeah, I’ve heard that too – there is always the greater part among us that find them extraordinarily useful, amazingly beautiful, and somewhat sexy.

Here’s a short list of my favorite wireframing resources, which apart from keeping me informed about how others do it, I am also inspired and lead to new directions.

Wireframes Magazine

Just as you’d expect form a site with a name like that, they serve great wireframing content

Visit Wireframes Magazine

I ♥ wireframes

This is more of a “Flickr pool meets twitter with a blog” kinda resource, but it still remains on my RSS Reader because it keeps serving top quality content.

Visit I ♥ wireframes

Flickr is also a great source for inspiration

Images always talk better than words, so here’s what a really quick Flickr search comes up with. Great inspiration minus all the jabber …

Check these Flickr groups for instant inspiration:

Everyday Information Architecture
IA Discuss
Information Architecture
Drupal Redesign

Software

If you’re looking for software to get started on wireframing, the following will probably suite your needs.

Axure for PC
OmniGraffle for Mac (+ templates)
Protoshare for online access

2009-05-21: The Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0 in preparation for the Last Call Working Draft. ATAG defines how authoring tools should help Web developers produce Web content that is accessible and conforms to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. ATAG also defines how to make authoring tools accessible so that people with disabilities can use them. Read the invitation to review the ATAG 2.0 Working Draft and about the Web Accessibility Initiative. (Permalink)

Having fun trying out random queries on PicFog (such as this one) — as always, services built around Twitter’s real-time content are a great fun but can also be used for useful research or insight into what’s happening around you. But let’s face, most will probably use it for stuff like this.

Interesting article and accompanying quotes from Google’s co-founders on how Twitter is winning the real-time game. Partnership vs buy-out might be in Google’s plans:

Eric Schmidt says, “We do not have to buy everybody to work with them, the whole principle of the Web is people can talk to each other.” — especially when people don’t want to sell.

Interesting article and accompanying quotes from Google’s co-founders on how Twitter is winning the real-time game. Partnership vs buy-out might be in Google’s plans:

Eric Schmidt says, “We do not have to buy everybody to work with them, the whole principle of the Web is people can talk to each other.” — especially when people don’t want to sell.

Having fun trying out random queries on PicFog (such as this one) — as always, services built around Twitter’s real-time content are a great fun but can also be used for useful research or insight into what’s happening around you. But let’s face, most will probably use it for stuff like this.

Interesting article and accompanying quotes from Google’s co-founders on how Twitter is winning the real-time game. Partnership vs buy-out might be in Google’s plans:

Eric Schmidt says, “We do not have to buy everybody to work with them, the whole principle of the Web is people can talk to each other.” — especially when people don’t want to sell.

2009-05-19: In response to comments about potential unresolved issues on four Proposed Edited Recommendations published earlier this month, W3C has rescinded the drafts and closed the review period. The rescinded drafts are:

Mogulus, the oddly named web streaming service has relaunched with a new brand (LiveStream) and more importantly a cleaned-up, updated UI for its broadcasting tool. More coverage on Mashable.

Great article and accompanying visualization detailing how we consume information over the years. One can argue over the predictions but it’s a fantastic read.

To follow up our previous post about WolframAlpha’s release here’s a collection of 10 pretty neat Easter eggs. Our favourite? 88MPH being the speed the Delorean needed to reach to time travel. Any search engine that references to Back to the Future is fine by us.

Stephen Wolfram launches his mathematical search engine WolframAlpha. While the press is calling this the Google-Killer it’s actually something quite different. Ironically, it does look a lot like Joshua Davis’ Google redesign.

I had the opportunity to visit Necker Island and hang with some great folks including Sir Richard Branson, these pics are a collection of a day on Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands.

The jury’s out as to whether the Google tricycle will make you the coolest or lamest kid on your block.

Kanye West doesn’t only like fish sticks he also wears what are arguably the most unpractical sunglasses ever devised (at night & in-doors nonetheless) — if you ever wondered what it would feel like browsing the web through his glorious specs this great bookmarklet is what you’ve been waiting for. Brilliant.

Looks like Facebook will be redesigning their application directory with so-called “verified” apps now getting added prominence. This new paid, premium status will surely shake things up — with over fifty thousand (!) apps now on Facebook I can see how many developers might jump at the opportunity of paying the $375 fee for a chance to stand out of the crowd.

The house that built Windows seems to be really adept at telling the world what it’ll be using in the future. A completely different attitude to Apple’s which prefers keeping everything a secret until you can actually buy it (compare a Gates keynote to a Jobs one to see what we mean) — with that in mind we give you Microsoft’s House of the Future

2009-05-13: W3C will again this year sponsor SVG Open 2009, the 7th international conference on Scalable Vector Graphics, hosted by Google in Mountain View, California on 2-4 October 2009. SVG Open provides an opportunity for designers, developers and implementers to share ideas, experiences, products and strategies. Members of the W3C SVG Working Group will be attending and presenting at the conference, which will include a Working Group panel session on future SVG developments. A day of workshops will also be scheduled adjacent to the main conference. The conference organizers have indicated that proposals for presentation abstracts and course outlines are welcome through 15 May. Learn more about the W3C Graphics Activity. (Permalink)

2009-05-12: Today W3C announces new standards that make it possible to use XML tools to improve the quality of increasingly sophisticated systems and services built from the XML family of standards. Now developers can validate sets of XML documents, either in place, using Service Modeling Language 1.1 (SML), or as a package, using SML Interchange Format 1.1 (SML-IF). Read the press release and testimonials, and learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. (Permalink)

2009-05-12: The eGovernment Interest Group has published a Group Note of Improving Access to Government through Better Use of the Web. This document is an attempt to describe, but not yet solve, the variety of issues and challenges faced by governments in their efforts to apply 21st century capabilities to eGovernment initiatives. It provides examples of existing, applicable open Web standards. Where government needs in the development of eGovernment services are not currently met by existing standards, those gaps are noted. Learn more about the eGovernment Activity. (Permalink)

2009-05-12: The Mobile Web Initiative Test Suites Working Group has published a Group Note of Guidelines for writing device independent tests. As support for Web technologies grows, it is important that tests writers develop test suites that will work as well as possible across devices. This document offers guidance in the form of simple guidelines to follow to create device-independent tests. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative Activity. (Permalink)

2009-05-12: The Timed Text Working Group has published a Working Draft of Timed Text (TT) Authoring Format 1.0 – Distribution Format Exchange Profile (DFXP). Timed text is textual information that is intrinsically or extrinsically associated with timing information. The timed text authoring format is a content type that represents timed text media for the purpose of interchange among authoring systems. The Distribution Format Exchange Profile (DFXP) provides a standardized representation of a particular subset of textual information with which stylistic, layout, and timing semantics are associated by an author or an authoring system for the purpose of interchange and potential presentation. Learn more about the Video in the Web Activity. (Permalink)

WordPress listed as one of  “Five Best Journaling Tools” at Lifehacker.

I have some cool news: On Sunday the day after WordCamp San Francisco we’re going to host a WordPress developer day at the Automattic office on Pier 38. It will be Barcamp-style with no pre-announced schedule, but expect more hardcore geek content like heavy WordPress performance optimization, BuddyPress internals, an intro to Erlang, a guide to secure coding, WordPress-as-CMS discussions, and more. If there’s a topic you’d like to lead start thinking about it now, there should be plenty of room for everyone to connect. (Try to keep things local though, we’re not sure how the internet will hold up.)

Annals of Innovation: How David Beats Goliath, from Malcolm Gladwell. A really enjoyable read. Hat tip: Raanan.

2009-05-07: The XHTML2 Working Group has published four Proposed Edited Recommendations:

2009-05-07: The Voice Browser Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of State Chart XML (SCXML): State Machine Notation for Control Abstraction. SCXML is a general-purpose event-based state machine language that may be used in a number of ways, including as a high-level dialog language controlling VoiceXML 3.0's encapsulated speech modules, or as a multimodal control language in the MultiModal Interaction framework. The main differences from the previous draft are (1) a revision of the send and invoke elements and (2) the introduction of Event I/O processors to support them. Learn more about the Voice Browser Activity. (Permalink)