openpolitics.com

Take Google, Facebook and Twitter, for example. Those companys’ consumers and customers are different populations. The consumers are the users. The customers are the advertisers. In fact, our consumption is what’s sold to advertisers. “If it’s free, then you’re the product,” the saying goes. It’s not exactly right, but it’s close enough to make some points, one of which is that your influence on those companies is far less than it would be if you were paying for services rather than merely using (or consuming) them.

Although psychology has always been one of the three major fields with a ‘stake’ in hypertext, this interest has often been manifested through the applied field of human-computer interaction (HCI) or human factors.

.. As even non-psychologists have occasionally noted, psychological problems are often more responsible for the failure of effective system use than technical problems.

It’s tricky to maintain this kind of thing over the long haul. There’s a great book by Will Kaufman called “The Comedian as Confidence Man,” which examines the careers of American satirists from Mark Twain to Lenny Bruce, and finds that nearly all of them eventually succumb to what Kaufman calls “irony fatigue.” This arises, he says, from the frustration that comes from trying to engage in sincere social or political critique while having to maintain that one is “only kidding” in order to continue to be heard. If Colbert suddenly “turned serious” — owned up to having a sincere purpose — he would no longer be granted the kind of indulgence he gets as a comedian.

Maybe it’s as Travolta told me: Actors like himself and Jackson go see their own movies to see themselves invested onscreen with all those human qualities they fear they don’t possess themselves.

There are no lack of Bluetooth keyboards for the iPad, but the newest Kickstarter project is most impressive. Called Brydge, the wireless keyboard makes the iPad look more like a MacBook Air than anything I’ve seen yet. Backing starts at $150 and the project will fund if it tops $90,000 by June 4.