One of the reasons that I like having my own webspace, or at least space that is slightly borrowed and offers freedom for a decent cost, is that I can continue to iterate on ideas and thoughts until I’m satisfied. In a real sense, make my own classroom and lesson plan when I do things like this. That’s one of the reasons that I’ve been going down the idea of a digital business card/landing page, and over the course of the past days, I’ve been playing with the idea of a redesign – one that doesn’t really have much in the way of design.
When I think back to not just this digital business card/landing page idea, but even of my many websites before them, it was always about putting forward a stream of information in a manner that at least (a) made it seem like I was halfway interesting, and (b) give me something to look back and consider when I have those more reflective moments. Version 6 of this toying around with this idea further expands on this, but also finds some roots in the thoughts I’ve been having in terms of making myself the web service.
So far, or at least as far as being awake a 3:45AM will let me go, I’m taking some ideas from Dave Winer’s excellent concept of a River of news in order to display information. Because I also have another private project where I’m trying to create my own RSS reader (something in the mold of Russell Beattie’s project), I wanted to do something that pushed that project forward and at least gave me something to think about in terms of my goals with both.
At least as things stand right now, nothing is live except the changed background/AR image, I’m looking to get rid of the CSS3 rounded corners and shading, and replace that with a compiled RSS of my various entities using a service called RSS Mix. Now, if I were Winer or Beattie, I’d be able to build my own RSS glue and do some other neat things, but I’m better able to take existing pieces and knit them into something else, so that’s what I did here (again).
Where I’m not as confident is in how I will leverage AR this time around. Previously, I had the AR image on the computer screen, but that makes almost no sense. AR enablers have to happen offline and then leverage what works best online. I’ve yet to get the phone skin to take advantage of that, or do anything substantial with a physical business card, but that’s really something that needs to be nailed down here.
Another thing that I’d like to see happen here is the affixing of some automation and contextualization when people visit the site, or click in a certain area. For example, to be able to tell the different in a click between someone who wants to send an email and someone who visits just to download my vCard. That’s something that I need to nail down.
I’ve got some time though. I’m literally sketching in code and making it work as I come up with it. To that end, its no less the canvas that what I’ve already been using. Perhaps I’ll see the real picture in time, just as what has happened with previous iterations.
blog.arjw 