Max Kiesler – Designer

Over the course of the last week I’ve been working on a major overhaul to my website. You may have noticed some issues, however, most if not all updating has been completed now. The overhaul included switching my site to a new platform. This meant lots of redirected url’s including all site pages, permalinks, and rss feeds. If you have linked to me in the past all of your permalinks should be working. If you find an issue with any of my permalinks please let me know via my contact form and I’ll change them immediately. Also, all of my feed links have been updated. If you subscribe to my feedburner feeds you should notice no difference in your content. If you subscribe to any of my blogs via rss 1.0, 2.0 or atom all of your feeds have been redirected to my new rss 2.0 feed. You could also use the subscribe links at the top of the sidebar to re-subscribe to my feedburner feeds.

Read more

Ideacodes is delighted to be working as a design partner for Adaptive Path, a leading user experience firm in San Francisco.

Ideacodes is pleased to be working with Matt Mullenweg and Automattic, the company behind WordPress, Akismet, bbPress and other fine web services.

Thanks to MashupAwards for awarding Twitterverse the mashup of the day. Twitterverse is an Ideacodes Labs project which provides a visualization of the most commonly used words in a given time period from the Twitter public timeline. MashupAwards is a hand-picked showcase of the best web mashups based on uniqueness, creativity, utility, content and user experience.

Ideacodes had the pleasure of working with Howard Rheingold on his new video blog, vlog.rheingold.com. In Howard’s words: “It all started when I started thinking about updating A Slice of Life in My Virtual Community, which I wrote twenty years ago. It didn’t take long to realize that a description of how I spend my time online these days would be conveyed more effectively via video/screencast than plain text.” Howard Rheingold is “one of the world’s most foremost authorities on the social implications of technology. He was the first Executive Editor of HotWired, an editor of the Whole Earth Catalog, and one of the founders of Electric Minds. He’s also credited with inventing the term “virtual community” and the author of Smart Mobs, “widely acclaimed as a prescient forecast of the always-on era.” We greatly enjoyed implementing Howard’s unique design into a video blog.

Max Kiesler and Emily Chang’s proposed SXSW panel, Social Design Strategies, has been selected for SXSW 2008. The panel description: “Now that social networking is quickly becoming a regular feature set, designers need to understand the dynamics of designing experiences that encourage social behavior, while giving individuals a sense of privacy, personal gain, and ownership. How do you create a symbiotic relationship that maximizes discovery, game-play, connections and communication? We’ll examine a breadth of examples and explore their pros and cons.” The SXSW Interactive Festival takes place in Austin from March 7 – 11, 2008 and features five days of programming about the latest in technology. “Attracting digital creatives as well as visionary technology entrepreneurs, the event celebrates the best minds and the brightest personalities of emerging technology.”

Ideacodes is proud to be featured in Netdiver’s highly selective portfolio section and What’s New. Netdiver, created by the extraordinary Carole Guevin, is a digital culture magazine that’s been going strong for over a decade. It’s “one of the pioneering new media portals devoted to tutoring, empowering and stimulating creativity as well as excellence in design projects by the international community involved in the design industry and beyond.” Carole writes: “Ideacodes is an award-winning strategic design consultancy in San Francisco who create social applications, concept-driven websites, web products, integrated marketing, and sustainable technology solutions and was co-founded by Emily Chang and Max Kiesler, a multiple-listing Netdiver alumni.” Thanks to Carole for the honor.

Ideacodes is pleased to announce that we’re working with Richard MacManus, editor and founder of Read/WriteWeb, to redesign the user interface, provide brand and identity refinements, and create new XHTML/CSS for Movable Type 4 integration. Read/WriteWeb is a leading weblog that provides web technology news, reviews and analysis, and is ranked among Technorati’s Top 30 blogs in the world. It’s also the lead blog in the Read/WriteWeb Network, a growing network of blogs about web technology, which include last100, AltSearchEngines, and Read/WriteTalk.

Save the North Shore is a volunteer, non-profit website devoted to preserving the environment and culture of the North Shore, O’ahu, and raising awareness about the proposed expansion plans. This site was created as a labor of love by Ideacodes. Our hope is to raise awareness about current situation in the North Shore, to support the work of Keep the North Shore Country and the Defend Oahu Coalition, and to provide resources for anyone to take action. Please visit the site to learn more.

In Idea To Execution: The Team Behind Twitterverse at Wired’s Epicenter blog, Adario Strange writes: “Snooping around the web I found this interesting early idea sketch from the creators of Twitterverse (see below). Over the weekend I got in touch with web designer and Twitterverse co-creator Emily Chang of Ideacodes for an explanation…”I did the sketch in March as my partner, Max Kiesler, and I were debating a Twitter mashup called Twitterverse.com. It’s an experiment we’re doing in our free time to mine and archive the public timeline show popular words and phrases from Twitter.” See the post at Wired.

Thanks to Michael Calore of wired.com for featuring my post ” Round-up of 30 AJAX Tutorials ” on Webmonkey’s blog Monkey Bites.

Ideacodes co-founder, Max Kiesler, has launched a new project called DesignDemo, which features interaction demos from new web 2.0 applications and services. Within a day of its launch, DesignDemo was feautred on del.icio.us popular with several hundred bookmarks.

Ideacodes has been working with BlogHer, the leading destination online for women’s opinions and activities, to redesign and enhance the user experience of the site. As the only women’s blog network, BlogHer creates opportunities for women bloggers to seek greater exposure, education, community and economic empowerment, and has more than 7,400 blogs listed. We’re delighted to be working with BlogHer co-founders, Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort, and Jory Des Jardins, and the BlogHer community on this new version.

GigaOM, the leading tech blog network founded by our client and friend, Om Malik, has launched a redesign based on feedback solicited in December 2006. As Om writes, “We made notes, and have been diligently trying to put that into practice.” See Om’s post for details, and stay tuned for continued refinements and enhancements.

Ideacodes co-founders, Emily Chang and Max Kiesler will be at the SXSW Interactive Conference coming up March 9-13, 2007. Emily was invited by Tom Markiewicz, CEO of EvolvePoint, to be part of the “Using RSS for Marketing” panel scheduled for Sunday, March 11, 2007 from 10-11am. Emily is looking for feedback on current trends in RSS. If you’ll be at SXSW and would like to meet up, please send us a note as we’re planning to have a get together sometime during the conference. See you in Austin!

Ideacodes has been working with Joost Schreve, CEO of EveryTrail, on the UI design for the first version release. EveryTrail is a free online platform that enables active travelers and outdoor enthusiasts of all kinds to visualize and share trips using GPS data, digital photos and location-based notes overlaid on interactive maps. Users are able to upload GPS data and the service automatically plots waypoints and tracks onto a map. You can add photos, notes, and other details to customize your trip. Sign up for EveryTrail to try it for yourself. Also see eHub Interviews EveryTrail to learn more.

Vox, Six Apart’s new blog service, launched today. Vox puts the emphasis on personal blogging and sharing with friends and family. It features advanced privacy controls, a stunning variety of unique themes, powerful integration with other services like Flickr, YouTube, and more. “Blogging is fun again…” Ideacodes is pleased to have designed the Bunnylicious and Zen blog themes for Vox.

Ideacodes redesigns the newly launched GigaOM.com, an online news and weblog published by Giga Omni Media Inc., a San Franciso-based company that delivers technology news, analysis and opinions on topics ranging from broadband to online games and Web 2.0 to a monthly global audience of 500,000 consumers and professionals interested in the world of hi-tech. Giga Omni Media, Inc. is founded and led by executive editor, Om Malik, an award-winning journalist. Before launching his own publishing venture, Om was a senior writer for Business 2.0 magazine covering telecom and broadband stories.

Ideacodes has been working on the corporate site for Sapotek Inc., the company that created the first Web-based desktop of its kind in Spanish, Computadora.de, as well as the launch of a new enhanced version of its world class desktop in English, Desktoptwo. Update: Sapotek was also featured in this month’s (August 2006) Business 2.0 magazine in its issue “31 Best Business Ideas in the World.” Congratulations, Josh and Oscar!

In the last 20 hours I’ve received over 12,000 unique visitors, 957 diggs and 495 bookmarks in del.icio.us to my post, “How to Make Your AJAX Applications Accessible – 40 Tutorials and Articles”. Special thanks to Kevin Rose of Digg for submitting my story to his awesome website!