The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University has just released its Media Cloud Dashboard for public use.
The Media Cloud, located at http://www.mediacloud.org is a media aggregation and analysis tool that provides visual snapshot of what words and topics are being written about on the Internet. It allows users to select specific datasets, such as "top 25 mainstream media" or "political blogs - right" as well as specific timeframes to see what words were most often mentioned. Clicking on the word shows each sentence it appeared in within all the individual publications in the dataset.
Even ...
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Updated 05/06/11 @ 01:20PM CDT by brian
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Cool Web Stuff Politics Research Web News
March 08, 2011 10:45 a.m.
Mobile computing is the new frontier of the online world, and Web developers are creating mobile-enabled Web applications that explore this frontier in new and exciting ways. 2010 showed that 3 percent of all Internet browsing activity occurred on mobile browsers, up from 1 percent at the end of 2009. As people put more faith in mobile devices, the impact of security breaches can be all the more devastating. From the perspective of a mobile Web application developer, mobile devices can be an additional entry point into an application. Creating mobile-friendly Web applications with security as a top priority is ...
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Updated 03/08/11 @ 10:45AM CST by jjasinski
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Research Technology Web News
February 11, 2011 12:20 p.m.
According to a new study released in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, 93% of passwords used to safeguard protected health information were cracked utilizing commercially available password cracking software.
The study was conducted by researchers at Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute and the University of Ottawa in Ottawa, Ontario.
The test was conducted using files provided by volunteer stakeholders in 15 clinical trials. And, although the samples were not representative of all clinical trials in Canada, they were "likely examples of trials where the stakeholders were sufficiently comfortable with their security practices."
"In all cases the ...
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Updated 02/11/11 @ 12:20PM CST by brian
Categories:
Healthcare Research Technology Web News
1 Comments
January 17, 2011 1:16 p.m.
Search Engine Optimization Tips for the CMO.
We often receive requests for search engine optimization services. It's an area in which we specialize, and it would be easy to leverage the recent SEO hype and sell into this desire without questioning its motives. But many of the people convinced they need SEO services, don't. Or more specifically, they don't need them yet.
This week we received an inbound inquiry which is a good and typical illustration of this misplaced prioritization.
What is SEO, really?
"We are interested in an aggressive SEO program and possibly a facelift to ...
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Updated 01/17/11 @ 01:16PM CST by brian
Categories:
Business Marketing Research
I always find Jakob Nielsen's usability columns interesting. I rarely disagree with his mostly common sense approach, however I found myself at odds with a recent Alertbox column, entitled "Stop Password Masking."
In a nutshell, he believes the common practice of displaying dots or asterisks when typing in a password to be unnecessary and a usability problem. He says that it causes users to make more password entry errors since they can not visually verify what is being typed. I agree on both counts.
He says that because password entry errors are more likely, users therefore feel less confident ...
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Updated 07/14/10 @ 10:48AM CDT by brian
Categories:
Research Technology User Interface
August 05, 2008 11:16 a.m.
I recently wrote a feature article for eHealthcare Strategy & Trends magazine entitled, "How secure are your Web-based forms?" The article explored what happens after you press the submit button.
It turns out that lots of things can happen - many of them bad.
To clarify, "bad" is the wrong word. "Potential security weaknesses" is a better description. Once the information is whisked away it can be - and probably is - transmitted and stored in clear text.
To be fair, form security is not always needed. Take, for example, our website. Probably not a lot of sensitive or private information you'll be ...
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Updated 07/14/10 @ 11:16AM CDT by brian
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Research Technology
February 05, 2008 11:46 a.m.
Filling out forms on Web sites is commonplace. Whether it is an online job application, an online purchase, information request - they all require Web site visitors to enter information into a form and press the submit button. Some of these - perhaps many - offer the opportunity to share sensitive information. Certainly in the case of an online job application or an online purchase, the form is likely to require some sensitive information.
So, how secure is that sensitive information?
Most people are familiar with the front-line form security - the secure Web page. This is the Web page that contains the form ...
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Updated 07/14/10 @ 11:46AM CDT by brian
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Research Technology
November 27, 2007 11:51 a.m.
Earlier this year the Poynter Instutite for Media Studies released findings from an expansive eye tracking study. The study was focused on newspapers, both print and online.
The findings of the study broke some longstanding assumptions on how Web site visitors interact with a newspaper site. Specifically:
Online readers read more of a story than print readers.
On average, online readers read through 77% of an article, versus 62% for broadsheet readers an for tabloid readers.
Only half of online readers scanned.
Half of online readers scanned pages, while the other half were methodical in their reading style.
Navigation trumped ...
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Updated 07/14/10 @ 11:51AM CDT by brian
Categories:
Research
September 19, 2007 11:55 a.m.
Every once in a while I have a few minutes to review industry research and I visited a terrific resource that I had bookmarked long ago and quickly forgotten. The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication is a peer-reviewed Internet journal that contains some deep and informative research papers.
To wit, a study released in the January 2006 issue goes into great depth about click habits as they relate to positioning. In short, two experiments demonstrate an increased tendency for visitors to click on the first and the last links in a list.
The entire study, Primacy and Recency Effects on Clicking ...
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Updated 07/14/10 @ 11:55AM CDT by brian
Categories:
Research User Interface
Imaginary Landscape
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