Take Note, Facebook: How Colleges Are Training Designers To Treat Users Like More Than Lab Rats

Students at MIT, Stanford, and elsewhere are learning to build technology products with user well-being in mind.Facebook sparked outrage this summer when it published results of a study conducted on unwitting users. The study looked at whether people who were shown more positive or negative words in friends' posts would write more positive or negative words themselves, apparently without considering the ethics of manipulating users' emotions. (Indeed, users shown more negative words were more negative in their posts and vice versa.) "Was this designed to create maximum benefits for the end user? I can't really see that anywhere in that research," says Marc Smith, a sociologist who spent 10 years as a researcher at Microsoft. "Where is it saying, 'This is how we will now deal with people who are borderline depressed, we're going to start steering them toward happier stuff?'"Read Full Story Continue reading at 'Fast Company'

[ Fast Company | 2014-11-10 00:00:00 UTC ]

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BEA 2015: Early Favorites for Young Readers

As booksellers, librarians, and publishers descended on the Javits Center for the first full day of BookExpo America, there was strong early interest across all age ranges and genres, including adult books with YA crossover and vice versa. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-05-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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CUP extends OA at LBF

Cambridge University Press has boosted its Open Access (OA) programme to monographs, after launching a new service at the London Book Fair this week. The OA Monograph Publishing Service will enable CUP authors to print Gold OA monographs (which are freely available to the end user) for books of... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2015-04-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon Kindle Textbook Creator turns authors into teachers (and vice versa)

While ebooks are everywhere, electronic textbooks never really caught on, despite their potential to bring immersive learning at a lower cost. Amazon is trying to change that with the Kindle Textbook Creator, a free app from its newly formed Kindle ... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2015-01-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Take Note, Facebook: How Colleges Are Training Designers To Treat Users Like More Than Lab Rats

Students at MIT, Stanford, and elsewhere are learning to build technology products with user well-being in mind.Facebook sparked outrage this summer when it published results of a study conducted on unwitting users. The study looked at whether people who were shown more positive or negative... Continue reading at Fast Company

[ Fast Company | 2014-11-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Consumer Trust Still the Biggest Hurdle for Native Advertisers

Not all content is equal -- at least when it comes to trust.A new study conducted by Nielsen on behalf of InPowered, a technology startup, found that consumers are actually quite sophisticated in how they utilize different sources in the buying process. And they, in fact, favor third-party... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2014-03-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Is an X Factor for novelists a good idea?

A literary talent show is about to be aired in Italy, but is television the right place to nurture literary talent?Jonny Geller, agent and joint CEO, Curtis BrownAn X Factor for books is about to launch on Italian TV – it had to be Italian, didn't it? – and you can imagine the literati running... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2013-11-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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No More Late News: Financial Times Moves to One Print Edition Daily

The Financial Times will consolidate the multiple print editions it publishes each night into a single, global newspaper in the first half of 2014, using its website for breaking news as the publisher focuses on growth in digital products and perhaps sets the stage for eventual further... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2013-10-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Study: Sharing Twice as Likely to Happen on Mobile Devices than Desktops

A study conducted by ShareThis found that mobile devices are much more popular than desktops for sharing content. ShareThis tracked social activity across 2.4 million sites in its network, and found that consumers are nearly twice as likely to click and share content through mobile devices... Continue reading at Folio Magazine

[ Folio Magazine | 2013-07-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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London Book Fair 2011: Going Global

In 2009, the number of self-published books released in the US exceeded the number of new titles from conventional publishers for the first time in history. Now, a similar pattern is emerging overseas. Until recently, costly transatlantic shipping, different trim sizes and business models, and... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-04-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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