Proper online behavior
January 29th, 2008 | Published in Google Desktop API
I'm sure many of you watched a movie called The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. :) It has a 3-minute scene that deeply impressed me and inspired me to write an article about Proper Online Behavior. In the scene, Gondor lit up beacon after beacon until the message got to Rohan, thus ensuring that the Rohirrim could ride to Gondor's aid. In a low-tech but effective way, this message connected people despite the vast distance that separated them, and triggered both expected and unexpected actions on both sides.
Now let's see how we can learn from that ancient, 1-bit beacon and apply our ideas to third-millennium Desktop gadgets in issues concerning communication, data handling, bandwidth, and much more.