Friday, August 19, 2005

Hear, hear. Its TRUE. It is proven. Key Website Research Highlights Gender Bias: A first-of-its-kind study conducted by experts at the University of Glamorgan has proved that men and women really are poles apart when it comes to what catches their eye on the internet. -- With the internet doubling its size every two to three months, it is now more important than ever for websites to catch the eye of their target market. -- "The statistics are complicated, but there is no doubt about the strength of men and women's preference for sites produced by people of their own sex," said statistician and co-researcher Dr Rod Gunn. And - we learn - the internet favors the eyes of men: Despite the parity of target audience, the results found that 94% of the sites displayed a masculine orientation with just 2% displaying a typically female bias. Does this mean that when I say just like I'm not particularly fond of propelling around in masculine shoes designed for men, I'm not particularly driven to click around in a masculine looking website - I'll finally be taken seriously ...?? [BloggerdyDoc] The linked article had this to say about what kind of websites men supposedly prefer. There's no mention of what women favor. Where visuals are concerned, males favour the use of straight lines (as opposed to rounded forms), few colours in the typeface and background, and formal typography. As for language, they favour the use of formal or expert language with few abbreviations and are more likely to promote themselves and their abilities heavily. This is rather odd, because in my experience websites intended primarily for men (and specifically, teenagers), such as game sites, generally have oddly colored text on a dark background (blue on black and red on black are very popular), are filled with obscure acronyms, and display a command of language that ranges from abysmal down to prehistoric grunting. Perhaps gamer sites are not sufficiently masculine, and the study is actually talking about sites devoted to sports and beer. If so, I can't say how well such sites might fit the list of things that men favour, as I have never been to a site devoted to either topic, and have no interest in changing that. 5:26:58 PM    comment () Curious. Are we really seeing a Doubling in the blogoshpere or have we all began writing secret blogs? [BloggerdyDoc] Perhaps the latter. Besides this site, I have another for my "Clan Lord" character, and often a temporary site that I'm using to test out one tool or another. For example, at the moment I have a third site for playing with the "OPML Editor". 4:45:04 PM    comment () Silicon Valley VC's chime in on RSS's geekiness. Silicon Valley's VC's about RSS: Bill Burnham: RSS: Geeks Only Please. Jeff Clavier: RSS adoption -- let's get rid of the technobabble first. [Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger] Burnham and Clavier make good points. When I first started using Radio, I figured out how to use RSS feeds, but I obviously have more inclination and desire to figure such things out than the average reader. And it certainly wasn't obvious to me what this meant, or how to use it: . 2:27:24 PM    comment () THE CARTOON ADMINISTRATION: DON’T LOOK DOWN. Mr. Cheney discusses foreign policy: Vice President Cheney declared yesterday that the United States "will not relent" in the war in Iraq and will hunt down insurgents there "one at a time if necessary," implicitly rebutting escalating pressure on the Bush administration to bring U.S. troops home. Addressing a friendly audience of combat veterans a day after [...] [The Light Of Reason] If we're actually going to hunt down insurgents "one at a time if necessary," I suppose we'll be in Iraq for several hundred years--especially since future insurgents will be born every day as long as we remain. But what strikes me most is this continuing insistence that "we will not relent"--that we will not lose "our nerve." We've heard this for a very long time now, and will probably hear it for at least several more years. I am still amazed to witness this remarkably primitive version of "masculinity": that even when you are provided monumental amounts of evidence demonstrating you've made an error, it is a confession of "weakness" and of a lack of "manliness" to admit that you've been wrong, and to change course. We've seen the effects of this macho attitude on events within Iraq as well. Let's not forget the the fighting over Fallujah started because some macho idiot decided that it would be a sign of weakness to give peaceful protestors their school back, and ordered his men to fire on them instead. 2:01:46 PM    comment () The America-Hating... Department of Defense?. Here's an absolute jewel (scroll to page 74 of the .pdf):The only way to understand the motivations of an opponent is by having a real understanding of the historical and religious framework that has molded his culture. It is clear that Americans who waged the war and who have attempted to mold the aftermath have had no clear idea of the framework that has molded the personalities and attitudes of Iraqis. Finally, it might help if Americans and their leaders were to show less arrogance and... [Antiwar.com Blog] 12:46:13 AM    comment ()

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