KOKOGIAK.com

Most Recent Projects

• Amazon Light 4.0
  Based on Amazon Webservices release 4.0, this adds wishlist searching and ties into a number of other web apps.
• King Kong - Business Monkey
  An overview of recent massive marketing/merchandising push associated with the new Universal Movie.
• Delicious Linkbacks
  a bookmarklet to track what delicious users are saying about a particular page
• Google Maps Transparencies
  two maps overlayed on top of each other, with the topmost map being slightly transparent
• Cassini at Saturn
  my curated space imagery Photoset on Flickr - thanks to NASA/JPL

Webservices / API / Mashups

• Amazon Light
• Washington Post Current Events Booklist
  a dynamically updated Booklist based on Word Bursts in the WP

Popular Projects

• The MegaPenny Project
  Have you ever wondered what a billion pennies would look like? This award-winning exercise in visualizing huge numbers might help. People regularly talk about millions of miles, billions of bytes, or trillions of dollars, yet it's still hard to grasp just how much a "billion" really is.
• MegaFauna
  A List of Remarkable Prehistoric Animals - From the Mammoth to the Sabretooth to bizarre Chalicotheres - a collection of 30 large, extinct, prehistoric mammals.
• Seattle Waterfront 2002-1907
  Two panoramic photographs of the waterfront of Seattle, Washington, taken from the same vantage point - 95 years apart

Amateur Armchair Detective & Older Projects

• King Kong - Business Monkey
  An overview of recent massive marketing/merchandising push associated with the new Universal Movie.
• The Incredible$
  An overview of the massive marketing/merchandising push associated with the new Pixar Movie.

Books, Talks and Writing

• Google Maps Hacks (by Schuyler Erle & Rich Gibson)
  I contributed one hack - an A9.com images/Google Maps mashup
• Yahoo Hacks (by Paul Bausch)
  I contributed two hacks - an image replacer toy and a reverse-link lookup tool
• Amazon Hacks (by Paul Bausch)
  I contributed one hack - an in-page amazon search tool in javascript

Older Webtoys/Widgets/DHTML

Online History / Mini-portfolio

Hello blog folks, it's been a while. One year to be exact... one long crazy year. This time last year, I announced my project called The Big Picture, hoping, of course, that it would do well. It has really blown me away how well it has done. I will happily take some of the credit, but much of the success belongs to the photographers who consistently deliver amazing imagery that makes choosing and editing both a pleasure and a difficult task.

Now, it's been a year, so I'll take some time to look at the good and the bad. (Warning, this is a bit long). I'll start out with some of the bad, just to get it out of the way.

It's a cliche, but be careful what you wish for. If The Big Picture had flopped as a blog, it would have been much easier to walk away from or take a lax attitude towards things. The more popular it got and more it was praised, I felt that much more need to keep it as good and consistent as I could... That's stressful (first world problems, I know). Add to the mix another fulltime job (my web developer position with the Boston Globe, which is still my primary job), some deadline-driven projects, exponential growth in comment moderation (I approve all the blog comments myself, 91,000 in all so far), a full email inbox, and the constant need to be thinking ahead two or three entries, plus the whole "NY Times threatens to close down the Globe" storyline, and, well, I had a bit of a stress freakout a few weeks ago.

I took some steps to fix certain aspects, let go of some unnecessary baggage, and have been getting a lot of help and support, and things feel a whole lot more manageable now. I especially needed to step back and get my life back into balance (I swung way too far in one direction). I don't spend every night combing through wire photos now, and don't obsessively check comments, and don't stress if I can't answer an email immediately. All in all, I feel much better now than I did a month or two ago. It's got to be this way if I plan to continue long-term with the blog, which I do.

Now, for some of the good. This project has been the most fulfilling and rewarding thing I've ever done professionally. When I'm compiling an entry, gathering the photographs, trying to fit them into a cohesive story, it can often be a very emotional experience. More than once, I've found myself in tears when looking at rough layout of an entry for the first time (that's always a good sign that the entry will be powerful). I really feel like I've tried to take the best advantage I can of this platform I find myself on: 165,000 Google Reader RSS subscriptions, tens of thousands of daily bookmark visitors, Twitter-powered ripple effects, frequent top spots on Digg and Reddit.

I know that it's not me, Alan Taylor they are all interested in - it's the story, the photographs, the "what will it be this time?", the virtual travelogue, the amazing, the sad - the world, wrapped into one story - 30 or 40 photographs to linger on, react to, wonder about. I take that pretty seriously, and try to handle it with care. I hate being manipulated, and try not to run news photo stories from a single source (especially government sources). I also try not to cover the most obvious stories (except when I do cover them). When I run entries on areas of serious conflict, I try to make it as balanced as is possible, sometimes, it's nearly impossible (notice I've not yet done a comparative Israel/Palestine entry).

160 entries later, I think the blog is its own best testament to the level of fairness and diversity in subject matter I've tried to maintain, and I'm proud of that. The success and visibility of the blog has brought a great number of people into my life I would never have known: cancer survivors and the families of those who have lost their battles with cancer, some amazing, generous photographers, both professional and amateur, some great people at NASA, many wonderful everyday people from many corners of the world and believers of many faiths (and non-believers). I am thankful to (almost) every one of them. There are of course, the spoilsports, the trolls of every flavor, and, the blog comment spammers (who deserve a special circle in Hell), but they really are few, and don't spoil too much.

When I say the work is fulfilling, it's not just because it makes me feel good when I hit "publish", it's because of the tremendous and powerful feedback I get in email and comments - words that make me realize the impact the blog can have. For instance, when I ran an entry about Ramadan, I got many heartfelt emails from Muslims living abroad that felt cut off from home and the traditions they grew up with - who found such solace and happiness in the entry, and expressed surprise that such a positive photo story would run in a Western publication. When I feel like I can do some good, to be helpful, that's the most worthwhile. If, by showing photographs, I can help someone like James Nachtwey spread awareness of XDR-TB, drug resistant tuberculosis, and the Hell it's causing amongst HIV-positive patients in poorer nations - or can help humanize some banal news headline like "refugees in the Congo", or bring to the forefront dazzling images from some of our best scientists -- those are the best times.

Aside from the stress of the labor itself and everything else I complained about above, there's one other stress that's harder to quantify - emotional. I've never been on such a constant emotional rollercoaster, storylines like goofballs chasing a roll of cheese down a hill one day followed up by teenagers with assault rifles killing each other the next day. I've had to step out of my comfort zone many times to contact others and ask permission to run their (sometimes very personal) photos, or to take efforts to promote myself, which never comes easy. Also, my access to the raw wire photos has altered my point of view about human nature itself a bit, in a negative way. Daily exposure to thousands of uncensored journalistic photographs has exposed me to levels of brutality that I wasn't fully prepared for, and still have trouble processing sometimes. Civilian population centers that are also war zones make for really disturbing - if moving - photographs. I think you know what I mean. I choose to show a handful of these photos when I think it makes a point without being gratuitous, but that's always hard call.

However, I'm still amazed by the overall situation I find myself in - and am thankful to my lovely wife and kids who keep me sane and grounded. When I recently showed off a photo of me in the latest issue of PDN magazine, my daughter ran around the house yelling "Papa's famous!". Realizing how that might resound badly around the schoolyard, I told her that I was by no means famous, but might be "Internet Famous", and explained the difference, which she readily accepted.

Where will things be in another year? Who knows - it's a volatile world out there, especially for newspapers. I will do my best to keep going, mostly because, at the heart of it all, I really, truly enjoy finding, compiling and sharing these photo stories. I have plans, some small, some larger, which may see the light of day soon, or not - I'm still remembering to take things a little easier, enjoy balance, and not sweat the small stuff.

Thanks everyone for your support - you know who you are.

-Alan

26 Comments +

I'm happy to announce the launch of a new project of mine, one that lives not on my own domain, but that of my employer, boston.com. It's called The Big Picture, a news photo blog inspired by publications like Life Magazine (of old), National Geographic, and online experiences like MSNBC.com's Picture Stories galleries and Brian Storm's MediaStorm.

The Big Picture is intended to highlight high-quality, amazing imagery - with a focus on current events, lesser-known stories and, well, just about anything that comes across the wire that looks really interesting. Each entry will be made up of anywhere from 6-18 photographs, tied together through some common narrative.

My first experiences with serious online photojournalism came back when I was a developer at msnbc.com back in 1996-97. I've always loved hanging around with the creative groups, designers, writers, editors. That's where I first met Brian Storm and his team, and was really struck by their commitment to quality, and how much difference their selection and presentation of photographs really made - far better than anything else available online at the time. I've held that level of commitment as a standard of mine for a long time.

The photography on The Big Picture comes from many sources, largely wire feeds of AP, Reuters, Getty and more. The stories are of my own choosing, sometimes they are the stories defined by the photographer, sometimes they are related in other ways, but every entry has a story threaded through it.

The sizes of the photographs are deliberately large - taking advantage of the majority of web users who have screens capable of displaying 1024x768 or larger. The long-held tradition of keeping images online tiny and lightweight is commendable still - when designing a general purpose site. But one dedicated to quality imagery should take full advantage of the medium, and I hope I've struck a good balance with The Big Picture.

When I see quality photography consigned to the archives, or when I see bandwidth readily given up to video streams of dubious quality, or when I see photo galleries that act as ad farms, punishing viewers into a click-click-click experience just to drive page views - those times are the times I'm glad I was able to get this project off the ground (many thanks to my friends within boston.com)

And the thing that makes me happiest about it - I'm telling stories once again, on a regular basis, with great support and great platform. I hope you enjoy The Big Picture - go check it out.

20 Comments +

I set out to find the longest distance for which Google Maps would give Driving Directions. Now that they've shut down the fun "swim the Atlantic" feature, things have changed a bit. It turns out there are multiple "longest drives", because the Google Maps World is partitioned (many countries don't support driving directions), and sometimes ferries are included, and sometimes they are not.

In order of distance, here are the seven longest drives I found. If you can better any of them, please add yours to the comments (please use TinyURL to shorten up the giant URLs).

North America, Unalaska, AK, USA to Southern Newfoundland, Canada - 7,267 mi (11,695 km) - about 6 days 15 hours - 100 steps

Europe - West Canary Islands, Spain to Hammingberg, Norway - 4,425 mi (7,122 km) - about 4 days 8 hours - 156 steps

Brazil - Northern Amazon Basin, Para to Chui, Rio Grande do Sul - 3,719 mi (5,985 km) - about 3 days 5 hours - 100 steps

Australia - Cape Bruny, Tasmania to Mardie, Western Australia - 3,474 mi (5,591 km) - about 3 days 4 hours - 93 steps

Japan - Soya, Hokkaido to Tomai, Kagoshima Prefecture - 1,480 mi (2,382 km) - about 1 day, 12 hours - 10 steps (mostly by train)

New Zealand - Cape Reinga to Milford Sound - 1,400 mi (2,253 km) - about 1 day 8 hours - 205 steps

Hong Kong - Shek Pik to Wu kau Tang - 48 mi (77.3 km) - about 1 hour 28 mins - 20 steps

21 Comments +

One of the advantages of working on a website that gets a fair amount of readership is the visibility of that traffic and what it says about the browser usage of the general population. My day job is with boston.com, which has a moderately large level of traffic (Alexa rank of 1,591, fwiw). Being a general news site with inbound links from really diverse sources, I'd like to think that we get a good representative cross-section of the web at large. My management was kind enough to allow me to share some numbers, giving a look at what web browsers people are using today, compared with a year ago.

Top line assessments: IE still rules. As of January, 2008, IE7 and IE6 each have a 34% share of our users (with IE7 barely ahead). Add in all other various IE versions in our top 20, and IE usage is still well over 70% (even though it's down from 76% one year ago). Firefox 2.0 jumped from 6.63% in Jan 2007 to 20.21% in Jan 2008. Gecko-based browsers (FF, Mozilla, Netscape) are now used by almost 22% of our audience, compared with 18% last year.

Interestingly, there appears to be some consolidation as well. The top 4 browsers from Jan 2008 (IE7,IE6,FF2,Saf3) combined make up 93% of our audience - In 2007, the top 4 (IE6,IE7,FF1.5,FF2) made up only 87%.

Safari 3, which wasn't even in existence in January 2007, has rocketed into the top 4 in less than a year. Overall Safari usage (all versions) grew a bit, and now is 6.12%, compared with 4.66% last year. Notably, Safari 3 for iPhone (and iPod Touch) is now our 11th most-popular browser.

So, the story for January 2007 - January 2008 is: IE7 is very slowly overtaking IE6 (after a year and a half, 7 has barely overtaken 6). But those leaving IE6 are not all moving on to IE7 - IE overall share is down by 6%, Firefox usage is up by 13% and Safari usage is up by 2%.

What does this mean - especially for those of us building websites daily? Well, using Yahoo's A-Grade browser support page as a guideline, over 98% of our users are now visiting with A-grade browsers. However, I can't overlook the fact that browser number 20 on our list from Jan 2008 (19,843 visitors) is Netscape navigator 4.0 - a browser that is now over ten(!) years old.

The charts and graphs below are what I used to compile this, enjoy.

Jan 2008 - 23,883,906 visitors
Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0	8,214,261	34.39%
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0	8,163,282	34.18%
Mozilla Firefox 2.0	4,827,865	20.21%
Safari 3.0.4	1,042,383	4.36%
Safari 2.0.4	236,659	0.99%
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 (AOL)	171,302	0.72%
None (Scrapers)	143,027	0.60%
Microsoft MSN Explorer 9.0	127,728	0.53%
Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1	113,888	0.48%
Safari 1.3.2	102,797	0.43%
Safari 3.0 (iPhone)	94,767	0.40%
Netscape Navigator 3.0	84,651	0.35%
Mozilla (Gecko) 1.8	56,120	0.23%
Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0	53,540	0.22%
Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7	51,420	0.22%
Mozilla Firefox (unknown version)	36,204	0.15%
Netscape Navigator 7.2	30,996	0.13%
Microsoft MSN Explorer	30,986	0.13%
Mozilla Firefox 1.0	28,949	0.12%
Netscape Navigator 4.0	19,843	0.08%

(Chart below shows top 13 browsers rolled up into major versions)

Jan 2007 - 20,669,104 visitors
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0	10,824,878	52.37%
Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0	4,254,413	20.58%
Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0	1,680,501	8.13%
Mozilla Firefox 2.0	1,369,394	6.63%
Safari 2.0.4	722,460	3.50%
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 (AOL)	379,392	1.84%
Safari 1.3.2	190,176	0.92%
Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7	163,895	0.79%
Microsoft MSN Explorer	139,466	0.67%
Mozilla (Gecko) (unknown version)	106,286	0.51%
Mozilla Firefox 1.0	86,828	0.42%
None	81,938	0.40%
Netscape Navigator 7.2	79,476	0.38%
Netscape Navigator 8.1	52,727	0.26%
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5	51,004	0.25%
Safari 2.0.3	49,798	0.24%
Mozilla Firefox 1.0.6	47,716	0.23%
America Online Browser 1.1	42,427	0.21%
Mozilla Firefox 1.0.4	34,039	0.16%
Netscape Navigator 7.1	31,629	0.15%

(Chart below shows top 13 browsers rolled up into major versions)

5 Comments +

This is the year of creation. My year of output. Recently, my life has been heavily unbalanced, and the swing back to balance is underway. There are so, so many ways to get quality media these days (I hate the term "media" in this case, but what better all-encompassing term is there for books, stories, music, news, movies, podcasts, TV shows, blogs, art, audiobooks, and more). Using an RSS reader, TiVo, iTunes, iPod, Netflix and more, I've achieved a constant stream of high-quality information and entertainment - way more than I actually have time to process, let alone enjoy or savor. And, my daily media consumption has grown way out of proportion with my level of output.

I need to turn this time around, and get back some balance by increasing my time spent both contemplating and producing. I have too many ideas and too many opportunities to keep on the back burner for so long - time to move them back up front.

Today, I turn 40 years old, so what better time to take stock of one's life, what one wants to do with their life. My personal life is fantastic - my family has brought me a kind of wealth I could not have imagined 20 years ago. Professionally though, I feel like there is room for improvement. In my 40 years, I've had over 30 different jobs. The ones that I enjoyed the most, that were the most fulfilling, all involved storytelling. I discovered long ago a real love for storytelling, and have practiced it in many different ways (oral, digital, print, video, graphic, more) - all very satisfying. This is my central passion and I need to keep nurturing it, and I will.

My day job is still with boston.com (The Boston Globe), and I love that I can be involved with storytelling at some level there. In the past, it was a bit difficult because of my specific role there, but recently things have been changing, and there will be more opportunity for me to nurture that passion at work as well.

In a way, deciding to increase my output into the world of storytelling is just choosing to heap more media onto the global pile. But the inspiration isn't so much the quantity of stories available, it's the quality. In recent months especially, I've been truly enjoying a couple of podcasts - This American Life, and WNYC's Radio Lab. Every time I listen to an episode of This American Life, I am moved - I wonder what my fellow commuters must think when the see me get teary-eyed on the train. Every time I listen to an episode of Radio Lab, I learn something I never knew before, and I learn it in a way that's entertaining and impactful. Both shows are tightly produced, well put-together, and thoroughly engrossing. They both inspire me to do the same thing - to tell stories that move, that inform, that engross... stories that have value, and live beyond a single telling.

I've been trying to brainstorm ways of lending emotional impact to scientific exploration - trying to figure out how to take that deep "WOW" feeling you get in your head when you learn some incredible fact about the Universe and put some of that Wow in your heart at the same time.

Thanks to those of you (writers, bloggers, artists, daydreamers, performers, journalists, and more) who have been producing so much good work lately. I've been an avid consumer and admirer, and will continue to be - just one with a little less time, (so I'll be even more picky). Here's wishing you well in 2008, may this year smile on us all.

8 Comments +

For the many (yes many) people who asked, I've finally created a purchaseable poster version of the 88 known objects in our Solar System that are larger than 200 miles in diameter.

You can purchase the poster here, through Zazzle.com. The poster (huge size recommended) is 6 inches tall by 52 inches wide. One caveat - I haven't created a poster with Zazzle before, but have heard that their image quality is good. Let me know if you order one, and have any troubles.

2 Comments +

Jeffrey Zeldman and the folks at ALA have just announced an interesting - and I feel - long-needed Web Design Survey. Don't be put off by the title if you're more of a developer than designer. It may as well be titled "Web Professional Survey". Quoting from the survey introduction sums things up well:

"Designers, developers, project managers. Writers and editors. Information architects and usability specialists. People who make websites have been at it for more than a dozen years, yet almost nothing is known, statistically, about our profession. Who are we? Where do we live? What are our titles, our skills, our educational backgrounds? Where and with whom do we work? What do we earn? What do we value?"

I've been earning a living as a fulltime employee doing nothing but web work for over 12 years now, and I still feel like the industry in general is viewed as immature, ill-defined, and often trivialized. Making content for the Web these days is easy (as it should be) Striving to do it well, in a scalable, usable, semantic, elegant and interesting way is difficult, and deserves encouragement and recognition. Surveys like this might help us (and others) see ourselves as a whole, or, as a part of a larger movement toward craftsmanship on the World Wide Web.

1 Comments +