Google Makes Awesome Happen – Web Fonts API

google open font apiGoogle is awesome. The company has been redefining the word — a popular exclamatory for things far less breathtaking during my adolescence — as often as it customizes its logo over the past dozen years.

This week’s Google I/O keynote fiesta brought plenty of big, exciting, game-changing announcements, but nothing more immediately exciting to me than the launch of the Google Font API (Read Google’s blogpost). Suddenly adding sleek, new fonts to any web page is as easy as visiting the Google Font Directory, copying, pasting, and voila.

There are a few key reasons why I’m so excited about this and I’ll elaborate a bit below:

  1. The fonts are all open source-licensed
  2. It works on all current browsers (cross-platform)
  3. The fonts are cool and the possibilities are endless

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Privacy Concerns and Social Networks

myspace facebook privacyIt was refreshing to see MySpace break out of its relative silence this week with a note addressing user privacy settings on social networks. Good to see you again MySpace, though we sometimes forget you’re still around we’re no longer threatening to delete our long-nascent profiles en masse or anything like that.

MySpace served itself well by publishing the note MySpace Empowers Users With New, Simpler Privacy Setting in outlining the company’s ethos and it’s mission to enable both discovery and self-expression for users since its inception in 2003.

But MySpace’s memo falls short on definition and lacks any sort of road map (beyond “in the coming weeks…”) to give users the “we’re in this together” feeling that Facebook so often overlooks. And it’s more than 3 weeks after the Facebook open graph-api-privacy hubbub broke out. Facebook privacy concerns made headlines again on May 5 when a glitch that provided access to some users’ private information was uncovered (and allegedly patched within hours).

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The National Go Live on Vevo / YouTube for Red Hot

And you were wondering just what D. A. Pennebaker‘s been up to, eh? I watched much of this live on Vevo’s YouTube channel specific to this show – great quality at 1080p and on-the-fly production. When I think Pennebaker, I think Don’t Look Back, most naturally, however, it turns out he has been somewhat active of late with his partner dating back to The War Room, Chris Hegedus and Pennebaker Hegedus Films.

It’s possible to embed each track (individually) from the 10-song set via Vevo.com, as well as YouTube. Anyway, here are a couple of my favorite The National cuts as performed live last night at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, benefiting Red Hot. Enjoy.

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Eventbrite + Facebook: Missed Connection?

A couple weeks ago I wrote about Eventbrite’s new partnership with Facebook and the integration of Eventbrite in Facebook’s event module. Perhaps it’s proof that I’m on Facebook too often — hey, it’s part of my job 😉 — but I tend to notice little design changes and UI tweaks before they are official. Either that or they’re just using me as an unknowing tester since I’m a willing loudmouth always willing to take the Beta.

I just went to set up an event and visited facebook.eventbrite.com, and this is what I found:

missed connection facebook eventbrite

Missed connection? Bad match? Most likely a rushed launch resulting in too much confusion. At least they’ll email me. EMAIL ME! About as far as a Facebook relationship as one can get. But, c’mon! I’ve got an event to post and I’m gonna post it up now…