TED Community » Mike Matas

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• TEDCred score: +254.00 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A reply on Conversation: LIVE CHAT with Mike Matas: Monday, May 2nd, 1PM-2:30PM EST *UPDATE: Extended through May 6th*

  May 3 2011: Thanks Jon! That means a lot coming from you. How about an LXD book?

• A reply on Conversation: LIVE CHAT with Mike Matas: Monday, May 2nd, 1PM-2:30PM EST *UPDATE: Extended through May 6th*

  May 3 2011: Quartz Composer is more about animations and interactivity. For graphics work like drawing icons and buttons I use Photoshop. There are very few buttons and icons in Push Pop Press so these days I spend most of my time using Quartz Composer.

• A comment on Conversation: LIVE CHAT with Mike Matas: Monday, May 2nd, 1PM-2:30PM EST *UPDATE: Extended through May 6th*

  May 2 2011: Thanks everyone for the great discussion and feedback! Im going to leave this conversation open and answer more questions throughout the week.
  
  Make sure to check out the first title published with Push Pop Press Al Gore's Our Choice: www.pushpoppress.com/ourchoice
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  A reply on Conversation: LIVE CHAT with Mike Matas: Monday, May 2nd, 1PM-2:30PM EST *UPDATE: Extended through May 6th*

  May 2 2011: Im sure paper books will be around for a very long time but not as serious way to communicate ideas. Digital books can communicate ideas though text, images, video, audio and interactive graphics but they are also a lot easier to distribute. You don't need to cut down a tree to print the book, you don't need to ship it to a book store, and you don't need to drive to a book store buy the book and you don't need to dispose of it when your done reading it. There is an art to printed books that I don't think will ever go away though. I think printed books will be more about the art of the object rather than the communication of the ideas in object.
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: LIVE CHAT with Mike Matas: Monday, May 2nd, 1PM-2:30PM EST *UPDATE: Extended through May 6th*

  May 2 2011: To make Al Gore's Our Choice www.ourchoiceapp.com we built a layout tool that allowed the publishers to independently layout the entire book themselves. This allowed them to get creative and try out different ways to telling the story at a much quicker pass than the typical software development cycle.
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  A reply on Conversation: LIVE CHAT with Mike Matas: Monday, May 2nd, 1PM-2:30PM EST *UPDATE: Extended through May 6th*

  May 2 2011: First I think different people learn in different ways. Reading long blocks of text does not get though to everyone. Having a mix of different kinds of information really helps communicate information to a wider audience.
  
  Somethings are also much better communicated though pictures, audio and video. For example one of my favorite websites is The Big Picture http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/ Seeing big photos of things happen around the word to me has a much larger impact than reading about them.
  
  Chris Anderson gave a great related TED talk on how video on the web is fueling global innovation. Video is an unmatched powerful way of communicating ideas. http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_anderson_how_web_video_powers_global_innovation.html
  
  I think when authors are able to combine different media to best fit the ideas they are trying to communicate there is a the greatest potential for those ideas to make a real impact on the reader.

• A reply on Conversation: LIVE CHAT with Mike Matas: Monday, May 2nd, 1PM-2:30PM EST *UPDATE: Extended through May 6th*

  May 2 2011: Kimon Tsinteris the Push Pop Press Co-Founder and Software Architect worked his magic: http://pushpoppress.com/about/
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  A reply on Conversation: LIVE CHAT with Mike Matas: Monday, May 2nd, 1PM-2:30PM EST *UPDATE: Extended through May 6th*

  May 2 2011: I use an application called Quartz Composer to build prototypes of interactive designs. Quartz Composer is somewhere in between a design tool and a programming tool. If you want to give it a try you can get it for free by installing the Apple developer tools. Here is what the development environment for Quartz Composer looks like: http://twitpic.com/2zxphc

• A reply on Conversation: LIVE CHAT with Mike Matas: Monday, May 2nd, 1PM-2:30PM EST *UPDATE: Extended through May 6th*

  May 2 2011: I think there are unintrusive ways of adding those features if we want them in the future. We decided for this release to focus on simplicity and the content. Id rather have fewer features and a really good user experience, We can always add more stuff when necessary.

• A reply on Conversation: LIVE CHAT with Mike Matas: Monday, May 2nd, 1PM-2:30PM EST *UPDATE: Extended through May 6th*

  May 2 2011: We decided to support landscape only because most of the photos and all of the videos where landscape to begin with. I also think having both orientations makes for a very unsettling reading experiencing. If you support both orientations one orientation is always a little better than the other but it varies from page to page so as I reader I always find myself asking "is this the best orientation to be reading this page in?"