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Ratherfancy posted a link to this article on cxpartners:

The myth of the page fold: evidence from user testing

People tell us that they don’t mind scrolling and the behaviour we see in user testing backs that up. We see that people are more than comfortable scrolling long, long pages to find what they are looking for. A quick snoop around the web will show you successful brands that are not worrying about the fold either...

Particularly revealing is their eye-tracking heat map of two alternate designs for the same page:




They also note that "Stark, horizontal lines discourage scrolling." Presumably because it cues the user that there's nothing more to see, or that what's down below is something completely different.

This seems to jive with anecdotal evidence from eBay and Vimeo.

eBay's text ads performed better at the bottom of a page below a list of auction items because the user was scanning the list of items available on eBay, and having exhausted that list, opted to try a non-eBay merchant to get what they were looking for.

Vimeo's medium rectangle performed better below the fold next to the comments. One hypothesis was that the flashy image-rich display ad didn't have to compete with the video for the user's attention. An alternative hypothesis might be that the user's intent is to watch the video, then glance through the comments for something interesting. The display ad simply isn't compelling enough to deflect the user from his intent, so offering it as something to click after the user has accomplished his goal increases its performance.

The danger for product and design, of course, is when we substitute blindly following one truism for another. You still want to put the "good" stuff above the fold to tell the user that this page is worth their time. Once you've got their attention, they have to be encouraged to scroll to see the "pretty good" stuff through a combination of good IA and design.

I guess we'll see a lot more of this over the next 3 years, but I'm a little surprised that some people have been so quick to claim that Joe Wilson shouted "You lie!" during Obama's speech because Obama is black. Okay, maybe I shouldn't be surprised that Maureen Dowd thinks so:

New York Times: Boy, Oh, Boy by Maureen Dowd

...

The congressman, we learned, belonged to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, led a 2000 campaign to keep the Confederate flag waving above South Carolina’s state Capitol and denounced as a “smear” the true claim of a black woman that she was the daughter of Strom Thurmond, the ’48 segregationist candidate for president. Wilson clearly did not like being lectured and even rebuked by the brainy black president presiding over the majestic chamber.

I’ve been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer — the frantic efforts to paint our first black president as the Other, a foreigner, socialist, fascist, Marxist, racist, Commie, Nazi; a cad who would snuff old people; a snake who would indoctrinate kids — had much to do with race.

I tended to agree with some Obama advisers that Democratic presidents typically have provoked a frothing response from paranoids — from Father Coughlin against F.D.R. to Joe McCarthy against Truman to the John Birchers against J.F.K. and the vast right-wing conspiracy against Bill Clinton.

But Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president — no Democrat ever shouted “liar” at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq — convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it.

....

Other people have come out with columns, statements, and comments along these lines, but I think they're missing the point. Joe Wilson might be a racist, he might not like black people, but I think it's more likely that he just couldn't contain himself during the address because he hates Mexicans.

For those of you who still have extensive CD collections, you can probably piss off the music industry by ripping all your CDs in a high quality format (e.g., FLAC) and then giving them to your local public library as a tax-deductible donation. Yesterday I read that ASCAP and BMI want to be paid for 30 second song samples, and it occurred to me that the public library has some pretty well established rights to let patrons borrow books, music, and videos for free (zomg!). Any attorneys want to chime in on this?

These are five iPhone games that I really like and/or spent hours playing.

Words with Friends. Variant of Scrabble. Play 1 on 1 against friends or random opponents. Paying not to see ads is totally worth it.

Spider: Secret of Bryce Manor. Move spider with your finger. Spin webs. Eat bugs. Worth buying for the fantastic intuitive controls alone.

Electric Box. Make 50 Rube Goldberg Machines to get electricity from A to B. Play for free on the web, or take it with you on the iPhone.

Azkend. Match 3 puzzle game with fun power-ups, great artwork, sound effects, and interface. Get it for your desktop or iPhone.

Drop7. Simple falling number puzzle game. Match the numbers on the circles to the number of circles in the row or column to clear.

There. 5 games at 140 characters or less.

You can update your MySpace status via text message. First, register your phone number with MySpace from your Mobile Settings. Once you've entered the activation code, you can send a text message to short code MYSPC (69772) from your phone and your status will be updated.