Author

Derek Powazek

Derek Powazek suffers from restless entrepreneur syndrome. He's worked the web since 1995 at pioneering sites like HotWired, Blogger, and Technorati. He's the author of Design for Community and the creator of Fray. Derek is now Founder and CEO of Cute-Fight, the online game for real-life pets. Derek lives in San Francisco with his wife, two nutty Chihuahuas, and a house full of plants named Fred.

Also from this author

The Flirty Medium

Our brave new digital world allows us the freedom to flirt safely, but that’s both good and bad. In this special Valentine’s Day edition of Fertile Medium, we explore online flirting from two different perspectives.

Picture Yourself in a Boat on a River

Welcome to Fertile Medium, an advice column for people who live online. Each edition, I’ll take a question from you about living and building social spaces online, and do my best to answer. Want to ask a question? Tweet to @fertilemedium or call (415) 286-5446 and leave a message.

The Wisdom of Community

The Wisdom of Crowds (WOC) theory does not mean that people are smart in groups , they're not. Anyone who's seen an angry mob knows it. But crowds, presented with the right challenge and the right interface, can be wise. When it works, the crowd is wiser, in fact, than any single participant.

Where Am I?

It’s 2006 and we’re still messing up global navigation. Derek Powazek gets back to basics and offers a few simple guidelines for getting it right.

Calling All Designers: Learn to Write!

You know all that copy that goes around your forms and in your confirmation e-mails? Who's writing it? Derek Powazek explains why it's important for user-interface designers to sharpen up their writing skills.

Home Page Goals

Home pages may get plenty of design attention, but that doesn't mean they don't need improvement.