XRDS Anywhere, Anytime
As XRDS grows and evolves everyday, so do our interests and staff. As such, we
are starting to develop the
digital side of XRDS more
and more, so that readers
can reach us even between
issues, which are only printed four times throughout
the year. It is precisely to
address the communicative
potential of those 0-1 bits
that I joined XRDS in the
newly created role of Digital
Content Editor.
As a Ph.D. student root-
ed in the field of human-
computer interaction, it is
impossible not to include
“interaction” as the key-
word for my vision for XRDS
digital. XRDS seeks to be
an interactive channel be-
tween students, i.e., those
who write much of the con-
tent and the ones who read
it! As many fundamental
aspects of our lives transi-
tion to the online realm,
from shopping to learning
and teaching, new genera-
tions become empowered
with real-time communica-
tion and community reach.
XRDS intends to leverage
that by providing an online
access point for its content;
one that excites the reader
with short and to-the-point
articles and blog posts,
and incentivizes readers
to interact with each other
through online communities. As of today, some of
these platforms are as relevant as the printed press,
namely: blogs [ 1], Facebook
[ 2], Twitter [ 3], to name a
few examples of social networks popular amongst
computer science students.
With the help of our team
of bloggers and editors, we
have been updating much
of the XRDS digital coun-
terpart—that is, everything
that lives 24/7 on the XRDS
website and supports the
printed pages you hold right
now. We worked (and keep
on hammering keyboards)
to get our blog into shape
and integrated with the
main website. We welcomed
new bloggers to our inter-
national team, who upload
gems every week. We started
covering computer science
related events in real-time
through blog posts, as was
the case for the IBM Mas-
ter the Mainframe student
competition held in New
York on April 8th, coinciden-
tal with the company’s cel-
ebration of the mainframe’s
50th anniversary.
We intend to expand the
content further, in order
to feature both academic
insights from the different
disciplines that form CS as
a whole, but also to focus
on the particularities of
student life, such as planning one’s future. (On that
note, you should definitely
read our new career column
featuring Google, Box, and
more.) But, the truth is, work
is never done; we’ll be updating the blog soon with more
functionality and linkage
to social networks such as
Facebook, Instagram, and
Twitter.
We hope XRDS Digital will
ultimately engage a larger
audience through its broader
reach (the web is universal!),
while promoting a bi-direc-
tional link between readers
and writers through com-
ments, tweets, likes, and
shares. Secondly, we hope to
hear from you. Don’t hesitate
to get in touch with us next
time you see XRDS online.
Lastly, once you are
done reading these physi-
cal pages of XRDS, log
in online at http://xrds.
acm.org and discover
more content on our blog
and social media pages.
Our web presence:
[ 1] xrds.acm.org/blog/
[ 2] facebook.com/
acm XRDS
[ 3] twitter.com/
XRDS_ACM
—Pedro Lopes
XRDS Digital
will ultimately
engage a larger
audience
through its
broader reach
(the web is
universal!)
Michel de Montaigne, famous French essayist,
said in 1580, “There were never in the world two
opinions alike, any more than two hairs or two
grains. The most universal quality is diversity.”
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