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.”

P h o t o g r a p h b y Tw i n D e s i g n / S h u t t e r s t o c k . c o m