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Less than two weeks ago we saw the Library of Congress partner with the photo-sharing website Flickr in a pilot project called The Commons to display some 3,100 historical photos, (Read our earlier coverage here). Within days of the project launch, the LOC received an overwhelming response. According to their blog, here’s a summary of what happened within the first two days:
392,000 views on the photostream
650,000 views of photos
Adding in set and collection page views, there were about 1.1 million total views on our account
InformationWeek has compiled an extensive guide to sixty lesser-known blogs and websites dealing with technology including some out-of-the-way destinations such as GottaBeMobile, Hackzine.com, and Google Patent Search. The list is divided by subject category into the following sections:
Carmine Gallo of BusinessWeek breaks down the elements of an inspirational presentation through his analysis of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ Macworld ‘08 keynote. He offers us the following advice when delivering a presentation:
Set the theme.
Demonstrate enthusiasm.
Provide an outline.
Make numbers meaningful.
Try for an unforgettable moment.
Create visual slides.
Give ‘em a show.
Don’t sweat the small stuff.
Sell the benefit.
Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.
Read more about this 10-part framework in the original article, and for a breakdown of Jobs’ keynote address announcements, (including the MacBook Air laptop), check out this slideshow.
comScore Widget Metrix has measured and ranked the top ten most engaging Facebook Applications among US users, based on figures from November 2007. The measurement criteria for this ranking requires that Facebook users actively engage with the applications, not just view them. This analysis revealed that in November 2007, over 20 million Facebook users (61% of the Facebook audience) engaged with a Facebook App. Here are the top ten:
The video game industry experienced an exceptional growth rate in 2007, increasing revenues by over 28% and outpacing both music and movies. Console games reigned over their PC counterparts, pulling in nearly 70% of total sales with the the Nintendo Wii console the clear frontrunner.
“The video game industry set the pace over all others in 2007, with record-breaking sales, off-the-charts consumer demand, and innovation reaching from galactic exploration to guitar simulation,” said ESA CEO and president Michael D. Gallagher. “On average, an astonishing 9 games were sold every second of every day of the year.”
Most of today’s collaboration tools are free to use and easily accessible, resulting in wide adoption rates and increased experimentation. One way that authors are experimenting with these tools is by using them to enhance their writing process. Here are a few examples:
Author Uses Blog Comments to Peer Review Book
Author Noah Wardrip-Fruin, an assistant professor of communication at the University of California at San Diego is using blog comments to provide a peer review for his Expressive Processing: Digital Fictions, Computer Games, and Software Studies by MIT Press.
“Wardrip-Fruin is using an adapted version of CommentPress, which is a plugin that lets users comment individually on each paragraph of a blog post, and will be posting his book one chapter at a time on his blog.”
Writing a Book in Google Docs
Brian Jepson and Philipp Lenssen are collaboratively writing Google Office Hacks by O’Reilly using Google Docs.
“Once a document is written, I’m using the “Check spelling” feature Google Docs provides. When that’s done, I’m saving a local backup by using the “Export as HTML (zipped)” option… just in case anything gets lost. Then I switch to the Share tab to share the page with Brian. Brian will then get an invite to the document and can take over from there.”
“Oran continues to innovate, this time by using the recently released Amazon Kindle e-book reader to let early readers help him refine a draft of his latest book. Oran’s use of the Kindle is one of the more interesting we’ve seen, and really demonstrates the device’s read/write potential.”
The Django Book
Adrian Holovaty and Jacob Kaplan-Moss published the first draft of their Django book and invited comments from readers on a line-by-line basis. Watch a YouTube video explanation of the project.
Blogging & Other Social Media: Technology & Law
Justin Patten, Andrew Mills, and Alex Newson co-edited Blogging & Other Social Media: Technology & Law by Gower Publishing, and used a PBWiki to gather contributions from legal bloggers and academics.
Walt Crawford has just released a new Cites & Insights book - Academic Library Blogs: 231 Examples. This mega-guidebook has 289 pages and 231 examples from 156 college and university libraries in the US, Canada, Australia, Botswana, England, Greece, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, and Wales. This latest blogging compendium from Crawford complements his previous, and equally impressive Public Library Blogs: 252 Examples. Both are available for sale on Lulu or CreateSpace.
The University of London’s LASSIE project (Libraries and Social Software in Education), has produced a case study report on Libraries and Facebook. The report provides an overview of Facebook, a brief literature review, details the project’s use of the Facebook social network, discusses Facebook groups, applications, and pages of interest to libraries, and recommends best practices for using Facebook as a librarian.
The OEDb has compiled a report ordering the top 41 accredited online colleges in their OEDb’s Online College Rankings 2008. These rankings which include national, online-only undergraduate colleges which offer degrees are the first of their kind and attempt to provide a quatitative view of this Web-based academic landscape. The rankings aggregate data gathered according to eight different metrics — acceptance rate, financial aid, graduation rate, peer Web citations, retention rate, scholarly citations, student-faculty ratio, and years accredited. Overall rankings are provided as well as a breakdown according to metric.
[Disclosure: iLibrarian is owned and operated by OEDb.]
Educause has written a quick primer on how to use the popular self-publishing service, Lulu with their 7 Things You Should Know About Lulu. This handy introduction covers the following topics:
What is it?
Who’s doing it?
How does it work?
Why is it significant?
What are the downsides?
Where is it going?
What are the implications for teaching and learning?
The PBS series Frontline will investigate the reality of teens on the Web in Growing Up Online which airs tonight at 9pm ET.
“In “Growing Up Online,” FRONTLINE peers inside the world of this cyber-savvy generation through the eyes of teens and their parents, who often find themselves on opposite sides of a new digital divide. From cyber bullying to instant “Internet fame,” to the specter of online sexual predators, FRONTLINE producer Rachel Dretzin investigates the risks, realities and misconceptions of teenage self-expression on the World Wide Web.”
Nick Wilsdon of e3internet has pulled together some useful posts on mastering the popular microblogging app, as well as 5 Tips to Make You a Better Twitter User. Wilsdon advises twitterers to:
A new live blogging tool called CoveritLive promises to make covering conferences, meetings, and events in real-time easier and more engaging. The web-based software enables blog authors to stream in live coverage and commentary into a viewer window which is embedded into a blog post. Readers can follow along with live events, submitting questions and comments which the author may or may not choose to post during the event stream. Readers can also interact by answering user polls which the author creates. Blog authors can easily drag-and-drop media such as images, video, and audio into the live stream and can also add Internet links. When the event is over, the entire live blog session is saved and can be replayed by future visitors.
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