Archive for March 2008

Jenica at Attempting Elegance ponders what constitutes “real” work by students on library computers in her thought-provoking What is real library work, anyway?

“Because what the hell is library work, anymore? If it’s restricted to using databases, searching the local catalog, photocopying articles, and checking out books, we’re dead in the water as a profession.”

Read/Write Web aggregates the four most recent posts from ten websites you may never have come across and presents them in an annotated guide to finding fantastic things. Here are their ten sites, click through to the original article to view the posts from each:

1. BoingBoing
2. Waxy Links
3. Neatorama
4. Laughing Squid
5. JoshSpear.com
6. Fresh Creation
7. PicoCool
8. Swiss Miss
9. NotCot
10. We Make Money Not Art

As an aside, it’s interesting to note their use of the AideRSS tool to link to the most recent popular posts for each blog.

Newsweek discusses the return of the pro in their article Revenge of the Experts which postulates that the time of the amateur on the Web is coming to a close.

“In short, the expert is back. The revival comes amid mounting demand for a more reliable, bankable Web. “People are beginning to recognize that the world is too dangerous a place for faulty information,” says Charlotte Beal, a consumer strategist for the Minneapolis-based research firm Iconoculture. Beal adds that choice fatigue and fear of bad advice are creating a “perfect storm of demand for expert information.”"

via Social Media

Are you a visual learner who prefers to have sets of data presented graphically rather than in text lists? There are many websites and desktop applications out there which let you do just that, and Read/Write Web has compiled a list of nearly 100 of them in their Best Tools for Visualization article. If you’re a fan of tools such as grokker, Twittervision, and KartOO, enjoy heat maps and visual search engines, you’ll want to check out this post which divides these tools into the following categories:

• Visualize Social Networks
• Visualize Music
• Visualize the Internet
• Amazon
• Flickr
• Miscellaneous
• Sites Dedicated to Visualization
• Search
• News and RSS
• Data

If you need help with time management or just want a few friendly tips for increasing your productivity, check out this article by CollegeDegree.com which promises to curb your cyberslacking ways. These are their top ten suggestions:

1. Install an online time tracker.
2. Turn off IM programs.
3. Remind yourself of the consequences.
4. Disable email notifications.
5. Change your attitude.
6. Turn on music.
7. Create a separate user on your computer just for work.
8. Set up a news aggregator.
9. Set your clock ahead.
10. Create quotas.

Ever wonder what exactly APIs are all about? Take a look under the hood of Web 2.0 with The Other Librarian who details the who, what, why, and how of Application Program Interfaces. Ryan Deschamps spells out key acronyms and provides a 10 step program for using an API in his APIs: Who? What? Why? How?.

CollegeDegree.com has created a mega-list of The Top 100 Productivity and Lifehack Blogs for those of us who need some motivation. A few of my favorites made the list including Web Worker Daily and Lifehacker, along with 98 others divided into categories; Most Popular, Life Organizers, Productivity in the Workplace, Expert Advice, Personal Growth, Prioritizing/GTD, Personal Finance Hacks, Miscellaneous. Here are the top ten:

1. 43 Folders
2. Lifehack.org
3. Productivity501
4. Zen Habits
5. David Seah
6. GTD Wannabe
7. Ririan Project
8. Matt’s Idea Blog
9. The Lazy Way to Success
10. Slacker Manager

University Business discusses the innovative ways colleges and universities are using the Second Life virtual realm for collaboration, instruction, promotion, and machinima creation in Sizing Up Second Life: Higher ed learns how to live in a virtual world.

“The greatest benefit of our Second Life campus has been as a marketing tool, really extending our brand out into a whole different channel,” he says. “Along with creating the campus, we also created a corresponding machinima video on YouTube that has had thousands of hits. That has done wonders in terms of throwing attention not just on our Second Life campus but on Ohio University as well.”

via Educause

The New York Times discusses the widening generation gap with regard to mobile technologies and activities such as text messaging in their article Text Generation Gap: U R 2 Old (JK).

“Text messaging, in particular, has perhaps become this generation’s version of pig Latin. For dumbfounded parents, AT&T now offers a tutorial that decodes acronyms meant to keep parents at bay. “Teens may use text language to keep parents in the dark about their conversations by making their comments indecipherable,” the tutorial states. Some acronyms meant to alert children to prying eyes are POS (“parent over shoulder”), PRW (“parents are watching”) and KPC (“keeping parents clueless”).”

The Guardian’s Observer has an annotated list of the most popular and influential blogs from around the world. I noticed a few of my favorites on the list including TechCrunch, Icanhascheezburger, and Gawker, as well as a few new ones to check out. Here’s their top ten:

1. The Huffington Post
2. Boing Boing
3. Techcrunch
4. Kottke
5. Dooce
6. Perezhilton
7. Talking points memo
8. Icanhascheezburger
9. Beppe Grillo
10. Gawker

Ask a Blogger comes up with 16 Top Social Media Strategies for Success which discusses ways to wisely utilize new social marketing avenues. The article suggests following these guidelines in order to optimize your social media efforts:

• Increase your linkability
• Make tagging and bookmarking easy
• Reward inbound links
• Help your content travel
• Encourage the mashup
• Be a useful resource, even if it doesn’t help you
• Reward helpful and valuable users
• Participate
• Know how to target your audience
• Create content
• Be real
• Don’t forget your roots, be humble
• Don’t be afraid to try new things, stay fresh
• Develop a social media optimization strategy
• Choose your social-media optimization tactics wisely
• Make social media optimization part of your processes and best practices

via Social Media

Bloggers using the WordPress platform will want to check out this fantastic resource compiling 63 Essential WordPress Hacks, Tutorials, Help Files and Cheats. Each item on this comprehensive list leads to a detailed tutorial or walk-through informing bloggers how to accomplish tasks such as:

• How to use Google Reader to Create a Mobile-Friendly Version of your Blog
• How to Format Images for Feed Readers
• How to Create a Hover Menu
• How to Widgetize Your Theme
• How to Upgrade WordPress
• How to Embed YouTube Videos in WordPress
• How-to Use WordPress/PodPress to Podcast to iTunes

And for those of you who use Blogger, be sure to check out 10 Blogger Hacks.

There have been quite a few articles, reports, and blog posts about the subject of online privacy recently, many of which focus specifically on Facebook and social networks, others on the Web as a whole. Here are several of the latest writings on the topic:

Facebook and the price of user privacy
ZDNet

Mixed signals on privacy concerns: Internet users say they want to protect personal data, then share it with total strangers.
The Mercury News

Privacy Implications of Fast, Mobile Internet Access
Pew Internet & American Life Report

Clive Thompson on the Age of Microcelebrity: Why Everyone’s a Little Brad Pitt
Wired

The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet
Daniel J. Solove: Yale University Press (2007) (Full Text Available here)

Your Guide to Online Privacy
MediaShift

Does Privacy Matter to Most Facebook Users? Let’s look at some data
comScore

Should We Assume There Is No Privacy Online? Have Widgets Killed Privacy?
CenterNetworks

BusinessWeek has come out with a series of articles, a podcast, and a video interview about using widgets such as Facebook applications for social marketing campaigns. If you are at all interested in using these viral social networking applications, you’ll want to check out these sections of the special report:

• Building a Brand with Widgets:
  The customizable bits of software on Facebook and other social networking sites are the latest trend in viral marketing. But are widgets here to stay?
• Widgets: The Future of Online Ads:
  Look to the evolution of television advertising to understand the necessity of widgets in today’s online world
• The CEO Guide to Widgets:
  Widget Podcast
• When Facebook Ads Flop:
  For every marketing widget that takes off on the social network, dozens bomb. A look at why
• Why Widgets Don’t Work:
  Marketers are mistaken if they think these easy-to-forward applications will help them make deep inroads to the MySpace generation
• A Widget Mogul in Between Classes:
  Ankur Nagpal, a 19-year-old UC-Berkeley student, finds the keys to viral success and rakes in the cash on Facebook
• Making Money From Widgets:
  How creators of small apps can profit – BusinessWeek’s Catherine Holahan interviews VideoEgg CEO Matt Sanchez about earning a wage from widgets

The Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library has transformed their website into a visually appealing, user-friendly, community environment. The website has incorporated many new Web features including:

• A prominent news slider which rotates featured stories
• RSS feeds everywhere
• Tag clouds
• Highest Rated, Recent Comments, and other techniques which surface valuable content
• User Profiles which aggregate authored content
• Multimedia such as library photos & videos
• Embedded IM widget
• User Comments

Be sure and check out the “before” and “after” websites to see the full metamorphosis. David Lee King has more.