Archive for November 2008

Leo Babauta at Write to Done provides insight into 10 Mistakes That Could Be Killing Your Blog. The article clues bloggers in to some common errors which may turn away readers. Here are his top five, be sure to check out the full article for more details:

1. Less-than-useful posts
2. Infrequent posting
3. Writing about infrequent posting
4. Not displaying your best posts
5. Flashy or annoying ads

UsingMac.com puts together a mega-list of over 100 Free Applications for Mac OS X. Each annotated entry in this guide has been categorized into the following application types:

• Productivity Tool
• System
• Tools and Utilities
• File Management
• Application Launcher
• Social Networking
• Chat Client
• Text Editor
• Email, RSS and Atom Reader
• PDF Reader
• FTP Client
• BitTorrent Client
• Network
• Web Browser
• Audio
• Video
• Games
• Image Editor
• File Compressor
• Google
• Uploader
• Programming IDE
• QuickTime Plugin
• Converter

115 entries in all, and if that’s not enough you can check the comments section for even more suggestions.

The American University’s Center for Social Media released a new Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy guide yesterday.

“This guide identifies five principles that represent the media literacy education community’s current consensus about acceptable practices for the fair use of copyrighted materials, wherever and however it occurs: in K–12 education, in higher education, in nonprofit organizations that offer programs for children and youth, and in adult education.”

The Wired Campus blog covers the story of a new project in development called Reference Extract which will be a Web search engine powered by the expertise of librarians. The project is being developed by OCLC, Syracuse University, and University of Washington.

“Have you ever wished for a personal reference librarian, an information guru to point you to the most reliable sites whenever you search the Web? A new search-engine project aims to simulate something like that. The trick? Weighting search results so that librarians’ picks rise to the top.”

Barry Hurd at 123 Social Media provides a collection of articles written by niche experts on ideas for using Twitter for business and marketing. Here are a few of the links included in this guide to using Twitter professionally:

• 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business
• How to use Twitter for marketing
• Guidelines For Brands Using Twitter
• CEO’s Who Twitter

Aaron Schmidt and Sarah Houghton-Jan write about How to Drive Traffic to Your Website for the latest issue of Marketing Library Services. In this tips-filled article the authors offer advice on making your website findable and relevant, and how to draw people back to it. The following topics are discussed:

• Join the Community Conversations
• List Your Site Where People Are Searching
• Help Everyone Find Your Services

Mashable has put together a list of 6 inanimate objects, animals, and plants which have Twitter accounts and make regular updates. Two of these Twitterers are from NASA including the MarsPhoenix and the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Be sure and check out the article for the other four as well as a few other suggestions in the comments including several cats and London’s Tower Bridge.

Peter Kim, Senior Partner at Dachis Corporation, puts together a framework of 22 social media tools which can be used for marketing and promotion in a post for Mashable. Included with each tool are impressive examples of brands utilizing them in their own marketing efforts. And if that still isn’t enough, you can check out his original list of hundreds of well-known companies along with links to all of their social media efforts. Here are his top five examples:

1. Blogs (Johnson & Johnson, Delta Air Lines)
2. Bookmarking/Tagging (Adobe, Kodak)
3. Brand monitoring (Dell, MINI)
4. Content aggregation (Alltop, EMC)
5. Crowdsourcing/Voting (Oracle, Starbucks)

Leo Babauta, Zen Habits blogger, discusses Branding 101: How to Promote Your Blog Like the Big Guys Do on the Write to Done blog. The article talks about how to establish a brand with your blog and promote it to your target audience. Key topics which are covered include:

• The Mistrust of Advertising Techniques
• The Core Message — What It’s All About
• Sending Out a Consistent Message
• Repeating Your Message Often

What are the challenges surrounding the deployment of emerging technologies?

John Camp, moderator at Campus Technology’s 2008 Executive Summit surveyed 50 IT leaders from diverse institutions to discover what the major challenges are surrounding the implementation of emerging technology in higher education.

Michelle Boule writes for School Library Journal about Selling Social Networking in your library. She discusses ways to address common concerns about online social communities in order to reassure colleagues and administrators.

“Want to introduce social software to your school or library, but have yet to break the ice? You may be comfortable with the idea of using a blog, wiki, or other social application with students, but other stakeholders in your community may not be so sure. Any technology maverick looking to sell the use of Web-based applications will, at some point, have to make the case.”

Today I’ll be presenting at the NEASIS&T Mobile Mania event in Boston, here are my slides.

Today I’ll be giving a half-day workshop at METRO, the Metropolitan Library Council here in NYC, these are my presentations for anyone who is interested in “open” topics. The main topics I’ll be covering include Open Source Software, Open Access, and Open Education and how they are relevant to libraries. I’ll also be discussing open licenses, open conferences and camps, open textbooks, and new open Web initiatives.

Wondering about which search engine is the best when looking for blog content? Search Engine Journal provides a breakdown of the features and functionality of today’s top blog search tools in Blog Search Engines : The Complete Overview. Applications discussed include:

• Google Blog Search
• Technorati
• Blog Pulse
• Bloglines

I will be giving a talk on libraries and the mobile Web at the NEASIS&T Mobile Mania event in Boston next week, and just in time the ALA has been kind enough to let me self-archive the pre-print of my Library Technology Report: On the Move with the Mobile Web: Libraries and Mobile Technologies. I’ve deposited it in E-LIS, a disciplinary repository for the LIS field, so anyone who may be interested in this topic can access it without restrictions there.