Archive for November 2009

Mashable’s Pete Cashmore writes for CNN.com about the next big mainstream tech hit in Next year’s Twitter? It’s Foursquare.

“Birthed by the team that brought us the mobile social network Dodgeball (acquired by Google in 2005 and later shuttered), the location-based mobile startup serves a simple purpose: It lets an individual share his or her location with a group of friends.

Foursquare ventures beyond utility, however: It’s a virtual game in which participants earn badges for checking in at various locations; those that check in most become a venue’s “mayor.” By all accounts, this mechanism is as addictive as Twitter, Facebook or checking your e-mail on a BlackBerry.”

If you’re using Chrome, the open source Web browser by Google, you may want to check out the latest article from Josh Catone at Mashable. 6 Killer Google Chrome Extensions for Social Media Addicts lists popuar and useful plugins for using social media sites as well as lists some of the best places to find other extensions. Here are his recommended six extensions:

1. Gmail Checker
2. Chromed Bird
3. Twitter Ticker
4. Micro Last.fm
5. TPGoogleReader
6. Facebook Notification Checker

The November 15th issue of Library Journal gives a roundup of America’s Star Libraries - a national rating of public libraries. America’s Star Libraries rates 7,268 public libraries, identifying 258 “best” libraries. This is the second round of ratings in 2009. All rankings are based on 2007 data from the IMLS. This detailed report ranks libraries by:

• Circulation per Capita
• Vists per Capita
• Program Attendance per Capita
• Internet Use per Capita
• LJ Index Rating

Igor Faletski at SitePoint rounds up 7 Tips To Make Your Web Site Mobile-friendly. The co-founder of Mobify, the popular service for optimizing a site for the mobile web, the author provides these quick recommendations for designing your own mobile site:

1. Style for mobile
2. Resize images
3. Automatically detect mobile devices
4. Rethink navigation
5. Provide a clear path to the full site
6. Don’t break links
7. Measure the mobile audience

Online College.org has put together a mega-list of 100 Excellent Open Access Journals for Educators. These recommended scholarly resources are divided into the following categories:

• Education Research, Practices, and Approaches
• Education Policy and Issues
• Leadership
• Science and Math
• Language Arts
• The Arts, Foreign Language, and Social Studies
• Technology
• Special Education, Early Education, and Child Development
• Higher Education and Online Education
• Variety of Educational Approaches and Specialized Topics

The Google Wave Info blog has published a quick list of commands for use in Google Wave with the Google Wave Cheat Sheet. This mega-list provides syntax definitions in the following categories:

• Search Cheat Sheet
• Status
• Participants
• Date Search
• Folders
• Attachments
• Tags
• Gadgets
• Expressions
• Phrases
• XML Search
• Wave ID
• Zero Inbox
• Saved Searches
• Filters
• Folders
• Language Filter

Paul Burgess at nettuts provides an extremely detailed step-by-step tutorial for How to Create a Photo Gallery using the Flickr API. If you’ve been considering ways to set up a slick photo gallery for your library’s digital image collection you’ll want to give this a read. Each of these sections includes screenshots and code snippets.

• Step 1 - Get a Flickr API key
• Step 2 - Download phpFlickr
• Step 3 - Basic Setup and Simple Configuration
• Step 4 - Building the Thumbnails Page
• Step 5 - Build a Page to Display Single Photos

Did you know that the New York Public Library has Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s slippers and Charles Dickens’s favorite letter-opener in its collection? Or that they have a special collection of 40,000 restaurant menus, dating from the 1850s to the present? Robin Finn at the New York Times has written an excellent article about some of the NYPL’s more interesting items in Secrets of the Stacks.

Michael at Income Diary has put together a list of 20 Websites That Will Make You A Better Blogger. This annotated guide discusses twenty blogs and websites to “learn, improve and get inspired”. His list is divided into the following topic areas:

• Websites Teaching Blogging
• Blog Design Websites
• Website Optimization
• Make Money Online
• Blogs To Aspire To Be Like

The folks at Common Craft have created another of their “in Plain English” videos, explaining complex technologies in easy to understand terminology. This time they’ve tackled cloud computing.

The folks at Twitter are beta testing a new retweet feature which will enable you to retweet a post with one click. There will also be a new retweet icon to quickly identify retweets.

Will Kelly at Web Worker Daily suggests 6 Tips For Using Google Wave On Your First Project. If you’ve been lucky enough to snag an invite you may want to check out these quick tips:

1. Set suitable expectations.
2. Do a dry run with a Wave.
3. Take control of your Waves.
4. Use folders and tags.
5. Consider whether to use live editing or attachments.
6. Have a Plan B.

Pete Cashmore at Mashable suggests Google Wave: Better than Twitter for Conference Chatter? This interesting post illustrates the effective use of Google’s new enhanced email app through screenshots of an audience attending a session at the Ecomm conference.

“Rather than a stream of disconnected Tweets, the result was a wiki-like page of annotations which evolved over the course of a presentation.”

Sarah Evans at Mashable writes about 10 Ways You Can Use Twitter Lists. If you’re looking for inspiration for how to make the most of this new Twitter feature, you may want to check out this post. Here are her top five:

1. Industry Peers and Professionals Lists
2. Experts Lists
3. Recognize and Reward Customers Lists
4. Niche Lists
5. Employee Directory Lists

Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb discusses several reports which show that Twitter is attracting a younger demographic in As Facebook Ages, Gen Y Turns to Twitter. There are several interesting statistics included in this post such as: “Twitter is now the second-youngest of the top four social networking sites. Its median age is 31. MySpace’s is 26, LinkedIn is 39, and, as noted above, Facebook is 33.”

“Facebook is getting old. No, people aren’t getting tired of it, it’s actually getting old, as in its population is aging. In May of 2008, the median age for Facebook was 26. Today, it’s 33, a good seven years older. That’s an interesting turn of events for a site once built for the exclusive use of college students. So where are today’s college students hanging out now? Well, to some extent, they’re still on Facebook, despite having to share the space with moms, dads, grandparents, and bosses. Surprisingly though, they’re also headed to another network you may have heard of: Twitter.”