Archive for November 2009

Flirting with the Crowds posts Scott Campbell‘s excellent montage of Eight Ways to Kill an Idea.

via Stephen’s Lighthouse

According to a new study by the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Inc. Magazine’s 500 fastest-growing companies are adopting social media initiatives. Tamara Schweitzer reports the findings in Inc. 500 CEOs Aggressively Use Social Media for Business.

via Steve Rubel

Steve Baker, former senior writer covering technology for BusinessWeek, reports that the library staff was one of the many casualties of the recent layoffs at BusinessWeek. This is the new message for staffers seeking research help at the magazine. (Earlier this year the Wall Street Journal closed down its library as well.)

via Steve Rubel

Josh Catone at Mashable provides a brief tutorial on How To Use Twitter’s New Retweet Feature. (Retweeting is a way to re-publish something that another Twitter user has already posted while attributing credit to that original poster). If you want a quick primer on how to get up and running with this new functionality, be sure and give this a read.

Ivor Padilla at Net Tuts aggregates 20+ Brand New and Incredibly Useful WordPress Plugins. If you’re a WordPress blogger, you’ll want to check out this article. Here are a few of the more interesting extensions:

• Custom Coming Soon Page
• Excerpt Tools
• Drag To Share
• Custom Class Selector
• Pretty Comments

EasyTweaks has an excellent list of 25 Great Facebook Tips and Tricks you’ll want to check out. List items include useful instructions such as how to:

• Search Facebook Like A Pro
• Display Your Facebook Status On Your WordPress Blog
• Update Facebook Status From Gmail
• Schedule Facebook Messages To Be Send Later
• Upload Photos On Facebook From Your Phone

as well as not-so-useful-but-fun instructions such as how to:

• Use Your Facebook Like A Pirate
• Display Your Facebook Status Upside Down
• Make Magic Circles On Facebook

If you’re interested in learning how to create instructional screencast recordings, you may want to check out Lifehacker’s recent post rounding up the Five Best Screencasting Tools. Each of these apps will record your movements and activity on your computer screen and many of them are available for free.

Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb discusses the recent Gartner list which identifies the top 10 consumer mobile applications for 2012. The list covers many mobile technologies which are already available, however mainstream adoption has not yet been reached. Here’s the list of technologies and services which are predicted to be emerging for 2012:

1. Money Transfer
2. Location-Based Services
3. Mobile Search
4. Mobile Browsing
5. Mobile Health Monitoring
6. Mobile Payments
7. Near Field Communications (NFC)
8. Mobile Advertising
9. Mobile Instant Messaging
10. Mobile Music

Linda at Sir Learnalot’s Knowledge Blog has posted a list of the World’s 50 Best Open Courseware Collections. The list is divided into the following categories:

• American University and College Collections
• UK, Canadian and Australian Initiatives
• University Streaming Media
• Other Tools

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