Archive for February 2010

Rodd Lucier at The Clever Sheep rounds up 14 Tools to Teach about Creative Commons. This brief post gathers toolkits, videos, slideshows, projects, and audio files to help educate students about how to license their works through the Creative Commons.

The NFI Research firm has issued a report listing the Top Public Libraries on Twitter. These are the libraries that are active, make frequent updates, have a good amount of followers, and use the tool to promote communication in their communities. Here are a few who made the list:

19,000+ Followers
1 New York Public Library New York, NY http://twitter.com/nypl

4,000+ Followers
2 Houston Public Library Houston, TX http://twitter.com/houstonlibrary

3,000+ Followers
3 Columbus Library Columbus, OH http://twitter.com/columbuslibrary

2,000+ Followers
4 Kansas City Public Library Kansas City, MO http://twitter.com/KCPubLibrary
5 Hennepin County Library Minneapolis, MN http://twitter.com/hclib
6 Cincinnati Library Cincinnati, OH https://twitter.com/cincylibrary

1,500+ Followers
7 Austin Public Library Austin, TX http://twitter.com/AustinPublicLib
8 Grand Rapids Public Library Grand Rapids, MI http://twitter.com/grpl
9 Boerne Library Boerne, TX http://twitter.com/BoerneLibrary

Mari Smith at the Social Media Examiner offers 13 Ways to Move Your Facebook Fans to Action. This helpful post takes a look at strategies organizations with Facebook Pages can use to increase their Fans’ engagement levels. Here are the top 5 recommendations:

1. Ask questions
2. Use the words “you” or “your”
3. Keep it short
4. Post in high-traffic windows
5. Respond promptly

Tom Walker at Spyre Studios reviews 10 Great Tools to Create a Mobile Version of Your Site. Each entry in the list includes a screenshot and features discussion. If you’re considering creating a mobile site for your organization you’ll want to check out this list as well as the suggestions in the comments.

Dion Hinchcliffe writes for ZDNet’s Enterprise Web 2.0 blog about The social Web in 2010: The emerging standards and technologies to watch.

“The emergence of Facebook, Twitter, and the rest of the social Web as a global force in the last several years has done a great deal to highlight their potential to fundamentally alter the way we communicate and collaborate both at home and in business. However, despite the movement of social computing into our daily lives we’re all clearly on a long journey together as the technologies themselves emerge from infancy.”

Twitter has reported that posting activity to the popular microblogging application has reached 50 million tweets per day, or an average of 600 tweets per second.

Josh Catone at Mashable blogs about dealing with Negative Feedback in Social Media. This quick guide explains how to identify the type of feedback received in order to respond to it effectively. Here are the different types of feedback discussed:

• Straight Problems
• Constructive Criticism
• Merited Attack
• Trolling/Spam

Joshua Johnson at Six Revisions has created a Comprehensive Guide to Saving Images for the Web. This detailed article addresses every aspect of Photoshop’s “Save for Web & Devices” feature. If you’re using this popular photo editing tool to save your images for use on the Web, you’ll want to check out this guide which has tips for both beginners and experts. These are the areas discussed:

• Before the Save
• Entering the Save for Web Dialog
• Image Size
• Resampling Quality
• File Type and Image Quality
• File Type Options
• Working with GIFs
• Working with JPGs
• Working with PNGs
• View Modes
• Working with Slices
• Outputting HTML

Lifehacker presents a very helpful chart and accompanying article that will help you choose Which Social Network Is Right For You based on privacy, use and management, access, and mobile features.

Laura Bruzas writes for American Libraries’ Green Your Library blog about 11 Ways to Promote a Great Top 10 Book List. These are all great suggestions, but here are a few I think are particularly insightful:

• Plan a book discussion program at your library featuring one or more of the works on the list.
• Showcase the books on the list in a special green display for a month.
• Connect with a local eco-friendly organization and ask them to link to the list on their web site or include it in their newsletter. Mention these books are available at your library or through inter-library loan.

Aliza Sherman at WebWorkerDaily talks about 10 Things to Avoid In Social Media. This insightful article has many helpful tips, here are her top five things to avoid:

1. Avoid the fishbowl syndrome
2. Avoid glut and overload
3. Avoid knee-jerk reactions
4. Avoid overreaching and overstating
5. Avoid the shingle phenomenon

Jay Baer at Convince & Convert has an interesting post listing nearly 40 social media applications that he recommends in The 39 Social Media Tools I’ll Use Today. There are quite a few tools on his list that are new to me and I can’t wait to check out. They are divided into the following categories:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Blog Comments
• Virality & Search
• Photos
• Tracking
• Content Creation
• Listening
• Email
• iPhone

I have an article in the March issue of American Libraries!! Please check out 10 Technology Ideas Your Library Can Implement Next Week if you get a chance and let me know what you think. Each of the ten ideas come from the talented authors of my upcoming book series The Tech Set which will be published in March by Neal-Schuman Publishers and LITA.

The folks at Royal Pingdom have conducted a study of 19 popular social network sites to determine the average age of users. According to their report, the dominant age group is between 35-44 which accounts for the largest distribution on 11 out of the 19 sites they surveyed. Here are some other interesting findings:

• The average social network user is 37 years old.
• LinkedIn, with its business focus, has a predictably high average user age; 44.
• The average Twitter user is 39 years old.
• The average Facebook user is 38 years old.

The folks at Educause have put together another of their “7 Things” guides, this time it’s 7 Things You Should Know About Backchannel Communication. The backchannel is the informal communication that goes on during a conference or other event, most notably on Twitter and other real-time tools. As usual Educause tackles the following questions:

1. What is it?
2. How does it work?
3. Who’s doing it?
4. Why is it significant?
5. What are the downsides?
6. Where is it going?
7. What are the implications for teaching and learning?