Archive for April 2010

The Royal Pingdom blog has an interesting infographic displaying some
Amazing facts and figures about Instant Messaging. A history and timeline of instant-messaging is provided as well as useful statistics of how many people use each IM client.

Amy-Mae Elliott at Mashable presents a quick guide to How To: Spring Clean Your Twitter Account. If you’re looking to get organized and filter out some of the unwanted Twitter noise, you’ll want to check out these recommendations:

• Weed Out Inactive Users
• Find Out Who is Following Whom
• Filter Out the Noise
• Set Up Your Twitter Lists
• Refresh Your Twitter Profile

Web Directions has issued a report on The State of Web Development 2010. The study is based on responses to 50+ questions about technologies, techniques, philosophies, and practices that today’s web professionals employ. I found the information on cloud computing usage particularly interesting and useful.

BBC News has announced that Google is set to Digitise Ancient Italian Books. According to the recent story:

“The Italian government has signed a deal with Google to put the contents of two national libraries on the internet.

Up to one million antiquarian books – including works by Dante, Machiavelli and Galileo – will be scanned and made available free on Google Books.”

Catherine-Gail Reinhard, Executive Producer & Director at Videasa, blogs for Mashable about 10 Killer Tips for Creating a Branded YouTube Channel. If you want to leverage the full potential of this popular video sharing website you’ll want to check out these insightful tips. Here are her top five recommendations:

• The Test Tube on YouTube
• Plotting Global Domination? Check Your Swagger
• Avoid Over-commitment Issues
• Be a Social Media Butterfly
• Don’t Just Re-purpose Old Content

The ALA has published the 2010 State of America’s Libraries Report. The study shows increased library usage, but not an increase in library funding. Here are some of this year’s key findings:

• Internet use continues to expand at public libraries, which have seen double-digit growth since 2007 in the on-line services they make available to their patrons.
• Ninety-six percent of Americans feel that school libraries are an essential part of the education experience because they provide resources to students and teachers and because they give every child the opportunity to read and learn.
• America’s academic libraries are experiencing increased use, both physical and virtual.
• America’s libraries continue their efforts to support minorities and other underserved or disadvantaged populations.
• The library community continues to defend a core value embodied in the First Amendment and the corollary right to receive and consider ideas, information, and images.
• Library construction fared better in 2009 than many expected during the recession, especially given the unreliability of funding for programming, materials, and hours.

Kurt Opsahl at the Electronic Frontier Foundation has put together a useful guide to How to Opt Out of Facebook’s Instant Personalization. This quick tutorial is in response to Facebook’s newly announced Instant Personalization feature (read New York Times coverage) which will personalize your experience on websites such as Yelp, Pandora, and Microsoft Docs based on your public Facebook information.

Matt Silverman at Mashable puts together another list of not-to-be-missed social and mobile posts with 21 Essential Social Media Resources You May Have Missed. Here are just a few of the must-read articles he’s gathered:

5 Ways Classrooms Can Use Video Conferencing
5 Unique Ways to Use Twitter for Business
4 Tips for Tapping Into Twitter Conversations
9 Ways to Do Good With 5 Minutes or $25
How Social Media Can Effect Real Social and Governmental Change

I gave a brief workshop on Personal Branding: How to Create an Online Presence with my co-worker Megan Myers on Monday. We created a wiki with all of the info for the session and have made it public so feel free to check it out. Here’s the description of the workshop:

It is more important than ever to have an impressive online presence. This workshop session will provide tips for creating a personal brand portfolio which includes everything from your university webpage to your presence on popular social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. You will learn how to discover what your personal brand currently consists of (yes, you are online in some capacity – discover what others can find out about you and how this effects your image), and how to develop strategies for branding success. We will discuss the “what and how” of posting to new social media websites and the ways in which that impacts how you are perceived online.

The folks at Netzpiloten have put together a mega-list of Social Media Monitoring Tools. These are great suggestions for websites to check out to see what people are saying about you or your library. There are over 100 monitoring sites gathered in this list, here are just a few:

• Social Mention
• TweetBeep
• IceRocket
• Twazzup
• Collecta
• Who’s Talkin’

I was interviewed live last night by Maurice Coleman for the T is for Training show – the library training podcast!

Wired’s How-To-Wiki has a detailed tutorial explaining Facebook’s privacy settings and how to Make Your Facebook Account Private. The article has detailed instructions and screenshots for locking down your profile. I would also suggest creating Friends Lists and using those to limit who sees particular status updates and photo albums.

Denise Wakeman at Social Media Examiner offers 19 Tips for Driving Traffic to Your Blog. There are a lot of great tips here, I particularly agree with the idea of syndicating to Twitter through Twitterfeed which is something that I do. Here are her top five suggestions:

1. Publish as frequently as possible
2. Pay attention to the headlines (blog post titles)
3. Send an email broadcast
4. Add a link in your email signature
5. Include multiple subscription options on your blog

The team at Educause has put together another of their “7 Things” guides, this time covering 7 Things You Should Know About Analytics. The article takes a look at academic analytics programs and what types of data they can assess in an educational environment. This quick guide answers 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?

Stan Schroeder at Mashable offers advice on How To: Clean Up Your Facebook Profile including straightening out the clutter of FB apps, sorting through your news feed, and tweaking your friends lists.