Archive for the ‘Media’ Category

Have you thought about posting spoken word tweets? Amy-Mae Elliott at Mashable gathers a list of five services which will enable you to Send an Audio Tweet. All of the applications listed are free of charge, don’t require a phone, and are easy to use.

Veezzle is a new search engine which finds free stock photos by crawling dozens of websites. If you’re looking for high-quality images, but don’t want to pay for them, check out this new search tool.

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

Sam Dean at OStatic reviews 9 Free, Open Source Tools for Video and Media Playback and Encoding. Each application on the list has a screenshot and a brief summary of its best features.

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

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

Jeffry Thurana at MakeUseOf walks readers through the step-by-step process of how to Build A Cool Photo Gallery Website from WordPress. This helpful guide provides annotated screenshots which illustrate how to turn your blog into an image gallery.

• The Cool DIY Way Of Sharing Images
• Finding & Installing The Themes (& The Plugins)
• Building The Blog

Barb Dybwad at Mashable finds 26 Places to Find Free Multimedia for Your Blog. Search for free images, audio, and video content to use on your blog or website using these helpful resources. Her guide to multimedia sources is divided into the following categories:

• Creative Commons search
• Free stock and public domain images
• WikiMedia Commons
• Free audio sources
• Free video sources
• Further resources

Tom Walker at DesignMag puts together a list of 15 Essential WordPress Plugins for Portfolio Sites. These useful add-ons will enable WP users to create and add image galleries, albums, thumbnails, videos, and even embed music into their blogs. Anyone looking to create a more multimedia and interactive blog or website with their WP installation will want to check out this post.

Jennifer Leggio writes for ZDNet’s Social Business blog about the Nine worst social media fails of 2009… thus far. Anyone interested in social media marketing will want to check out these summaries of marketing misses.

“What is to be learned here? Well, don’t lead with tools. Don’t think that your brand is above the risks and backlash of social media. When plotting a social media campaign, truly think about what you want your end result to be, and fully examine everything that could possibly go wrong. Word-of-mouth marketing is a fantastic thing when you know how to leverage it. But if you lose control of your brand, the disasters are almost endless. Let these brands’ failures be a lesson.”

Several libraries have recently joined the Flickr Commons initiative started by the Library of Congress in early 2008. Among them are:

Swedish National Heritage Board – 201 images

Nantucket Historical Association – 208 images

Chicago’s Field Museum Library – 476 images

District of Columbia Public Library – 154 images

I was thinking that Mashable’s latest post by Sharlyn Lauby titled “Should Your Company Have a Social Media Policy?” could easily be applied to libraries. Since many libraries have begun adopting social media tools, it stands to reason that some may be considering developing such a policy. The article covers the Five W’s to creating a social media policy:

1. WHY have such a policy?
2. WHAT can social media do for my organization?
3. WHO should the policy cover?
4. WHERE should you let employees know about this policy?
5. WHEN is the right time to implement a policy?

I’d be really interested to hear what else you might add to a library-specific Social Media policy – please add your suggestions in the comments!

Lee Odden at the Online Marketing Blog posts about 25 Must Read Social Media Marketing Tips gathered from expert in-house social media marketers from Dell, Comcast, HP, Intel and more. The article includes advice and insight from 25 contributors including:

• Charlene Li – Founder of The Altimeter Group and best selling author, ”Groundswell: Winning In A World Transformed By Social Technologies”.
• Chris Brogan – President of New Marketing Labs
• Nick Ayres – Interactive Marketing Manager, The Home Depot
• Frank Eliason – Director of Digital Care, Comcast
• Richard Binhammer – Senior Manager, Dell

According to a recent press release, the Library of Congress will build on its recent success with the Flickr Commons pilot by sharing audio and video content from its collections via YouTube and Apple iTunes. Library of Congress channels on these services will launch over the next few weeks.

“New channels on the video and podcasting services will be devoted to Library content, including 100-year-old films from the Thomas Edison studio, book talks with contemporary authors, early industrial films from Westinghouse factories, first-person audio accounts of life in slavery, and inside looks into the Library’s fascinating holdings, including the rough draft of the Declaration of Independence and the contents of Lincoln’s pockets on the night of his assassination.”

There are over 100 million photos available on Flickr which have been licensed with Creative Commons licenses and Michelle Thorne has published an analysis of them on the Creative Commons blog. Here are a few of her findings:

• 33% of them are equipped with the most restrictive CC License, BY-NC-ND. That means that over 32 million photos are available to download, display publicly, and distribute, as long as the author is attributed and no changes are made to the original image.
• The second most frequent license is BY-NC-SA. It allows derivative works for non-commercial purposes as long as those resulting works are made available under the same license. 29%, or 29 million images, can be used in this manner.
• 76% of all photos bar commercial use. At the same time, it means that 24%, or 24 million photos, do allow for commercial use with minimal restrictions.
• Over 12 millions photos are completely free to use, as long as the author of the image is attributed.
• Approximately 63 million of all available image files allow for derivative works.