Archive for the ‘Media’ Category

The blog search engine Technorati issues the Technorati Attention Index which reports the top mainstream media websites that bloggers link to the most. This report will be updated each month. Here are the top ten, be sure and check out the full article for the full list.

1. YouTube
2. New York Times
3. BBC News
4. CNN.com
5. MSN
6. guardian.co.uk
7. Washington Post
8. Yahoo! News
9. Reuters
10. Los Angeles Times

via TechCrunch

Robin Broitman at IIG has put together a Superlist of What NOT To Do In Social Media, linking to eye-opening examples of blunders made by major corporations and individuals when launching social Web initiatives. Learn by (bad) example and avoid the social media mistakes listed in this handy guide including:

• The Twitter Hall of Shame: 50 Tweets That Will Echo in History
• A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media
• 10 Social Media Blunders that Can Destroy Your Brand

The Library of Congress has issued both a full and a summary report of the pilot project it launched with Flickr in January 2008.

“Two collections of historical photographs were made public on a Library account on the Flickr photosharing site in January 2008. The response from Flickr members and observers of the pilot was overwhelmingly positive and beneficial. The following statistics attest to the popularity and impact of the pilot:

• As of October 23, 2008, there have been 10.4 million views of the photos on Flickr.
• 79% of the 4,615 photos have been made a “favorite” (i.e., are incorporated into personal Flickr collections).
• Over 15,000 Flickr members have chosen to make the Library of Congress a “contact,” creating a photostream of Library images on their own accounts.
• For Bain images placed on Flickr, views/downloads rose approximately 60% for the period January-May 2008, compared to the same time period in 2007. Views/downloads of FSA/OWI image files placed on Flickr rose approximately 13%.
• 7,166 comments were left on 2,873 photos by 2,562 unique Flickr accounts.
• 67,176 tags were added by 2,518 unique Flickr accounts.
• 4,548 of the 4,615 photos have at least one community-provided tag.
• Less than 25 instances of user-generated content were removed as inappropriate.
• More than 500 Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) records have been enhanced with new information provided by the Flickr Community.
• Average monthly visits to all PPOC Web pages rose 20% over the five month period of January-May 2008, compared to the same period in 2007.”

via Open Education News

Have you ever wanted to bookmark images you find online in the same way that you would favorite an article or website in delicious or other social bookmarking website? The New York Times has hand-picked some top photo-oriented bookmarking sites which will let you do just that in their recent article Tag That Image: Visual Bookmarking Sites Worth Browsing.

The folks at Common Craft have put together a new video explaining Windows Live in plain english. If you have an interest in setting up a profile in this website community, you may want to check this out.

The Parisians, Photographer: Alfred Eisenstaedt

Google announced the LIFE photo archive yesterday, a collection of images photographed by LIFE Magazine photographers and newly digitized by Google. The collection which has been added to Google’s Image Search consists of approximately 10 million photos dating back to the 1750′s, of which about 20% has been digitized so far with the rest expected to be added over the next few months.

Mashable presents a list of 20 Great Online Image Editors. These are both free and subscription-based online applications which will allow you to import your images from social networking websites in order to crop, resize, remove redeye and more.

Torley at the Mashable blog has put together a quick guide to How to Master Screencasts in Seven Steps. The author, who has created over 200 video tutorials, shares detailed tips and tricks organized into the following steps:

1. Understand audio engineering
2. Indulge in templates
3. Focus on using eye candy to enhance learning
4. Learn from the best screencasts in the world
5. Practice narrating and love your voice
6. Be codec-smart, context-aware
7. Continually explore delivery mediums

Educause has another installment in its “7 Things” series, this time on UStream, an interactive web streaming platform that lets users broadcast their own channels on the Ustream network or on a third-party website such as MySpace or Facebook. The quick guide answers the following questions about the technology:

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

The Hongkiat blog puts together an interesting list of 60+ Tools To Enhance Your Flickr Experience. The post provides a screenshot of each application along with a brief description of its functionality. Flickr tools are divided into the following categories:

• Flickr Downloaders & Uploaders
• Flickr Search Engines
• Flickr Slide Show & Gallery Makers
• Interesting Flickr Tools
• Flickr Wallpapers
• Miscellaneous Flickr Tools

Facebook has announced that the social network has just topped 10 billion photos uploaded by members. And actually, since FB stores four images sizes for each photo uploaded, that number is more precisely in the 40 billion area. This is quite significant when compared to other top photo-sharing websites including Photobucket which hosts 6 billion photos and Flickr which stores just over 2 billion.

Facebook members view over 15 million photos every day, and at peak traffic times, over 300,000 images are viewed per second.

Michelle Jeske writes about enhancing your library’s online presence with Tapping Into Media: Take your online presence to the next level with audio and video in the latest issue of Library Journal. The article discusses how adding media extends the reach of library content, ways to go about incorporating media into your library’s website and beyond, and finding inspiration on the Web.

“Some people learn better through viewing and listening, and some people simply don’t like to read. In our society, there seems to be a general move away from text, or, at least, text as we have defined it in the past. Moreover, mobile devices such as laptops, PDAs, and cell phones make video and audio incredibly easy to imbibe. So how do libraries compete for attention in this environment? According to the 2005 OCLC report Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources, the library brand is books. If our communities think we’re all about books while people are used to getting their information from places other than books, how do we stay relevant?”

Hongkiat has compiled a list of 20 of the best Web destinations which offer free e-books which includes 15 additional briefly suggested sites, and reader-contributed recommendations in the comments. If you haven’t had enough with these, you could check out the 22 e-book websites listed in 80 Online Resources for Book Lovers, or if you’re on the fence about the value of e-books, head over to read the 30 Benefits of Ebooks.

ReadWriteWeb reports on a consumer research study conducted by Universal McCann which interviewed 17,000 Internet users in 29 countries. The study compares its results with previous reports or “waves” conducted in 2006 and 2007. Some of the study’s findings include:

• 57% have joined a Social Network, making it the number one platform for creating and sharing content
• 23% of social network users have installed an application
• Video Clips are the quickest growing platform, up from 31% penetration
  in Wave 1 to 83% in Wave 3
• 73% have read a blog
• 34% post opinions about products and brands on their blog

View the study here.

From the George Eastman House Collection

Since the early sucess of Flickr’s The Commons pilot project with The Library of Congress in January of this year, several other organizations have joined up to make their photography collections available to the public. These are the latest members of The Commons:

• George Eastman House – Over 200 photographs.
• Powerhouse Museum of Sydney, Australia – 650 images.
• The Smithsonian Institution – 900 photos.
• The Brooklyn Museum – Over 450 images.
• The Bibliothèque de Toulouse – 800 photographs.

via Open Access News