January 5, 2009
Frozen Bubbles
Sometimes we're said to be on the bubble.
Remember the Internet Bubble, the Dotcom Bubble, the Web 2.0 Bubble.
Well, as we enter the cold season here in Canada, you have to look to this solution:
(Via Boing Boing) "One intrepid experimenter with a good camera, a cold night and a soap-bubble-maker creates sheer joy in this gallery of frozen bubbles: "It's very cold tonight, so we played with bubbles. If you blow them upwards enough they have time to freeze on the way down."
Check out more photos at freezebubbles (I love the exploding frozen bubbles the best.).
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 1:03 PM | Comments (0)
Good Question
Norman Oder
So, How Much Will Google Charge Libraries?
LJ.com
January 5, 2009
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 12:51 PM | Comments (0)
10 things that won't survive the recession
Computerworld's Mike Elgan's blog gives us:
10 things that won't survive the recession
Economic downturns have a way of accelerating the demise of the obsolete and inefficient.
Here are the ten - more detail after the link.
1. Free tech support
2. Wi-Fi you have to pay for
3. Landline phones
4. Movie rental stores
5. Web 2.0 companies without a business plan
6. Most companies in Silicon Valley
7. Palm Inc.
8. Yahoo
9. Half of all retail stores
10. Satellite Radio
An interesting list that could make a neat debate. What car manufacturer is gone by the end of the recession? What favourite ad supported tool are you using that doesn't have a good-eough-business-plan? If it's really free where does their revenue come from? Developers eat and pay rent.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 12:43 PM | Comments (0)
Browser Market Share
These changes seem to be quickening:
Internet Explorer's share of the browser market fell below 70% in November
"Mozilla's Firefox browser has also surpassed 20 percent market share for the first time. . .
and Google ... now automatically recommends that Gmail users running IE6 switch to Firefox or Google's own Chrome browser"
"Preliminary numbers on December browser usage indicate that Microsoft has lost more ground, now coming in at just over 68 percent market share."
Competition again shows that no one is solid in the technology world.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 12:30 PM | Comments (0)
The Global Language Tipping Point
From the New York Times just before New Year's Eve:
Writing the Web’s Future in Numerous Languages
By DANIEL SORID
Published: December 30, 2008
"The next chapter of the World Wide Web will not be written in English alone. Asia already has twice as many Internet users as North America, and by 2012 it will have three times as many. Already, more than half of the search queries on Google come from outside the United States."
The cool technology descirbed in this article is a weak signal from the future. As the Boomers become less important as a consumer group for some products, they are catered to less. It will be the same as English speaking countries or those using the English alphabet decline in importance. Money and development priorities will follow the markets. No way of knowing how this will ultimately play out but just looking at the potential of touch screens on all phones and you can see opportunities for exponential change. If you've used the predictive typing on your phone you'll also see it learning and doing some surprising things - good and bad.
Interesting.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 12:20 PM | Comments (0)
Top 50 Lists
College@Home has a number of interesting Top 50 lists that might be fun and useful for exploring:
50 Useful iPhone Tips for Libraries
Paperless World: 50 Tips and Tools for Reading On Your iPod
100 Useful Niche Search Engines to Focus and Finetune Your Academic Research
Learn Anything: 100 Places to Find Free Webinars and Tutorials
57 Useful Google Tools Scholars, Students, and Hobbyists
100 Helpful Web Tools for Every Kind of Learner
100+ Job Resources for Librarians
Virtual Learning: 25 Best Sims and Games For the Classroom
100 Free Library 2.0 Webinars and Tutorials
Many of these lists should be useful to your homeschoolers and e-learners.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)
CBS and Libraries
Libraries seem to be becoming media darlings in the story arc.
My Katie Couric does an New Year's Eve editorial on us here.
Libraries
"Americans are saving money, and keeping the looming recession at bay, by going to their local libraries to rent books, CD's, and DVD's. Katie Couric reports on December 31, 2008"
Cool. Celebrity spokesperson and anchor!
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 11:33 AM | Comments (0)
Ultimate Couch Potato is a Librarian
My SLA colleague Stan Friendman at the Conde Naste publishing library is crowned again!
He's the Ultimate Couch Potato: Stan Friedman wins 2nd straight title
(New York Daily News, Jan. 2)
I'm sure it helps that he works near Times Square and then can go immediately back to work (grin).
Way to go!
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)
Password Security
I thought this was an interesting bit of fun:
Top 500 worst passwords of all time
Any of your's on the list?
I agree with the comment that the worst password is the one that is taped to the front of your screen or on page one of your calendar/daytimer.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)
Libraries Survive and Thrive in Recessions
From the Sunday Boston Globe (Jan. 4, 2009):
Check It Out
As the economy sags, library use is booming. But will the services people want survive the budget cuts towns fear?
Great article for posting to bulletin boards everywhere.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 11:02 AM | Comments (0)
iPhone and the Vatican
Tip of the hat to Jeff.
Vatican approves iPhone application
iBreviary brings prayers to Apple's handset
"The Vatican has lent its approval to an iPhone application – with the iBreviary bringing the book of daily prayers to Apple's handset."
"The Vatican's Pontifical Council for Social Communications has given its seal of approval to the application, which was created by Italian priest Reverend Paolo Padrini with a little help from a web designer."
"So what does iBreviary give (aside from a better chance of salvation)? Well it's available in Italian, English, Spanish, French and, of course, Latin with Portuguese and German likely be included in version 1.1."
"A free trial period in Italian saw 10,000 downloads, but the application will now cost 74p with Padrini's proceeds going to charity. "
Now in some ways the Vatican can be considered a conservative institution although I have heard about e-mail absolutions, etc.
Are libraries more conservative?
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 10:54 AM | Comments (0)
January 4, 2009
2008 ECAR Study Released
The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2008
This 2008 ECAR research study is a longitudinal extension of the 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 ECAR studies of students and information technology. The study is based on quantitative data from a spring 2008 survey of 27,317 freshmen and seniors at 90 four-year institutions and eight two-year institutions; student focus groups that included input from 75 students at four institutions; and analysis of qualitative data from 5,877 written responses to open-ended questions. In addition to studying student ownership, experience, behaviors, preferences, and skills with respect to information technologies, the 2008 study also includes a special focus on student participation in social networking sites.
Direct Links to Full Text Report (several PDFs and highlghts)
I link to this every year and find it useful. I'm interested that they asked questions about students and social networks this year.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)
January 3, 2009
Global Social Media Growth
Who's on top in social networking?
Here's the data from ComScore as of the end of November:
Top Social Media Sites (ranked by unique worldwide visitors November, 2008; ComScore)
1. Blogger (222 million)
2. Facebook (200 million)
3. MySpace (126 million)
4. Wordpress (114 million)
5. Windows Live Spaces (87 million)
6. Yahoo Geocities (69 million)
7. Flickr (64 million)
8. hi5 (58 million)
9. Orkut (46 million)
10. Six Apart (46 million)
11. Baidu Space (40 million)
12. Friendster (31 million)
13. 56.com (29 million)
14. Webs.com (24 million)
15. Bebo (24 million)
16. Scribd (23 million)
17. Lycos Tripod (23 million)
18. Tagged (22 million)
19. imeem (22 million)
20. Netlog (21 million)
Now I don't know what the overlap would be (i.e. unique members) but it looks to me like there are about 1/2 a billion social networkers out there.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 12:36 PM | Comments (0)
January 2, 2009
Whither the Newspaper?
I don't usually just reproduce (Is reblogging like retweeting?) whole posts but this on from Jeff Jarvis was great:
"Bad news, good news
By Jeff Jarvis on newspapers
For a proposal I’m writing, I want to compile key stats that show the state of the news business (at least the incumbents, plus a view of demand). Here’s what I have. Do you have other stats that reveal the state?
Bad news…
• Newspaper stocks fell an average of 83.3% in 2008—twice the fall of the S&P 500—wiping out $64.5 billion in market value, according to Alan Mutter’s Newsosaur blog.
• Since 1994—and the release of the commercial web browser—newspaper audience penetration has fallen a third, from 23% to 16%. In that time, circulation fell 14% (59 million to 50 million, according to the Newspaper Association of America) while population rose 20%.
• Viewership for network evening news continues to decline, to 23.1 million in 2007, according to Nielsen. The median age of network evening news viewers is 61 in 2008, according to Magna Global USA.
• Since 1994, newspaper print advertising revenue fell on an inflation-adjusted basis by 10% (from $34,109 million in 1994 dollars to $42,209 million in 2007 dollars, says NAA).
• Since 1994, the number of newspapers in America fell from 1,548 to 1,422, according to NAA.
• In 2008 alone, 15,586 newspaper jobs were lost, according to the Papercuts blog.
• In 2008, the Pew Research Center found that the internet surpassed newspapers as a primary source of news for Americans (following TV). For young people, 18 to 29, the internet will soon surpass TV, at nearly double the rate for newspapers.
• 54% of Americans do not trust news media, according to a Harris survey. A Sacred Heart University survey says only 20% of Americans believe or trust most news media.
• Jeffrey Cole of the University of Southern California Annenberg School’s Center for the Digital Future found in a 2007 survey that young people 12 to 25 will “never read a newspaper.” Never.
• In 2008, the American Society of Newspaper Editors took “paper” out of its name.
Good news…
• But newspaper online site audience has long since surpassed print circulation, reaching 69 million unique users in fall 2008, according to NAA.
• And the total online news audience is about 100 million—more than half total U.S. internet users—according to ComScore."
WOW.
For a good list of innovations in the newspaper world check out:
"Best & Worst of 2008 - Changes" in Newspaper Death Watch blog [Chronicling the Decline of Newspapers and the Rebirth of Journalism].
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 12:10 PM | Comments (0)
December 31, 2008
Soundbites for the Economic Disruption
So, you're heading out to your favourite New Year's Eve event and you have to talk to people a lot. It's time for new soundbites for dealing with the topic-du-jour - the economic disruption. And it's not just about assigning blame to capitalists, bankers, carmakers, ponzis and politicians although that can be quite cathartic. We need to bring the library message into our conversations and our unique role in moving forward.
"A study cited in Parade Magazine says a family of four can save up to $2,500 a year by borrowing just 10 items a month from the public library. That’s 120 items a year, averaging $20.83 each."
That's cheaper than your savings at Wal-Mart, the only winner so far in this mess.
What do people do during an economic disruption. They look for work and libraries provide a bunch of resources, courses, programs, advice and PC access for job hunters. Libraries have a ton of experience in this and are sharpening their skills as we speak as any organization would when faced with such a strategic opportunity..
Temporarily unemployed? Library resources can help replace everything from books, school resources, magazine subscriptions and DVD rentals to home Internet. Get the savings without the pain.
When the economy shifts, and shift has happened before, people go back to school. They do it full time and art time and in class and use distance education. Libraries shine in supporting these adult learners as the retool, retread and reskill for the new economy and future success.
And libraries continue to serve the K-12 kids so that they are prepared for new economy they'll hit when all this disruption ends. Only the most cruel and stupid politicians would cut resources for education so that the downward spiral goes deeper and lasts longer and hurts the ability of future generations to compete globally.
And don't forget how libraries help seniors whose restricted incomes might be compromised through investment losses, or poor folk whose government programs are likely to be cut or shrunk, or recipients of help from charitable organizations whose donations are suffering.
We must win the conversations over the general and shallow public opinions which can be dead wrong and poorly informed.
The ALA report to the Obama/Biden transition team and the subsequent educational effort - Opening the “Window to a Larger World,” Libraries’ Role in Changing America, can be vewed at http://www.wo.ala.org/districtdispatch/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/ala-report-to-transition-team1.pdf is a good start. It's good to ask for $100 million but a $Billion is better. Think like a banker, insurer, broker, carmaker, or whoever wants a handout. Maybe libraries should convert to bank holding companies (grin).
Happy New Year. The battle continues.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 3:49 PM | Comments (0)
December 30, 2008
CD almost dead . . .
Not dead really. Just the market share of how music is sold and acquired is shifting. We've seen this coming for years but it's always been a case of 'within a few years", or "by 5 years from now."
They're advocating more aggressive diversification of their business models. They say retail music should consider:
1. Burn on demand models (nothing out of stock!?)
2. Exploiting mobile opportunities faster (including on other devices like Kindles)
3. Broaden digital content beyond music (lyrics, scripts, songsheets, karaoke, etc.)
4. Flexible online pricing
5. Drive down physical costs
6. Go digital first and stop using CD to prop up an expiring business model.
Libraries have already gone through some of this thinking but there's still stuff to learn from music.
What's next? DVD? Yep. eNews? Yep. eBooks, hmmmm?
Lots of the kind of stuff libraries stock.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 4:25 PM | Comments (0)
Worst Books of 2008
Here's a twist on the old bestseller / award winner list:
EW.com's 5 Worst Books of 2008
1. CHASING HARRY WINSTON, Lauren Weisberger
2. THE LACE READER,
Brunonia Barry
3. THE GARGOYLE,
Andrew Davidson
4. BRIGHT SHINY MORNING, James Frey
5. A WOLF AT THE TABLE, Augusten Burroughs
This could be a fun web survey on the library's website in the January doldrums! What was the worst book you read in 2008? (I suppose, if pressed, you could also ask for the best one too, but that's not nearly as gossipy and mean.) It'd make a good blog, poll, wiki, or e-mail format.
It's a small community recommendation / warning list. You might have to edit out the required reading at the local high school or put it into a hall-of-fame!
Quotes could be fun - eg. "I was so glad I borrowed this awful book at the library, I'd have been furious if I'd paid good money for it!"
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 2:17 PM | Comments (0)
Justifying Social Marketing
Here are the results of a survey of advertising and marketing executives about their goals with respect to social marketing tools:
It's an interesting list and I can't see a reason on it that wouldn't apply to libraries' strategies too.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 2:09 PM | Comments (0)
10 myths about libraries and librarians
Carol Petrowski is a La Crosse County Library System staff member at the Onalaska Public Library in Wisconsin. She wrote this article debunking 10 myths about libraries
LIBRARY NOTE: Setting the record straight on libraries
I'd add other myths:
1. Public libraries and school libraries are just about the same.
2. Libraries are for English readers only.
3. Libraries only have books and not fresh magazines, movies, music, websites, games, adult programs, and more.
4. Libraries are serious and quoiet all the time
5. You have to know Dewey to use the library
6. Library cards are hard to get.
...
Got some more? Use the comments.
And, good work Carol, folks get to see those local articles now when they're on the web!
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 1:38 PM | Comments (0)
Monitoring Your Reputation
When you have a reputuation (personal or institutional) or brand to protect it's worth reviewing the best ways to monitor the 'BUZZ' and the 'buzz' out there.
Top 10 Free Tools for Monitoring Your Brand’s Reputation
1. Google
2. Blog Posts
3. Blog Comments
4. Social Comments
5. Discussion Boards
6. Twitter
7. FriendFeed
8. Social Search
9. Interactive Search
10. Your personal network
Learn more in the post.
What does your active listening feed look like? Don't think of it just as criticisms but also as a source of compliments and ideas. What you don't know can't help you.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at 1:30 PM | Comments (0)