Meebo Adds Voice Services with Partnerships with Tokbox, Pudding Media, TalkShoe, and Ustream.tv
Meebo, the web-based service that allows users (free) to access multiple IM services using one service has added voice a video services from four providers.

The new services:

+ Tokbox
Free web-based video calling.

+ Pudding Media Voice Chat
We posted about Pudding and their unique voice chat services a couple of weeks ago.

+ TalkShoe
Web-based group calls what they call TalkCasts (and other recorded services)

+ Ustream

Ustream is a platform that provides live interactive video for everyone. Anyone with a camera and an Internet connection can use Ustream to broadcast to a global audience.

+ Science in England, 2002-06

+ Mathematics: High-Impact U.S. Institutions, 2002-06

+ Management: Most Prolific U.S. Universities, 2002-06

+ Journals Ranked by Impact: Zoology

Source: ISI

New from the World Bank: Enterprise Surveys: Do Your Own Analysis

From the site:

Create your own customized tables and graphs for precisely the indicators, countries/groups, stratificaton (categorizing the data by firm size, sector, ownership, exporter), and statistics (average, count, standard deviation, minimum, maximum) that you are interested in for your own reports.

The Bank’s Enterprise Surveys team has launched a custom query tool called Do Your Own Analysis. It allows users to slice and dice firm-level, microeconomic data across 172 indicators from over 100 countries. Each query generates a custom graph that the user can cut and paste.These surveys measure business perceptions of the investment climate in countries, based on data from over 66,000 firms worldwide. They can be used to analyze
job creation and growth trends.

Source: The World Bank (via Stuart Basefsky’s IWS Documented News Service)

Lottery backs a public winner with £80m for libraries

A major £80m investment in public libraries has been welcomed today by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Partnership.

The cash, from the Big Lottery Fund, has been awarded to projects throughout England. Capital sums up to £2m will be handed to 58 winning library authorities that have successfully devised plans to engage local people in developing new and refurbished spaces where a broad range of activities can be offered.

The Community Libraries Programme, which was developed jointly between the Big Lottery Fund, MLA and the Society of Chief Librarians, aims to enhance public libraries as venues for a diverse range of community activities, such as reading groups, cultural events, exhibitions, courses, or parent-and-toddler groups.

Source: Museums, Libraries and Archives Partnership

Review: MS Live Search makes 411 easy (via RCR News)
This is a review by Matt Kapko of 1-800-CALL-411 directory assistance developed by MS and Tellme Networks (also owned by MS). TellMe Networks at 1-800-555-Tell also offers directory listings as well as news, entertainment (showtimes, by movie tickets, etc.), sports scores, news, and more.

New Publication: Middle East and North Africa Research Resources

The newly published FUMSI Report, Middle East and North Africa Research Resources, offers a convenient introduction to products and resources in and about the region on a variety of important topics, including industry information, company information, news, consumer markets and more.

+ Google Talking to Verizon About Phone (via MarketWatch.com)
Yesterday, we posted about a possible announcement coming soon from Google about the release of a phone. That story mentioned that T-Mobile might be the likely partner. Today, another story. This time the report is that Google is talking with Verizon. Yesterday’s story also mentioned that Google was talking to a variety of European carriers including France Telecom. However, France Telecom told Reuters today that the companies are NOT in talks.

+ Washington Post and Become.com Partner on Comparison Shopping Section

+ Link Searching at Live is Back (via SES)

+ Searching For The Best Engine (via Newsweek)

+ Yahoo India Adds Driving Directions
From a Yahoo Blog post by Siddharth Vijayakrishnan, Product Manager, India Maps

Now, in India, we drive a little differently. We drive on the left. Or the right, if the left is occupied. We also give directions a little differently. “Third right after the big banyan tree on your left” might leave many bemused, but is guaranteed to lead the lost out here. Starting today, you can search for driving directions — “Indian Style” — anywhere in India on the Yahoo! India Maps Site.

We’ll tell you directions with landmarks to watch out for while taking turns. We’ll also tell you how many turns come before the one you have to make. So, go and take this feature out for a test drive and tell us what you think.

Source: Yahoo Local and Maps Blog

+ Special Issue on Multimedia Information Retrieval

The goals of this special issue are: 1) investigating novel ideas for multimedia information organization, 2) finding or developing techniques in artificial intelligence, computer vision, data mining, and machine learning for specific tasks in multimedia information retrieval, 3) targeting effective and efficient methods for multimedia information representation, and 4) exploring interesting and practical applications.

+ 9th ACM International Workshop on Web Information and Data Management
The workshop is scheduled for November 9, 2007 in Lisbon, Portugal.

+ ACM Sixteenth Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM 2007)
The conference is scheduled for November 6-10, 2007, Lisbon, Portugal. Prabhakar Raghavan, Head of Yahoo! Research, is one of the keynote speakers.

Another Busy Week for New Domains Registered By Microsoft

Here’s a selected list of what’s new in the past week or so. A contest and a jobs blog appear to be coming soon.

New Domains
+ msdnchallenge.com
+ msdnchallenge.net
+ msdnchallenge.org
+ technetchallenge.com
+ technetchallenge.net
+ technetchallenge.org

+ Ilovemywebsitechallenge.org
+ Ihatemywebsitechallenge.org

+ microsoftjobsblog.com
+ microsoftjobsblog.net
+ microsoftjobsblog.org

+ idspartnertest-ppe.org
+ idspartnertest.org

+ sqlserverstore.com
+ sqlserverstore.net
+ sqlserverstore.org

+ vboxint.com
+ vboxint.net
+ vboxprod.com
+ vboxprod.net
+ vboxint.org
+ vboxprod.org
+ boxint.org
+ vboxprod.org

+ xtival.com
+ xtival.net
+ xtival.org
+ xtival07.com
+ xtival07.net

+ Fabrikamuniversity.com
+ Fabrikamuniversity.net
+ Fabrikamuniversity.org

+ Sbsbobcatsp1.com
+ Sbsbobcatsp1.net
+ Sbsbobcatsp1.org

Transferred Domain:
+ UltimatePc.com

Presentations from DSpace User Group Meeting, 200
The meeting took place in October 17th-20th in Rome.

Source: DSpace

++ UK: Arrests for recorded crime: annual statistics
38 pages; PDF.
Annual National Statistics release, presented on a financial year basis and covering the number of persons arrested for recorded crime (notifiable offences) by type of offence, age, sex, and police force area in England and Wales. The publication also includes information relating to police stops and searches of persons and vehicles including the reasons for the searches.

++ Race and the criminal justice system
140 pages; PDF
This publication fulfils a statutory obligation for the Secretary of State to publish, annually, information relating to the criminal justice system (CJS) with reference to avoiding discrimination on the ground of race. This publication reports statistical information on the representation of black and minority ethnic groups as suspects, offenders and victims with in the CJS and on employees within criminal justice agencies.

Source: Department of Justice (via DocuTicker)

Free For Teachers gathers a cornucopia of award-winning government resources you can use with students in grades 6-12. You can order helpful, free publications, print out colorful posters and practical lesson plans, and get online newsletters and email updates of your favorite pages on USA.gov and Pueblo.gsa.gov.

Source: Federal Consumer Information Center

500 Years of Italian Dance: Treasures from the Cia Fornaroli Collection - images illustrating the rich history of Italian dance

The collection includes designs, lithographs, ephemera, and more.

Source: New York Public Library Digital Gallery

+ Facebook to speak Chinese with .cn domain name0
Presently, the domain redirects to Facebook’s home page.

+ Ask.com Helps IAC Earn 40% Increase In Q3 2007 Media Revenue (via SEL)
From a DJ article:

The media and advertising unit - which includes Ask.com, Citysearch and Evite - showed a 40% rise in revenue. Ask.com, which Diller has described as the glue in the company’s overall strategy, had an increase in the number of queries and revenue per query.

* Gary is Director of Online Info Resources at Ask.com

+ OpenSocial: Led By Google, Social Networks Band To Take On Facebook (via Search Engine Land)
Key Points In Our View from Danny’s SEL Article:
+ Launch of Common API’s on Thursday

+ Companies Involved So Far include: Friendster, Ning, Linked In, etc.

+ Why? Combat Developers Who Are Only Developing for Facebook

+ Why? Danny discusses back in September that some were worried that Facebook is too closed with its data. Getting other networks to jooin Google and have a common language (coding, API’s), “can make a play that all social networks should spill their data, thus robbing Facebook of its most important asset.”

+ Google Working to Make Orkut (the social network they launched several years ago), more “attractive.” It’s been during this time that we’ve seen the rise of both MySpace and Facebook

ResourceShelf Comment: What happens if/when more and more people decide to make their profiles and other info private or available only to a selected group of users and not available for public view? What does this mean for the mass amount of data a social network could produce? Also, what about gaming of the system? Fake/manipulated profiles are another issue in social search. Creating profiles for people to generate page views for the author and also advertisers. This, of course, is far from a new concern but comes to mind as social search continues to expand. From a researcher perspective, where does accuracy, currency, etc. of data come into play? While no bio database or book is 100% you can sometimes judge its over all quality by the reputation of the publisher over a period of time. In some cases, info in the database might be reviewed, spot-checked, or something close for quality, currency (often very important) and overall accuracy.

See Also: Details Revealed: Google OpenSocial To Launch Thursday
See Also: Google Launches Open Social (via Searchblog)
See Also: Look for More Info Here Tomorrow

UPDATE from Greg Sterling at SEL
MySpace, Bebo, and SixApart will also be part of OpenSocial.

+ Sprint in talks with Google on mobile apps, says source (via News.com)
Process still in early stage, according to source; news follows reports that Verizon might also team up with search giant. More here.

+ Springer titles to be preserved by Portico

Lists Rankings: Canada: PROFIT W100 2007 Rankings: Canada’s Top Women Entrepreneurs
Along with the list, several background articles and profiles.

Source: Canadian Business

Posted 30 October 2007 on DocuTicker:
+ Global Retirement Perspective, 14th Edition (Mercer Consulting)
+ Podcast: The Science of Wildfires (U.S. Geological Survey)
+ Asian Son Preference Will Have Severe Social Consequences, New Studies Warn (United Nations Population Fund)