Archive for the ‘Web 2.0’ Category

Say Hello to Google Buzz

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

A new set of social networking services (five of them) named Google Buzz were introduced this AM at the Googleplex in Mt. View, CA. Several reviews and comments follow along with links to read the full text of each article.

+ Here’s what Matt McGee Says on Search Engine Land

We’re all familiar with the challenge of separating work time — which almost always involves email — from “social time,” and Google is taking somewhat of a risk by combining the two with Buzz.

As I said above, I don’t see this as a Twitter or Facebook-killer. If anything, it seems like an attempt for Google to keep some of its own users from bothering to try Facebook or Twitter if they haven’t done so already — and it may succeed to some degree in that way. But I don’t see anything so new and innovative here that existing Facebook or Twitter users will be compelled to switch.

Danny Sullivan Adds at SEL:

I’ll add that while Buzz is clearly aimed at competing with Twitter and Facebook, Google’s at pains to stress that they see Buzz as essential to Google’s “organizing the world’s information” goal.

To me, the biggest challenge Buzz seems to face so far is that feels disorganized. It integrates with some Google products; it doesn’t integrate with others. It seems like an incomplete patchwork — plus it doesn’t really live yet as its own standalone product.

+ MG Siegler at TechCrunch:
Siegler Writes:

Speaking of complexity, overall it’s another issue that Google Buzz may run into. Twitter works because it’s so simple, if you have a public account, your tweets go to anyone who is following you. Buzz is not that simple. There can be public or private buzzes. The plan is to also have buzzes for enterprise and educational users. In those cases, public buzzes may only be available within your company or school, while private would still be private to other individuals in your network. You can see how the social graph is starting to get a little more complicated.

Ashlee Vance from the NY Times

“The stream of messages has become a torrent,” said Bradley Horowitz, a vice president of product development at Google. “There is no way to parse that amount of information that ranges from the ridiculous to the sublime. We think this has become a Google-scale problem.”

The message here is that Google intends to apply its algorithmic smarts to social networking and do away with the gunk – “A good day,” “Apples are yummy,” “Jasper is soooo funny” – that’s slowing us down.

From Jared Newman, PCWorld
Excellent overview of how the five core features along with a two minute video.

National Library of Ireland Now Twittering

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

You can follow the feed or visit the the National Library of Ireland Twitter page at: @NLIreland.

The National Library of Ireland web site is at: http://www.nli.ie/en/homepage.aspx.

The William Butler Yeats Online Exhibition and theNLI Collection of Digital Photographs are two places you might want to visit.

Source: NLI

Paper — Social Transmission and Viral Culture

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Social Transmission and Viral Culture (PDF; 379 KB)

People often share news, opinions, and information, and social transmission shapes both individual behavior and collective outcomes. But why are certain things more viral than others? An analysis of over 7,500 New York Times articles published over six months suggests that individual-level psychological processes (e.g., emotion) act as a selection mechanism on culture, shaping what becomes viral. Even controlling for external drivers of attention (e.g., the time an article spent on the Times’ homepage), awe-inspiring articles are more likely to be among the newspaper’s most e-mailed stories on a given day. Practically useful, surprising, positive, and affect-laden articles are also more likely to be viral. The magnitudes of these relationships are considerable. These results underscore the importance of considering how individual-level psychological processes shape collective outcomes such as the transmission and prominence of culture.

Source: Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (Berger/Milkman)

We’ve Heard it Before & We’ll Hear it Again: Jurors, “No Twittering Allowed”

Monday, February 8th, 2010

David Kravets writes:

A federal court policy making body is belatedly entering the internet age by proposing that judges clearly inform jurors they must not electronically discuss cases they are hearing.

It’s standard procedure to inform jurors to remain mum and not conduct any research about the case until a verdict. But recent gadget use by jurors has forced the hand of the Judicial Conference, the policy making body of the U.S. federal courts.

“You may not communicate with anyone about the case on your cell phone, through e-mail, Blackberry, iPhone, text messaging, or on Twitter, through any blog or website, through any internet chat room, or by way of any other social networking websites, including Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and YouTube,” (.pdf) according to the model jury instructions the Judicial Conference released days ago to the federal judiciary.

See: Juror Use of Electronic Technologies (3 pages; PDF)
Source: Judicial Conference Committee on Court Administration and Case Management (CACM)

Access the Complete Article

Source: Wired

Recently Released (or Updated) Mobile Web Sites from Libraries & Universities

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

With new mobile sites being released daily, every now and then it’s interesting and take a look at how these sites are designed and what they offer users. In this group, we also have info about how a university is planning their mobile services.

1. Mt. Lebanon Public Library, Pittsburgh, PA

2. Seton Hall University/SHU mobile (in Planning Stages)
Hat Tip: Gerry M.

3. Flatirons Library Consortium
(Boulder, CO Louisville, CO Broomfield, CO)

Newspaper coverage via Daily Camera

4. Kingston University
London, UK.
Includes Access to Library Catalogue

5. Trinity College Library
Hartford, CT

New from Yahoo: It’s the Yahoo Mobile Blog

Friday, February 5th, 2010

You can access the new blog at: http://ymobileblog.com/.

The first post, an overview of what’s to come, is by Irv Henderson, VP of Global Mobile Products.

From the Blogs First Post:

We plan to make this site a resource for those of you interested in staying on top of what’s new with our products, consumer experiences, and the mobile business in general. You can expect to learn about new product launches and enhancements, quick tips and tricks, our take on market trends, and predictions for where we see the market is heading.

Yahoo! is a leader in the mobile industry. We’ve developed best-in-class services, such as Search, Mail, and Messenger across thousands of mobile devices, and launched apps on multiple platforms for various phones, including iPhone and BlackBerry. We reach millions of people daily, and our Mobile Homepage is available in more than 30 countries.

By designing simple, open, and feature-rich services that harness the unique attributes of mobile devices, we focus on providing better mobile experiences that are engaging and personally relevant to users like you, enabling you to connect to your world at anytime, anywhere.

So what’s to come in 2010? Three developments will play a key role in shaping the mobile industry: Powerful browsers, the OS as a launching pad, and local content.

Source: Yahoo Mobile Blog, Yahoo Anecdotal

Martindale.com Legal Library is Now on Twitter

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Another info provider, Martindale.com, has joined others in the information industry and is now tweeting.

From a Blog Post:

Did you know that an average of 200 new documents are added to the martindale.com Legal Library every week? We’re now syndicating new additions on Twitter!

Where to Find Martindale on Twitter
See the most recent articles from industry thought leaders by following us @MHLegalLibrary

[Snip]

You can now subscribe to a law firm’s or lawyer’s document RSS feed directly from their profile, or choose from our practice area and industry specific RSS feeds for more targeted interest. Check out our database of more than 38,000 documents and let us know what you think!

Source: Martindale.com Blog

UPDATE: Social Networking and Constituent Communications: Member Use of Twitter During a Two-Month Period in the 111th Congress

Friday, February 5th, 2010

This report was first published in September, 2009.

The version linked here was updated on February 3, 2010 (17 pages; PDF).

From the Summary:

This report examines Member use of one specific new electronic communication medium: Twitter. After providing an overview and background of Twitter, the report analyzes patterns of Member use of Twitter during August and September 2009. This report is inherently a snapshot in time of a dynamic process. As with any new technology, the number of Members using Twitter and the patterns of use may change rapidly in short periods of time. Thus, the conclusions drawn from this data can not be easily generalized nor can these results be used to predict future behavior.

The data show that 205 Representatives and Senators are registered with Twitter (as of September 30, 2009) and issued a total of 7,078 “tweets” during the data collection period of August and September 2009. With approximately 38% of House Members and 39% of Senators registered with Twitter, Members sent an average of 116 tweets per day collectively.

Members’ use of Twitter can be divided into eight categories: position taking, policy, district or state activities, official congressional action, personal, media, campaign activities, and other. The data suggest that the most frequent type of tweets were district or state tweets (24%), followed by policy tweets (23%), media tweets (14%), and position-taking tweets (14%).

Access Full Text of Report Updated on February 3, 2010 (17 pages; PDF).

Sources: Congressional Research Service (via Federation of American Scientists)

PREPRINT: Facebook as a Library Tool: Perceived v. Actual Use

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Author: Terra B. Jacobson
Accepted: February 2, 2010
Anticipated Publication Date: January 2011
Source: ACRL

Access Full Text of PREPRINT: Facebook as a Library Tool: Perceived v. Actual Use (23 pages; PDF)

From the Intro:

Libraries, in the past few years, have begun to examine the possibilities available to them through social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook as a tool for library awareness and marketing. As Facebook has come to dominate the social networking site arena, more libraries have created their own library pages on Facebook to create library awareness and to function as a marketing tool. This has spurred a large amount of how-to articles about the uses for Facebook in libraries as well as research about how librarians and libraries use Facebook. This paper examines reported versus actual use of Facebook in libraries to identify discrepancies between intended goals and actual use. The results of the 2009 study by Hendrix, Chiarella, Hasman, Murphy and Zafron, about the use of Facebook in libraries, is used as a guide to gauge the perceived and actual uses for Facebook in this study.

The World According to Jimmy Wales

Friday, February 5th, 2010

A new 3 page Q&A interview with the co-founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales. Here are a couple of exchanges we found most interesting.

Q. Would you recommend Wikipedia as a reference work to students?

A. Yes, but as long as some precautions are taken. Wikipedia is an excellent starting point. It is a comprehensive encyclopedia, written in a simple language and easy to access, but Wikipedia is not the best final point for research.

One has to deepen the investigation and consult other sources of information. The reader might find these sources at the footnote of the entries, where there are good references about the subject, such as books, newspapers, magazines and other websites.

What else can be done to improve Wikipedia?

The most important step we have taken in the last few years is the system of highlighted reviews.

The idea is to guarantee the public is reading an entry that has been reviewed by a trustful member of the community.

This system was tested as a pilot project in the German version of Wikipedia and the result was quite good. We are close to reaching an agreement with the volunteers of the English version of Wikipedia to implement a similar project. This is the kind of thing we are always doing to improve the content of the encyclopedia.

Access the Complete Interview

Source: goldcoast.com.au

Bing and Facebook Get Closer: Search Features, Global Access, and New Ad Arrangements

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Some news via the Bing Search Blog regarding their service and Facebook.

Here’s the news in a nutshell via this post:

1) Bing will provide Facebook, “full access to great Bing features…[with] richer answers combined with tools that help customers make faster, smarter decisions.” This is in addition to Bing continuing to, “exclusively power the web search results on Facebook.” In other words, look for a more robust web search product from Facebook.

2) Bing-Facebook integration is going global. Previously, it was U.S. only. The post points out that the Bing-Facebook will be accessible to more than 400 million people around the globe. That’s a recently updated number in a post by Facebook Founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. It’s amazing not only their user numbers but how rapidly they grow.

3) Advertising news. Facebook will now be responsible for selling its own ads on the Facebook site. Microsoft/Bing will continue to provide search ads to Facebook.

Look for all of these to become available in the next few weeks and months. Overall, a very nice win for Bing.

Source: Bing Search Blog

Crowdsourcing Local Environmental Data From Across the EU

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Note: Eye on the Earth has been online since May, 2008 with WaterWatch. AirWatch, described below, has been online since November, 2009.

From the Article:

The Eye on Earth platform is a joint venture between the European Environment Agency (EEA) and Microsoft.

The site shows the water and air quality from the 32 member countries of EEA, displaying the results on an interactive map.

The user-generated ratings are displayed alongside official data gathered by the EEA.

The makers say the site can encourage politicians to “do the right thing”.

The site features a interactive high-definition map which users can navigate to find out the quality of air and water in specific areas across the EU.

From there, they can add their own rating of the area – judging the air quality, for example, with various pre-set descriptions such as a “clean”, “odourless” or “irritating

Source: BBC

See Also: Access the Complete BBC Article

See Also: Access Eye on Earth

See Also: U.S.G.S. (U.S.) Did You Feel It? Earthquake Reporting

Social Bookmarking in Switzerland: Swiss National Library Now Using Delicious

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

From the Announcement:

As from now, the Swiss National Library is present on Delicious, one of the most popular social bookmarking sites. Via these pages, the NL provides another way to access its research tools about Switzerland. Relevant links are saved online so that they can be shared with thousands of other users. The links are indexed in German, French and English, enabling subject searches in three languages.

Swiss National Library Home Page (English)
Also available in German, French, and Italian

Swiss National Library Delicious Bookmarks

Source: Swiss National Library

New from the White House: Mobile Advice for Parents-to-Be By Sending a Text (in English or Spanish)

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

A couple of weeks ago we learned that The White House an iPhone app. We also found out that http://mobile.WhiteHouse.gov will be available soon.

Today, another new mobile service, this one utilizes text messaging (SMS). It’s called Text4baby.

When users Text BABY (English) or BEBE (Spanish) to 511411, “parents-to-be will get expert pregnancy and child-care advice from health authorities.”

More from techPresident.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has also released an announcement (PDF):

The new program, called Text4baby, is a free mobile information service that provides timely health information to women from early pregnancy through their babies’ first year. The service sends important health tips that are timed to the mother’s stage of pregnancy or the baby’s age.

[Snip]

“Text4baby is the first free mobile health service to be taken to scale in the United States,” said Aneesh Chopra, Chief Technology Officer for the U.S. Government. “We know that mobile phones hold tremendous potential to inform and empower individuals,” said Chopra. “Text4baby represents an
extraordinary opportunity to expand the way we use our phones, to demonstrate the potential of mobile health technology, and make a real difference for moms and babies across the country.”

Sources: White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; techPresident;

First Fortune 200 Boss to Tweet His Resignation, Sun’s Chief Executive Resigns with a Haiku Posted on Twitter

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

From the Article:

Jonathan Schwartz, the last chief executive of Sun Microsystems, has become the first Fortune 200 boss to tweet his resignation.

Late Wednesday night, Mr. Schwartz used Twitter to publish a haiku about his exit from Oracle, which just completed its purchase of Sun last week.

“Financial crisis/Stalled too many customers/CEO no more,” Mr. Schwartz wrote.

Mr. Schwartz has been fond of using the Internet as a soapbox. At Sun, he became the first chief executive of a major company to put up his own blog.

Much More in the Complete Article

Source: NY Times

See Also: The Resignation/Haiku Tweet from Jonathan Schwartz

Apple’s iPad: A Gadget Killer — or Just Another Gadget?

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Apple’s iPad: A Gadget Killer — or Just Another Gadget?

Apple, which brought consumers such hits as the iPod and iPhone, is wading into a new product category with the launch of its iPad, a touch-screen tablet computer that CEO Steve Jobs has said puts “the Internet in your hands” — and apparently much more.

At a press event on January 27, Jobs unveiled the 1.5 pound tablet computing device with a 9.7 inch screen and built-in Internet connectivity, which will be available for purchase sometime in late March. “We call it the iPad. What this device does is extraordinary,” said Jobs. “You can browse the web with it. It’s phenomenal. It’s way better than a laptop [and] way better than a smartphone.”

Jobs positioned the much-hyped iPad as a companion product in Apple’s lineup: The device fits between the iPhone and its Macbook laptop, with prices ranging from $499 to $829 depending on options such as the amount of memory and type of wireless connectivity (wi-fi and/or an additional wireless data plan through AT&T). Competitively, the iPad is targeted at netbooks — popular mini-laptops with screens that measure 10 inches or less — and tablet-style e-book readers such as Amazon.com’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s nook and Sony’s Reader, according to experts at Wharton. In other words, Jobs positioned the iPad as a universal computing device that can play music, movies and video games, show pictures and hold a library of books.

What’s unclear is whether consumers will buy into the idea of a universal device that meets all their needs — or whether the iPad will become just one more gadget to juggle.

Source: Knowledge@Wharton

Paid vs. Free Content, Publishing Pains, Apple Tablets and All That …

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Paid vs. Free Content, Publishing Pains, Apple Tablets and All That …

Two recent events have rocked the publishing world. First, The New York Times, which many regard as the newspaper of record in the U.S., said it would abandon the practice of providing free online content and start charging regular readers beginning in 2011. And second, Apple’s much-hyped tablet — the iPad — made its appearance. What implications will the Times’ decision have for newspaper publishers and other providers of free online content? How will the iPad re-define what a book means, as well as how it is produced, marketed and delivered? Peter S. Fader, a marketing professor at Wharton and co-director of the Wharton Interactive Media Initiative, and Stephen J. Kobrin, a management professor at Wharton and editor of Wharton School Publishing, weigh in on how these developments could reshape publishing.

Audio available.

Source: Knowledge@Wharton

Social Web: Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Library Starts Using Foursquare

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

From the Baltimore Sun:

Who says libraries can’t be cutting edge, fun and experimental? Not me.

The Enoch Pratt library system in Baltimore is starting to use Foursquare, a mobile location-based network/game that allows users to “check in” to a spot, collect points and fun badges, and share tips and information about locations. They’re giving away prizes, too. See their tweet above.

Many think that Foursquare (and other apps like it) represents the next phase of the mobile Web — on-the-go users virtually interacting with their surroundings — that could be a boon for businesses and nonprofits, such as libraries. (There are rumors that Facebook is building a Foursquare-like app, too.) You’re starting to see companies (i.e. a Canadian newspaper) and now the Enoch Pratt library system, tapping into Foursquare.

For now, the Pratt is running the promotion primarily through Twitter.

Standby! Video Content Might Finally Be Ready to Debut on Wikipedia

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

From the Article

Part of the reason why Wikimedia has to deal with a huge influx of data is that volunteers are increasingly uploading videos, and content partnerships with museums and archives have brought in hundreds of hours of additional footage. Wikimedia announced two years ago already that it was getting ready to include more of this content into Wikipedia. Little of this has materialized so far, but now it finally seems like video on Wikipedia is actually going to happen soon. So how is the free encyclopedia going to use moving images, and why has this taken so long?

Wikimedia announced a partnership with open source video platform provider Kaltura to get Wikipedia fit for video in early 2008. However, two years later, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any video clips on the site.

[Snip]

Wikipedia’s collective structure has been another reason for the delay. The site is ruled by consensus, and its tens of thousands of volunteers need to be on board with any major changes, which is one of the reasons why Wikipedia’s basic look and functionality have remained the same over the years. Walsh assured me that “Wikipedians are thrilled” about the possibilities of including video on their site, but Kaltura VP of Business and Community Development Shay David said that this hasn’t always been the case. “People needed to understand that video is an important aspect of Wikipedia,” he told me, adding: “That needed some time.”

Access the Complete Article

Source: NewTeeVee

New Facebook Page for National Archives in Atlanta

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

Several months ago, we put together this compilation of social media pages that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) we using to share info with the community.

Since then more pages have come online with the most recent going live in the past couple of weeks.

The National Archives at Atlanta, GA Facebook page is now available.

You’ll not only find information about the location of the archive along with info about events and images from places, events, and people in the Southeast Region.

Source: NARA