Archive for the ‘Wireless Web and Search’ Category

New Report from Pew: Social Isolation and New Technology: How the Internet and Mobile Phones Impact Americans’ Social Networks

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Here’s info and links to a new report released today by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Access the Complete Report ||| PDF Version

From the News Release/Summary:

People who use modern information and communication technologies have larger and more diverse social networks, according to new national survey findings that for the first time explore how people use the internet and mobile phones to interact with key family and friends.

These new finding challenge fears that use of new technologies has contributed to a long-term increase in social isolation in the United States.

The new findings from the Pew Internet & American Life Project show that, on average, the size of people’s discussion networks – those with whom people discuss important matters– is 12% larger amongst mobile phone users, 9% larger for those who share photos online, and 9% bigger for those who use instant messaging. The diversity of people’s core networks – their closest and most significant confidants – tends to be 25% larger for mobile phone users, 15% larger for basic internet users, and even larger for frequent internet users, those who use instant messaging, and those who share digital photos online.

[Snip]

Key Findings

+ Some have worried that internet use limits people’s participation in their local communities, but the Pew Internet report finds that most internet activities have little or a positive relationship to local activity. For instance, internet users are as likely as anyone else to visit with their neighbors in person. Cell phone users, those who use the internet frequently at work, and bloggers are more likely to belong to a local voluntary association, such as a youth group or a charitable organization. However, we find some evidence that use of social networking services (e.g., Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn) substitutes for some neighborhood involvement.

+ Challenging the assumption that internet use encourages social contact across vast distances, this study shows that many internet technologies are used as much for local contact as they are for distant communication.

+ Internet use does not pull people away from public places. Rather, use is associated with frequent visits to places such as parks, cafes, and restaurants, the kinds of locales where research shows that people are likely to encounter a wider array of people and diverse points of view. Indeed, internet access has become a common component of people’s experiences within many public spaces. For instance, of those Americans who have been in a library within the past month, 38% logged on to the internet while they were there, 18% have done so in a café or coffee shop.

+ People’s mobile phone use outpaces their use of landline phones as a primary method of staying in touch with their closest family and friends, but face-to-face contact still trumps all other methods. On average in a typical year, people have in-person contact with their core network ties on about 210 days; they have mobile-phone contact on 195 days of the year; landline phone contact on 125 days; text-messaging contact on the mobile phone 125 days; email contact 72 days; instant messaging contact 55 days; contact via social networking websites 39 days; and contact via letters or cards on 8 days.

More After a Click
(more…)

EBSCOhost and Summon from Serials Solutions To Offer Mobile Friendly Versions

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Thanks to ResourceShelf friend (he’s also quoted in the piece), Gerry McKiernan at Iowa State University, for letting us know about a new LJ article by Josh Hedro that discusses new mobile mobile friendly versions of Summon from Serial Solutions and EBSCOhost.

Summon from Serials Solutions

The Summon mobile interface should provide students and researchers most of the same features and options as the regular search interface, including access to both local materials and electronic resources available from the library. The mobile search site will debut today in time for the opening of the Charleston Conference in Charleston, SC.

The mobile search option is an alternative interface, [our emphasis] not a separate downloadable app.

UPDATE: Here is the official news release from Summon regarding their mobile service.

EBSCOhost

EBSCO will soon release EBSCOhost Mobile; according to a post on EBSCO’s support site, “the interface will include many features for an enhanced mobile experience, is optimized for internet-enabled handheld devices, and qualified for all the major SmartPhones (such as iPhone, Blackberry and Treo).”

ResourceShelf has also learned:

+ Mobile functionality can be turned on or off with desired options by the staff who handle online databases

+ The mobile service will be available for all EBSCOhost databases that use the EBSCOhost interface (there are a few that don’t),

+ A library can select which databases to “mobilize”

+ A persistent link is then available which can be placed on the library web site (portal)

+ Another method allows users with an id password to go to new short urls

The article goes on to ask an essential question. Will searchers utilize these tools? Gerry McKiernan says:

“At this point [mobile-specific searches] are supplemental, or impulse, such that if you’re on the road and you want to search a particular resource … you could do that,” he said. But, he added, “The mobile phone is becoming an all-in-one tool for a variety of functions,” and as that happens, users will come to expect some kind of mobile interface to the tools they’re grown accustomed to using.

Source: Library Journal

A Mobile Device That Only Tweets

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

If tweeting is your thing (or you’re a gadget geek) and want a device that’s made just to tweet, then today is a happy day.

Yes, you can access Twitter many different ways including SMS, a service that’s available on most phones these days. But apparently some people want/desire/need a tool that can only access Twitter.

So, say hello to the TwitterPeek, a device that comes via a partnership between Twitter and a company named Peek.

It’s for sale via Amazon.com for $99.95 (six months of service) to $299.99 with a lifetimes worth of service.

From a mocoNews.net Article:

The challenge for Twitter and Peek will be to convince consumers that they need to buy another mobile device just for Twitter access—since TwitterPeek doesn’t offer e-mail and almost every smartphone can access the service with clients like Tweetie and TweetDeck. Sarva told VC Dispatch that the companies were going after social media marketers and companies that rely heavily on Twitter to promote their businesses. The TwitterPeek launch also aligns with Twitter’s goal of getting more people to use its service via mobile device; Sarva said it was designed to get people that may have tried and disliked Twitter on the desktop to “realize how fun it is.”

As the article points out Peek also sells an email only device via Amazon.com.

Source: mocoNews

Location Aware Searching: Loopt Unveils Update Uniting Mobile, Social, and Local Discovery

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

Loopt, the location aware service for many mobile devices, that predates some of the numerous services available today, has launched a new service named Pulse.

From a News Release:

It’s a free application.

Pulse offers the power of friends’ recommendations, the Loopt community’s real-time feedback, and information from premium, local content sources to help users find what to do.

“It’s difficult to get results from lots of different premium, local content sources at once, and it’s always great to receive your friends’ trusted recommendations on the places they like. We think we’ve taken a huge step forward on all of these fronts,” said Sam Altman, CEO of Loopt.

Coupons based on your location. (This has been an obvious use of location-aware services. We wouldn’t doubt that others will be doing this or something similar in the not so distant future.

We learn more from the NY Times:


Loopt aims to distinguish itself by making its service comprehensive. It incorporates feeds from 20 sources, including listings and review services like Zagat, Citysearch and Eventful as well as content sites like DailyCandy, Thrillist and The Village Voice.

Pulse produces a personalized and ever-changing list of recommendations based on where you are, the time of day and Loopt’s own data on where you and your friends have been. It shows editorial descriptions and reviews from the partner sites and averages the ratings a business has received.

See Also: A List of Mobile Devices that are Loopt Friendly
It’s available for over 100 devices from all major carriers. The iPhone version of “Pulse” is “coming soon.”

ALA and Its One Mobile Friendly Web Site

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

I wonder when sites or perhaps better said portions of sites like ALA.org or SLA.org will become mobile friendly. We will keep a close watch and would welcome news about new mobile sites from library organizations.

OK, but wait, ALA does have one (as far as we know) mobile friendly site. It comes from ALA’s Washington Office.

The well-known District Dispatch blog with the latest happenings involving politics, politicians, DC happenings and libraries/librarians is mobile friendly.

Simply enter the regular URL into your mobile browser and in just a second or two a nicely formatted mobile version of the blog will appear. The URL for the ALA’s District Dispatch is: http://www.wo.ala.org/districtdispatch/ or we can make it shorter for you to type before you bookmark it. Simply enter: http://bit.ly/352Fph.

District Dispatch is published with WordPress and the MobilePress plug-in makes the blog ready for mobile readers.

See Also: The M-Libraries Wiki has a great collection of mobile versions of library websites, online catalogs, as well as SMS services. If your library offers mobile services and it’s not on the list, you should add it. That’s the wiki way. (-:

Note: We can here the RSS geeks already and you’re absolutely right. District Dispatch does have an RSS feed and yes, making that RSS feed mobile friendly is as easy as adding it to your mobile aggregator (web-based or app) and reading away. So, let’s modify. The District Dispatch mobile version is for non-RSS users.

Cell Phones and the Photo-Sharing Generation Gap

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

From the Article:

It’s a latter-day social affliction: you visit friends or family, only for them to whip out a laptop and run a seemingly endless photo slide show – perhaps using an online outfit such as Flickr or Picasa. But for those people used to savouring prints as they are passed around, such shows can be about as compelling as “death by Powerpoint”.

Help could be at hand, however. Researchers at Deutsche Telekom in Germany and the University of Newcastle in the UK have dreamed up a curious cellphone-centred way to bridge the gap between what they call the Kodak and Flickr generations.

Source: New Scientist

New Research Findings: Students and the Mobile Internet

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

Some new research from the U.K.

From the Summary:

The qualitative research with second year undergraduate students from a range of disciplines and universities, consisted of four focus groups and eight depth interviews, held in Manchester and London. The research was conducted by FDS International on behalf of Intute and the findings reinforce the motivation behind the work of the project, which is to provide a user friendly mobile site that is fast and inexpensive to load, providing the right content, presented in the right order and with an adapted layout.

[Snip]

The extent to which the mobile Internet was used varied greatly, with only a small number of students using their mobile Internet for academic work. Given the cost and generally slow access to the Internet from mobile devices, primarily determined by the type of contract and the handset, most students only ever occasionally accessed the Internet using their mobile phone for social purposes and for short durations of time. Consequently, those most likely regularly to access the internet on their mobile phones possessed new telephones with large screens, and had a contract which included free internet access. These represented only a small fraction of those interviewed.

Despite the fact that students rarely used the mobile Internet for their university course, many stated that they would if:

+ their phones had larger screens;
+ it was quick and easy to load and navigate websites; and
+ it was cheaper or free (included in their contract) to access the Internet.

Access the Complete Summary

See Also: Mobilising the Internet Detective (August 14, 2009)

Source: Intute

IBM Researchers Simplify Mobile Web Browsing

Monday, October 26th, 2009

From the Article:

IBM has announced that a team of IBM researchers has created technology that makes it simpler for Webmasters to make their Websites more readable on mobile devices.

The technology, initially developed as an accessibility feature aimed at visually impaired users, helps to reduce the burdensome scrolling through out-of-order text and graphics, IBM research officials said.

To help Webmasters of all skill levels, IBM researchers in Tokyo developed a visual editor technology that enables Webmasters to arrange their Website content reading flow in a logically ordered sequence—without changing the existing content—that can be easily read on small, mobile devices’ screens.

Source: eWeek

Resource of the Week: Mobile Access to Information

Monday, October 26th, 2009

Resource of the Week: Mobile Access to Information
By Gary Price, Senior Editor

Alas, the vast majority of us were not fortunate enough to attend Gary’s presentation on Mobile Access to Information at Web Search University last month in Washington, D.C. But since this is a topic of intense, growing interest — 56% of adult Americans have accessed the internet by wireless means, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project — we thought we’d link to Gary’s presentation as our Resource of the Week.

In his presentation, Gary covers mobile terms and jargon, how scholarly publishers are joining the mobile revolution, mobile search, podcasts/phonecasts, television on mobile devices, location-based services, “m-commerce,” fast/free directory assistance, traffic reports and other real-time information…and much more. You’ll also find links to information about such cutting-edge services as Google Voice.

Gary has been touting the virtues of mobile internet access for *years* now — keeping track of new services that come online, experimenting with new mobile technologies, etc. This presentation gives you the opportunity to take advantage of his expertise. (sdk)

Cool! Watch Movies on Your iPhone (Free) National Film Board of Canada Releases iPhone App, 1000 Films Currently Available

Sunday, October 25th, 2009

The National Film Board of Canada, a prestigious and respected filmmaking organization best known for documentaries and animation, has launched their own iPhone/iTouch app. The app is available in the U.S. and is free.

+ Access to over 1000 films*

+ Preload films for up to 24 hours for offline viewing

+ The collection is searchable

+ Browse films by categories

+ Watch movies that others in your area are also viewing

Access the National Film Board of Canada iPhone App (via iTunes)

Here’s a review from CNET.

See Also: Official NFB News Release

* The 1,000 titles is equal to about 1/13 of the complete NFB catalog. Let’s hope that they will be adding new content on a regular basis.

See Also: Search the Complete National Film Board of Canada Database

NASA Releases Its Own iPhone/iTouch App

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

If you’re an iPhone or iTouch user and are also a space and/or astronomy geek (or now of one), NASA just released it’s own iPhone/iTouch app. It’s available for free.

From the Announcement:

The NASA App collects, customizes and delivers an extensive selection of dynamically updated information, images and videos from various online NASA sources. Users can access NASA countdown clocks, the NASA Image of the Day, Astronomy Image of the Day, online videos, NASA’s many Twitter feeds and other information in a convenient mobile package. It delivers NASA content in a clear and intuitive way by making full use of the iPhone and iPod touch features, including the Multi-Touch user interface. The New Media Team at NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., developed the application.

The NASA App also allows users to track the current positions of the International Space Station and other spacecraft currently orbiting Earth in three views: a map with borders and labels, visible satellite imagery, or satellite overlaid with country borders and labels.

This page has some screen shots from the app. One thing that Version 1.0 is missing and we would love to see is a live feed from NASA TV*. Hopefully, it will be coming in future releases.

If you would like to try the app out, this URL will take you to the appropriate iTunes page to download.

Source: NASA

* See Also: An app does exist that streams one NASA Television channel. It’s named NASA News and costs $.99.

More on the Year of Mobile

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

Just a few posts down from this entry is a report on Mary Meeker’s post at that Web 2.0 Conference that really focuses on mobile access to info and social media. This article by Jefferson Graham from the USA Today has a bit more from the conference. You’ll ready about:

+ Cable television programming being available at any time over the Internet

+ Real-time search. We posted the other day about Twitter search results now being available from Bing and something new also featuring Twitter results coming soon from Google.

Finally:

Looking at how we use our phones now compared with five years from now, David Ko, a Yahoo senior vice president, said we probably will no longer leave the house with our keys, wallet and phone in our pockets or purse. “Maybe you’ll just take the phone,” he said. “That will turn on the car, be your office key, wallet and badge for work.”

Source; USA Today
Hat Tip: P.W.

Want one of many examples of what you’re phone can already do. Be prepared to say adios to boarding passes when you travel by air. Several airlines are already doing it. Here’s an example from American Airlines.

Going Mobile: Internet Trends 2009

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

Kent Anderson at The Scholarly Kitchen Blog does a very nice job summarizing a presentation (it’s an annual event) about the economy and Internet trends by Mary Meeker, a highly respected industry analyst at Morgan Stanley. The presentation took place on Tuesday at the Web 2.0 Conference.

Here are a Few of the Highlights from The Scholarly Kitchen Post:

Meeker notes that while the desktop Internet was largely paid for by advertising and other sources of support, the mobile Internet is so far largely paid for by individuals, a significiant shift in payment sources.

She also notes that social networking has gone mobile in Japan, with Mixi’s traffic flipping from 86% desktop in 2006 to 65% mobile in 2009, mostly due to the emergence of mobile bandwidth.

Facebook has quickly assumed a leading position in its share of global time spent online (6 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day).

Apple and Facebook together create an interesting innovation intersection, with Facebook bringing 390 million users, 350,000 applications, and 500 million downloads, and Apple bringing 85,000 applications and 2 billion downloads. Whether the two will dance more closely remains to be seen.

Source: The Scholarly Kitchen

See Also: Access Mary Meeker’s Slide Deck (68 Slides; via Scribd)

Here are a few more notes from Meeker’s slides:

+ This is her sixth Web 2.0 “Trends” presentation. Other have focused on social networks and online video. This year it’s mobile. Meeker says that mobile, “is and will be bigger than we think.”

+ Mobile Internet adoption outpaces desktop Internet adoption

+ Apple iPhone/iTouch fastest hardware user growth in consumer history

+ Social Networking and Mobile is a Key Theme

+ Facebook numbers one site in global minutes, YouTube second global minutes and the second largest global search engine.

Now Available for Mobile Devices: Veterans Administration Grave Locator

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

From an FCW Article:

The Nationwide Graveside Locator service is available on handheld devices with Internet capability. The service provides locations and driving directions to both national cemeteries and private burial grounds, according to the agency.

“This innovative program continues VA’s commitment to use the latest technology to provide veterans and their families with information they need,” VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said. “It will simplify and enhance the experience of many who visit our national cemeteries.”

[Snip]

The Web site allows for searches by name and by cemetery, if the location is known. A search will provide a grave location, a link to a Google map and driving directions, and a link to the cemetery map if available.

The VA is adding about 1,000 new records to the database each day, agency officials said.

Access the Mobile Version of the VA Grave Locator

Access the Non-Mobile Version of the VA Grave Locator

Source: Federal Computer Week
Hat Tip: P.W.

U.S. Postal Service Goes Live With Mobile Site

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

From the Announcement:

It’s a Post Office on your phone. Customer convenience and product access are the focus of expanding the most popular online services onto web-enabled mobile devices.

Some of the most popular functions currently available on usps.com are now available on cell phones and other mobile devices. The new features include Track & Confirm, Post Office locator, and the most popular application, ZIP Code lookup.

[Snip]

The Postal Service is also designing applications for “smartphones” and other mobile devices like the Apple iPhone, BlackBerry and iPod Touch which take advantage of additional capabilities, such as GPS.

Access the U.S. Postal Service Mobile Site at: http://m.usps.com

Source: USPS
Hat Tip: P.W.

New European Project Provides Secure, Official Documents Over the Phone

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

From an Article

Software developed by European researchers allows citizens and local governments to exchange official documents over mobile phones. The software could help usher in the era of mobile government services and put an end to the tedium of queuing to collect official documents.

With the increased flow of workers and trade across the EU’s Member States, collecting the necessary documents to meet government requirements has become part of the rite of passage for many citizens.

Registered post is often the only means of securely sending documents between local, regional and national governmental bodies in different countries. It is expensive and time consuming. Often, citizens have to line up for hours at local offices just to collect the required forms, then line up again to submit them, and wait for the process to be completed.

[Snip]

The software was designed to operate on existing public administrative networks and according to global standards for mobile web services. The software is open source, allowing it to be used freely by anyone who wants to adapt it for their specific needs.

Hoepner says the SWEB system is now available to other municipalities who want to use it for transmitting documents to citizens and businesses. SWEB could help enable governments to improve their administrative processes and their ability to respond to requests for documents across borders.

Access the Complete Story

Source: ICT Results

Lecture: Infectious Disease in the Age of Google

Friday, October 16th, 2009

If you live in the DC area or will be visiting next Thursday (October 22nd), here’s a lecture you might want to attend. It takes place at the Koshland Science Museum and runs from 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM. and costs $7/$5 for students. The Koshland Science Museum is part of the National Academy of Science. We’re working to find out if the lecture will be recorded and made available online.

Although Google is in the title of the event, no one from the company will be offering a presentation. If nothing else, it shows the power of the Google name to grab the attention of people. Smart marketing.

It sounds like a fascinating 90 minutes.

From the Announcement:

The H1N1 virus is circling the globe as the newest pandemic. Before H1N1, people were concerned about SARS and avian influenza. Have you ever wondered how close these diseases are to your neighborhood right now or how health officials are tracking these diseases in remote areas of the globe? Join Amy Sonricker from HealthMap and Pamela Johnson, Co-Founder and Chief Health Officer at Voxiva, for a hands-on exploration of how computers, the internet, and phones are providing the new hi-tech and low cost tools of the future to track and prevent infectious disease outbreaks. Before you begin containing a global outbreak, you need to know where the outbreak is or could be occurring. Come meet a scientist and an entrepreneur who are using 21st century tools to predict and track emerging diseases around the world. Hear about the challenges they face and the impacts they have made or hope to make.

If you can’t attend, make sure to take a look at the resources/companies who will have speakers at the lecture.

1) HealthMap
An amazing resource that tracks, maps, and provides news about disease outbreaks around the world. Be ready to spend some time here.

2) Voxiva
Interactive mobile health information delivered over a mobile phone. The service is sold to health organizations, governments, etc. However, they do offer a few demos that utilize the text message (SMS) technology Voxiva offers. Head to this page, where you can schedule a time to take medicine or calculate your body mass index.

Conference Info: The Handheld Librarian Online Conference 2010

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

If you’re interested in the mobile web and how it can be used in a library or information center setting, this online conference is for you.

The 2010 online conference will take place on February 17-18, 2010. This page has all the details and the call for proposals which are due by November 15, 2009.

This is the second Handheld Librarian Conference. The first conference took place last summer on July 30, 2009.

If you’re interested in attending and/or presenting you might want to get an idea about the types of presentation that make-up the conference. You can take a look at the titles, brief descriptions, and the name/affiliation of the presenter from the first conference on this page.

We’re big believers and users of the mobile web hear at ResourceShelf and hope to attend the conference.

Source: Handheld Librarian Online Conference

The Mobile Researcher: McGraw-Hill Professional Business Books Become iPhone Ready, Over 600 Titles Will Be Available by End of ‘09

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

From the Announcement:

McGraw-Hill Professional, the world’s preeminent business publisher of print and electronic content, is partnering with ScrollMotion, a leading developer of original iPhone applications, to offer e-books as applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. ScrollMotion is the creator of the Iceberg Reader, an e-Book reader for the iPhone, which provides interactive functionality around content, including search functions, email sharing, multimedia, and more.

The first McGraw-Hill titles are now available on the iTunes Apps Store. This launch list of acclaimed e-Books covers must-have information for all aspects of business, including career development, management, innovation, entrepreneurship, communication, finance, investing, and more, designed to help consumers make better informed business and financial decisions. The first group of titles includes two recent best-sellers, How to Make Money in Stocks by William J. O’Neil and Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty by Ram Charan.

More than 600 fully interactive McGraw-Hill titles will be added to this collection throughout the rest of 2009. E-books will be added on a rolling basis as new titles publish, and will cover other areas, including Medical, Engineering, Computing, Education, and more.

Source: McGraw-Hill (via PR Newswire)

Free! Live Concert Recordings on Your Computer and Now Your iPhone

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

From the Article:

Wolfgang’s Vault is an online archive containing hundreds of high-quality concert recordings, mostly from big classic-rock artists like The Who and U2, but with a few newer artists, such as The Walkmen, thrown in as well. (Here’s a complete list of performers whose recordings are available on the service.) Last month, Wolfgang released an updated version of its much-lauded free iPhone application, Concert Vault, which gives you access to these amazing shows directly from your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Access Wolfgang’s Vault

Access Concert Vault App for iPhone and iTouch (It’s a Free App)

Source: News.com

See Also: Another Place to Access Free Concerts is the Live Music Archive from the Internet Archive