NBC News Grows a Tail!

I justed watched a news clip featured on NBC's seven o'clock show describing the launch of the NBC news online interface re-design and felt compelled to blog about it :) The site's design featured in the demo was very streamlined and seemed to be quite user friendly, reporting breaking news from various sources around the world. The demo showed blogging features as well as an area where users can submit photos to the site. Now the amateur can be part of the news that gets reported. Just as many other industries mentioned in the Anderson reading, the news industry is now tapping into the strength of the long tail. Although I was quite disappointed when I logged onto the website and found the same old interface design. After poking around the site for awhile with no success in finding the design I just saw demo'ed I turned to Google. Although it didn't help me find what I was looking for, I did come across the following article which I found interesting and wanted to share :) Feel free to comment and leave your thoughts!

The success of Hulu.com makes big Media rethink its distribution strategy

Flickr Post

• Describe your educational experience at SCILS?

My SCILS experience began on campus last Fall with Human Information Behavior. The course provided a good overview of library and information studies. During the spring semester I enrolled in two courses, Information Technologies which was face to face and Principles of Searching which was my first experience with the online platform. Since then I have enrolled in strictly online courses. I enjoy the freedom that comes with taking a course online. It allows you to dictate you own schedule listening to lectures and completing assignments at your discretion.

I enjoy reviewing the course material while eating lunch at Panera, a local eatery that provides wi-fi access. Although I generally like to eat healthy, my Sunday splurge is a bowl of broccoli cheddar soup, Frontega Chicken Sandwich and lemonade. Another place I like to frequent is the Barnes & Nobles located just a few doors down. When I decide to stay in I often complete my work in my office located on the second floor of Geology Hall on the College Ave Campus. My office is located next to the Geology museum, I must say it is quite interesting to be working next to a mastodon, sarcophagus, and various other artifacts. I have included a picture of my niece and nephew taken at last year's open house event. Check out some more of pictures of my SCILS experience here or my fellow classmates here.

Google Analytics

• What's the most popular browser that people use when viewing your blog? What's the most used connection speed?

In reviewing the Google analytics reports some of the data reported seemed to be on par to my predictions while other statistics were a bit unexpected. I wasn't surprised too see spikes in activity on Sunday as that is the deadline for most assignments.

However I was a bit surprised to see that firefox is the most popular browser among visitors. Although I have noticed that Mozilla Firefox is preferred browser of our well loved and highly admired professor, I didn't realize so many of the students in class also use the browser on a regular basis making it the clear winner with Internet Explorer being a distant second. I have included a screen shot of these stat's below.


As for connections, it is not surprising to see that most connections are via cable modem, with T1 line being a very distant second. I have included a screen shot of these stats below.

Anderson Reading

• How do libraries/Librarians fill roles as New Producers, New Markets, and New Tastemakers?

New Producers
The Long Tail phenomenon has transformed various methods of production by providing direct avenues for amateurs to tap into the world of professionals. This is evident in the music industry with album releases, written publications, as well as scientific arenas such as astronomy with the SETI at home project. With the advent of the personal computer and with the added features of the web 2.0 environment, we are now attempting to harness the wisdom of the crowd and utilize this collective knowledge to further length the tail.

Just as the science world is using the general audience to identify craters on Mars, librarians could also utilize public assistance. The one of the most powerful tools offered by web 2.0 is that of social tagging. The ability to add descriptive information to documentary units could be very beneficial to librarians world of indexing. Trends show that individuals are motivated to contribute for reasons other than monetary gain. Librarians should take full advantage of these trends perhaps by supplementing current classifications systems with collaborative elements such as social tagging. Personally I think people also just like feeling like the feeling of being part of a bigger whole.

New Markets
The days of agonizing over shelf space are long gone. The power in the Long Tail is best harnessed when utilizing on demand inventory. Many book services are going purely digital by reproducing manuscripts once an order is placed rather than having an inventory stock. However, success is not achieved by simply going digital, viral marketing is also essential in order to help guide potential consumers to find your products through all of the noise.

Librarians could benefits from the on demand environments by digitizing their inventory and services. Scanned documentary units as well as virtual reference services are just two ways to optimize their marketability by reaching out to a much broader audience.

New Tastemakers
I just loved Anderson's statement that "the ants now have megaphones" as I thought it perfectly described the power shift which is transferring the power from the company or the brand to the favor of the consumer. It is these ants that are helping to guide potential consumers through the noise of the Long Tail to a particular area of interest. Consumers have turned to the web 2.0 service of the blog to comment on their experience or knowledge of a product. Just as viral marketing can benefit the success of sales, if the rating of the tastemakers is favorable, it will also help to boost the sales. However, on the flipside, the tastemakers could also negatively effect sales with a bad review.

Libraries could look to creating a blog or social networking profile to reach out to patrons and extend their client base. For example, a basic book review blog could help promote those lesser known novels or "niches" to a broader audience. Allowing the blog readers to also add their commentary may also be beneficial to the marketing of the product as well as provide them with an interactive experience.

Wiki Spaces vs PBwiki

I am fairly new to pbwiki and am a first time user to wiki spaces so this comparison by no means will be as thorough as an experienced user. However, I will do my best to point out the similarities and differences among the two services.

Both offer:

• Free service for easily creating a wiki
  
• GUI toolbar interface
• WYSIWYG editing

Wiki Spaces

• I like the interface of this service much more and felt it had a greater selection of widgets you can add to a page. The pop-up window used for inserting the widget was also much more streamlined than the pbwiki interface.
• Provides a toolbar button that allows you to insert special characters
• Utilizes the wikitext markup language which can be difficult to understand.
  

PB Wiki

• Allows you to edit using HTML
• Provides additional services such as various levels of user access for a small monthly fee.
  

Google Docs

• How well do you think something like Google docs, spresent, etc. would work with an online (or oncampus) group of students? Would it make project creation easier? faster?
• In GENERAL (no names please), do you think this type of document will be welcomed, accepted, etc. by online/on-campus faculty? why/why not

I think Google docs is a great addition to both online and face to face class environments. I first utilized Google docs for a group project in my information technologies course and have been a fan ever since. Google docs makes team project creation much more efficient. It is a great tool when needing to collaborate with others as it eliminates the need to send countless emails. It is a very user friendly program that provides a universal interface for users. Varying computer systems (Mac vs PC) and software versions are no longer a problem when using this web based system. Documents are easily created, formatted, saved and can be downloaded if desired.

Despite Google doc's appeal and user friendly interface, many individuals may be reluctant to utilizing such tools. Some more traditional professors may be unwilling to use the service as they me be adverse to technology in general. Although those from younger generations may be more welcoming of such a new valuable tools, there will always be those that are wary of change.

Anderson's Long Tail

Is the library world as a whole set to benefit from the Long Tail?

The Anderson reading discusses the cultural shift from a world of big hits to one full of endless niches, where the digital age has helped transform the market place and contributed to the growth of long tail industries. Once restricted by the constraints of shelf space, the internet has limitless potential and provides the capability of providing consumers with more choices. No longer is the list of choices comprised of the most popular selections, marketers can now provide an infinite list of items.

With such a robust number of selections, consumers are also contributing to the growth of the long tail by branching out from the traditional hit list and choosing items in less demand. The total number of these niche selections equate to a large portion of today's market place. The long tail phenomenon is evident in countless industries such as cable/satellite television, the downloading of music, and Sirius/XM radio.

New techie gadgets such as the iPod, Tivo, and DVR are also contributing to the growth of the long tail. These devices enable users to make many more selections; The average iPod can store more than 30,000 songs similarly Tivo and the DVR can hold hundreds of your favorite television shows and movies.The ipod also has contributed to the growth of the long tail in the library world. For example, the ebook enables consumers to download audible books to the device.

The library world has also benefited from the effects of the long tail by utilizing peer to peer networks to better advertise the books in their collection. Viral marketing amongst these social networks in conjunction with the use of suggested reading lists have also contributed to the increased popularity of those lesser known novels. Gone are the days where catalogs are updated once a year, electronic catalogs have dramatically lowered the costs of these updates while also allowing them to be completed in fast and efficient manner. I am simply amazed at the lengths of which this long tail has grown. It is difficult to find industries to which it has not affected in some way. However, with the mention of the long tail in the areas of national security it is clear that not all of these effects are positive.

Del.icio.us-Virtual Introduction

Using delicious as means to further acquaint students to each other is a very creative idea and innovative use of the tool. You can definitely learn more about an individual from the websites they might frequent. In addition it is a great way to share favorite links and useful resources.

In reviewing the links of my classmates, I noticed some individuals tagged their bookmarks with their user name so it was much easier to identify their submissions throughout the network. When working with a network such as this it would be beneficial to have various ways to groups the bookmarks within your network such as by user, by site (grouping duplicate sites and listing the submitters), by tags rather than the simple sorts of most recent and most popular. These suggested additions would help streamline the information for those with less experience with social book marking such as myself.

Digg

Digg is a great website to share content on the web. The service also allows users to vote on the information or stories to collectively determine the importance or page ranking the item will receive with the most popular stories appearing on the site's homepage. Users can also comment on stories as well as register for the categories that seem most interesting or submit their own. Finally the service provides a community feature allowing a user to add their friends and check out what they are digging. You can also share your favorite links with friends by customizing your profile to include a few photos of yourself, urls to your blog, pages on Facebook or other interesting sites.

After joining and working with the service I have listed a few of the pro's and con's I encountered below:

Pro's

• Social networking site that has numerous capabilities such as sharing information.
• Ability to vote on stories to increase the stories rank
• Homepage displays the top rated stories
  

Con's

• The form associated with the initial signup was a bit lengthy and requires email verification
• The homepage interface is a bit overwhelming and looks very cluttered and busy

One of the stories ranked most popular was one that I recently saw on tv. I thought it was such a feel good story and serves as a reminder that there are still good people out there urging others to pay his gift of kindness forward. Warm and fuzzy stories are always needed in economic times such as this, so I felt I should share it with those that may have missed it.

Man Fills Stangers Gas Tanks

Del.icio.us vs Ma.gnolia

Del.icio.us

I began searching del.icio.us only a few weeks ago when I first saw it mentioned in class. However, I am new to social bookmarking, and this is my first account with the service. I found the homepage to be a bit busy and would imagine might be overwhelming for a novice. Although, I believe those experienced with social software would have no problem navigating the site.

Side note: Last week I came across a neat firefox addin I discussed in a previous blog that also has del.cio.us as in item on a toolbar menu and is worth checking out.

Pro's

• Easy navigation (both have top navigation bar)
• Ability to easily add buttons to browser toolbars for easy bookmarking
  

Con's

• Homepage is a bit cluttered and busy
• The layout of the help area could be more user friendly and better organized
  

Ma.gnolia

I initially encountered a problem when attempting to create an account with ma.gnolia using the mozilla firefox browser (version 5.0). The sign in page webpage would not properly load after an itemed was selected from the drop down. I am not sure if this was due to a setting that may need to be changed on my end, but as a new user I didn't get a great first impression of the service as I was quite frustrated when a simple refresh wouldn't due the trick. Being that my firefox browser was having issues I switched it IE., and found the drop down field to be successfully working :)

Once I was finally logged in I found the homepage to be quite streamlined. As I am sure many of my class mates have mentioned, it definitely has an appealing look to the interface design. The site was also very user friendly making it easy to add bookmarks, tags, and to navigate the site.

Pro's

• Appealing interface and very user friendly
• Offers help for beginner users as well as a abridged version for users with experience in social bookmarking.
• Easy navigation (both have top navigation bar)

Con's

• Interface glitches with mozilla firefox
• Offers "bookmarklet" feature which allows a user to add a button to the toolbar, however the setup is not user friendly as I was unable to successfully install it.

Brown & Duguid

As a member of the Rutgers staff working for Continuing Education and Outreach, one of the main units responsible for providing distance and outreach services, it has been interesting to see how such a traditional school has evolved over the past couple of years. As more online institutions like The University of Phoenix, continue to increase in popularity, traditional schools may need to re-valuate their current system in order to remain competitive in the market. However, by no means do I believe online education will completely replace that of the traditional class environment, but I do feel traditional schools should be open to the needs of those students unable to participate in the standard classroom setting.

Brown & Duguid discuss how Penn State addressed this issue with the launch of the "World Campus" in 1998. This institution currently offers 50 online degrees programs at associate, bachelor and master levels. Rutgers on the other hand, only provides a handful of online degree programs and is rolling out more individual online course offerings each year, but at a very slow rate to that of its competitors. It is a constant struggle to find departments and faculty willing to create and approve an online course let alone an entire degree program to be approved by the offering school. I feel fortunate that SCILS is one of the few that does provide such flexibility. :)

The Brown & Duguid reading also highlights the difference between "learning about" and "learning to be" which is very important to consider when evaluating the quality of the online environment and learning in general. Practice is key to the educational system as it helps shape and support learning. In seeing where education may be headed, I believe that a blend of both an online collaborative environment coupled with a practicum involving their classmates or peers in the field would be the preferable and prove to be most productive.

Information Overload

RSS and Information Overload: Does the use of RSS/RSS aggregators mitigate or aggravate the problem of Information Overload in today's society?

This is a tough question as I can see both how RSS aggregators can both mitigate and aggravate the problem of information overload. It can be a mitigating factor as it prevents the user from having to regularly check websites for updates. An aggregator has the ability to check for new content at specified times and retrieve the update. However, on the other hand there are users that tend to oversubscribe leading to information overload. In cases such as these you may want to utilize on of the many tools available to help reduce the overload. I have described a few below:

• Aiderss - Filters website to give you the best content possible
• BlogRovr - for quick summaries of your blog
• Google Reader - Use Google reader to view titles only, making skimming easier
  

"New to You" Social Software, Web2.0 or Library 2.0 site

Last week I referenced a great web 2.0 directory that provided links to a large number of interesting social software tools. This week I came across another web 2.0 directory that was also very informative and provided numerous links to some very useful tools. One of the first such tools that caught my eye was a called adaptiveblue. Although some of you may have already installed this feature to your firefox browser, for those who are not familiar with the service I suggest you check it out :)

Adapative Blue provides the following additional features (in the mozilla firefox browser):

• Smart menus-adds a button to the toolbar that is customized to your browsing history.
• The BlueOrganizer - shows you useful information regarding the site of interest description, categories, and tags. It also gives you the ability to add your own tags to the site.
  
• The smartlinks - automatically inserts SmartLinks for links that point to books, music, movies, stocks, wines and more. When you see the blue square icon, hover over it to find out how popular the object is around the web.
• Customize widgets - for your blogs with an easy to use wizard
• Smartmenu - my favorite :) allows you to save and share the site to delicious, with friends on twitter or facebook, or create a tiny url using the shortcut menu. The menu also allows you to find similar sites and pages on Google with the click of a button.
  

Feed - M.T. Anderson

• How close are we to the society of Feed? Are our present systems (Google tracking,single accounts into multiple services...) a simple precursor?

As time passes society as we know it is becoming more and more reliant on digital technology.Gone are the days of the abacus and long division. Nowadays, a student is much more likely to grab a calculator, create a spreadsheet, or locate a website to compute a basic formula. However, I don't believe this reliance will evolve into the society depicted by M.T Anderson, or at least I hope it doesn't :/

It is hard to imagine a society where literacy is viewed as a novelty, where schools are corporately owned, where it is more socially acceptable to chat online that in person, where traditional family values are completely lost, and all media is funneled through one source, creating a monotoned view of the world. However, when dissected, some of the technological concepts didn't seem to far from today's society.

People nowadays are often found driving and surfing through music carried on a portable digital player, chatting on their bluetooth wireless ear piece, or receiving directions from a GPS device. The idea of multi-tasking has driven a number of software developers to re-evaluate many single service tools, opting to consolidate various tools into a more efficient and robust package. The examples I could possible set forth here are limitless, but since we have recently witnessed Google's world takeover :), I will choose two of their services.

For example, Google Analytics, is a great tool for evaluating the performance of a website. A user can determine the keywords searched, benchmark competitors, and determine where the site may need improvements. When such a service is integrated with another such as Google Adwords it becomes even more powerful. Google Adwords would then be responsible for advertising marketing campaigns that would drive visitors to the site.

• What struck you most about the society of Feed? (e.g. acceptance of lesions, twist on the Digital Divide, people don't know how to write...)

It is really difficult to say what struck me most about Feed. Of course the state of the environment was a bit disheartening, the lack of greenery, organically grown food, natural light, and oxygen for that matter was very alarming. Then there was the complete lack of self reliance, where the human mind was replaced with the virtual mind of the feed leaving most with the lack of ability to read and write. Or the things teens will do to stay hip and popular, while making all the right fashion sacrifices. And of course the affects technology had on disjointing society on various levels. The divide among the "have's" and "have not's" of the feed and the social pressure affiliated with conformity to the majority. The lack of family bonds that exist in a traditional family replaced by distant chatting about superficiality etc.


But after I really thought about the book's storyline, I guess what struck me most was the lack of a fairy tale ending. :) My expectation of course was that technology was going to swoop in and save the day. I thought Violet would surely receive the upgrade she desperately needed, but sadly that never happened. Is there a bigger message to the reason M.T. Anderson chose to discontinue my favorite character perhaps, but I'll take the simple one of technology can't always save everything.