Digital landmarks [infographic]

Maurice Sendek on Being a Kid, Children's Literature & More [video]

... a deep respect for children and how they solve complex problems. Love this fascinating interview series...

Yahoo buys vizify, shuts it down

Vizify shuts dow:

From Vizify:

Keep your bio online a bit longer We've created a way to archive a snapshot of your bio so that it remains online at Vizify a while longer. You have until April 7, 2014 to archive your bio. Your archived bio will remain publicly visible through September 4, 2014.

If you make changes to your bio after you’ve archived it, you’ll need to re-archive it for those changes to stick.

 and...

For those who opt-in to archive a snapshot of their bio, the Terms of Service will continue to apply until September 4, 2014. For those who do not opt-in, the Terms of Service will continue to apply until April 7, 2014. In both cases, the Terms of Service will terminate and all licenses granted to you will be revoked on the specified date.

More here: https://www.vizify.com/yahoo#transition and here http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/yahoo-buying-binge-continues-with-vizify-takeover-1.1717044

If this doesn't inspire you I don't know what will: Learn by making.

Wowsa. )

The future of print books - crystal ball gazing

Over the past few months, if not years, I keep reading about print books becoming obsolete. I don't think that will happen - at least, not entirely. I see parallels between print books and vinyl.

In high school, I worked in a record store that was transitioning from vinyl to CDs (cassettes and albums kind of co-existed, but CDs were seen as an actual replacement). By the end of the year, we were to be CD only.  I remember my manager saying that "CDs are the future - albums are obsolete!"

Accessed from Wikipedia / © 2004 by Tomasz Sienicki {{GFDL}}

So, we marked all of the vinyl down - first 50%, then to 1$. When we could no longer sell the 1$, we gave them away with a purchase of a CD. Cassettes were seen as still viable, so we marked them down 25% off and then transferred the remaining titles to a much larger store in a different city.

In the short term, he was right. Albums became hard to find. Turntables were hard to find, unless you were a professional DJ. Needles and other accessories became harder to find.

Of course, now we know how right AND wrong he was. For the general music listener, music has gone digital. Warehouses of vinyl are destroyed.  The world's largest collection of vinyl went up for sale with sales falling through again and again (although some reports that Leo Yao the inventor of the MP3 purchased the collection in 2011, it seems that record rama still has content?)

Whenever there are digitization projects, not everything is digitized. Sometimes the original can't be found or is in too bad of shape to digitize. Sometimes it is just too low on a priority list. Sometimes copyright/licensing is an issue. In fact, with the world's largest collection of vinyl (record rama):

Furthering the supposed value of his collection, the Library of Congress conducted a study on Mawhinney’s collection that found that only 17% of the entire assortment is available on CD, meaning a whopping 83% cannot be bought anywhere at anytime.

By nature, print/vinyl is not entirely replaceable. It has value beyond the "content" - beyond the text, beyond the music. With albums as with books, there are graphical elements which may be poorly represented or lacking entirely from the electronic version. When I worked in a record store our pr materials (often large scale album covers) were always a hot commodity. People would ask when we were taking down a display so they could come back for the materials (I still have a couple of them myself). I remember my friends who worked at movie theatres had the same experience - popular movie posters were stolen out of the display box on more than one occasion.

Some journals drop the original print ads when they digitize older print volumes, just focusing on the "content."Yet, those ads can provide a wealth of information to pr, marketing, insights into changes in technology, etc.

...and then there is the experience and quality of the actual content. For print books, the smell of the book, the binding, the materials, the touch of the paper, plates, sound and feel of turning the pages (I read on my kindle regularly and when I do read a print book or magazine, I am always surprised at how NOISY it is), the differences in the printing fonts and layout (especially true in older books). For albums, a similar process from opening the sleeve to removing the inner liner, putting the record on, the sound... So, a complete entire experience - auditory, kinetic, visual, tactile.

I'm not sure we are there with e-content yet and I'm not sure we want to be. Will we get to the point of completely not caring about the advantages/disadvantages of one format over another? We seem to have with newspapers. Should we try to replicate a print book in an eformat? Why not make more interactive books and harness that ability? Why not create more visual albums, like Beyonce's new project (which follows in a long tradition of music movies except that it isn't truly a movie)?
So many interesting possibilities.

Regardless, of the how those formats will evolve, the reality is that big box stores are selling turntables again. Artists are pressing vinyl again. Collectors are collecting. (I even saw vinyl lps at a big box chain over the summer). Vinyl imagery is still in use in advertising.  Audio archives and museums are collecting. However, the market right now is much smaller now and seems to be aimed at target audiences like collectors.

I see a parallel here with print books. Used book stores still exist and libraries still exist. The big box stores still sell some print books. However, I will not be surprised to see print books gradually disappear from the big boxes and fewer big bookstore chains with popular reading materials.

Marshall Town Public Library
CC Attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marshalltownpubliclibrary/

 I do think that much like popular music listening, consumption of casual reading materials, will be different. In terms of new books, at some point, we will see a move towards more artisan quality books.Of course, before we see a major shift in general consumption of print materials, I do think some standards will need to happen (like the rise of MP3 as a common standard) and licensing (DRM) needs to be addressed. 





References:
http://stoneyroads.com/when-digital-muscles-out-vinyl-a-sad-day-for-the-worlds-biggest-record-collection/
http://www.pbs.org/pov/thearchive/watch.php
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/01/01/worlds-largest-vinyl-record-mounted-atop-the-forum-in-inglewood/ 
http://www.messynessychic.com/2013/09/10/trying-to-sell-the-worlds-largest-record-collection/
http://www.recordrama.com/index.html
http://www.doobybrain.com/2012/05/11/1-2-1-wjeffstaple-feat-paul-mawhinney-of-record-rama/
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/watch-beyonces-videos-visual-album/story?id=21207887

What are with doing with the internet people? Let's do something awesome [video with statistics]

This is AWESOME. and some stats, too.

Meebo retirement date July 11! Hurry!

Meebo users: Meebo rides off into the sunset on July 11.
-----------------------------
As a past Messenger user, we wanted you to know that until July 11 you can download your archived Messenger chat logs. Log into your account on Meebo Messenger for a download link. Please act soon — after July 11, chat archives will be deleted.

You may remember meebo was purchased by google...  Kind of like what happened with picnik but at least picmonkey (former picnikers have taken up the charge...)

End of typewriters

Although there are still a lot of typewriters on the market, mashable (a technology news source) & others are reporting that Godrej and Boyce, the last remaining manufacturer of typewriters, has shut down production

http://mashable.com/2011/04/26/rip-typewriter/

More here:
http://tinyurl.com/3cefhtg


A history of typewriters and key layouts

(...and I keep reading that keyboards are on the way out, too)

archiving geocities - remember them?

Some of you may remember geocities (from yahoo), an early online & free website builder. Yahoo abandoned it some time ago, but it is now being archived. Interesting (and short) article about obsolete websites, archiving, and cultural history.

http://tinyurl.com/2wmyw48

Vintage computer ads

These are great. Enjoy my geeky/techy friends....
more here

Archiving geocities

Some of you may remember geocities (from yahoo), an early online & free website builder. Yahoo abandoned it some time ago, but it is now being archived. Interesting (and short) article about obsolete websites, archiving, and cultural history.

http://tinyurl.com/2wmyw48

Google ceases support for pages and files for Google groups

Well, this just sucks (as a manager of groups on google...)

Google Groups will no longer be supporting the Pages and Files features. Starting November 1, you won't be able to upload new content, but you will still be able to view and download existing content. See this announcement for more information and other options for storing your content.
http://is.gd/fpoMe

MIT Libraries Beta Graveyard

Interesting idea...

"University libraries nationwide are attempting to make scholarly research easier, whether with browser extensions or iPad applications. For technologies in the testing stages, though, low usage or lack of support can lead to an early demise.

MIT Libraries has created a place to for these tools after they've come face to face with the grim reaper—its Beta Graveyard."

more here:
http://is.gd/ePwuh

link directly to archive
http://libraries.mit.edu/help/betas/graveyard.html

Google's wave is toast

Heh, not that I really used it for anything (I guess that's the problem)
, but interesting to read the news.

http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2010/08/wave-cancellation-google-gives-up-on-next-gen-messaging.ars

remove background in google -- did this pass usability testing? really?

If you've been to google today, you got to see a hideous background image -- pretty, but impossible to read the font. Want to replace with the default google page? Sorry you are out of luck -- at least for today. However you can choose a plain white image from Editor's picks which changes the background to plain ol' white background -- well sort of. The google logo will be white too.

On the lower left of the screen: Change background image
Click on Editor's Picks



Click Select.

There ya go, better than nothing, I suppose.

I'm all for creativity and customization, but I already use a google theme and all of these images clash terribly! So, this one goes under BAD IDEAS in my book. Usability testing, peeps! Give users a way to opt out and/or reset to something more plain, especially since different users have different needs, including interpreting visual information.

Lifespan of digital formats -- how long will that flashdrive last?

A sampling of common digital media and their life expectancies (assuming you take care of them):
• Floppy disk - This can theoretically survive between 3 and 10 million passes
• CD and DVDs - It depends heavily on the materials used in their construction (PDF), but you're looking at anywhere between 2 and 10 and 25 years, in the best of circumstances
• Flash storage - Also depends on the type, letting you write between 10,000 cycles with multi-level flash memory, or 100,000 with single-cell flash
• Hard disk drives - Kind of a crapshoot—anecdotally, five years is a good average, though they can last shorter or longer, depending, again, on how they're built

Very interesting article on digital decay and the life of digital media.

What happened to tr.im (& reviews of URL shorteners)

Wandered over to shorten a URL @tr.im and found this:

tr.im is no longer accepting URL shortening requests via its website. May we respectfully suggest that you choose one of the many other wonderful alternatives available.

Please understand that this does not affect any software that has tr.im available within it. tr.im's API is available, and redirections are working normally.

Found this article about it:
http://thenextweb.com/us/2010/03/22/trim-small-app-problem/

Oooh, sounds like some political intrigue, hand wringing, and possible hurt feelings (not twitter's favorite child?) I know that I'm not the only one who used tr.im beyond twitter posts, though....

I know about tinyurl and bit.ly, but I thought I'd check out other options. I found this review of URL shorteners. Probably more info than you'd ever want about them, but there ya go.

http://blog.watchmouse.com/2010/03/url-shorteners-make-the-web-substantially-slower-facebooks-fb-me-is-slowest/

end of books? (video)

this is kind of nifty.. Just about the time that I was feeling that I was about to click off, it actually changed direction. So stick with it -- lots of stereotypes about 'net users and millenials (altho' never called such):

Question of the Day: How to search your own tweets at twitter

So, this was MY question today: as in, I wanted to re-post a tweet about moonshine arts & literary magazine. I couldn't quite remember what I wrote and I didn't use a #hashtag. So what to do? How do you search your own twitter feed? There are lots of cool trending tools out there, but those are very limited in terms of timeframe. I personally like trendtastic.

Per my usual M.O. I tweeted, buzzed, & facebook'd my request --even before I google'd, now what does that tell ya? I tell you what it tells me -- I trust my networks of techies, artists, photographers, librarians, metadata mavens, programmers, hackers, writers, proj managers DIVAS -- the creme de cool , more than google for quick answers.

Here is what I tried BEFORE I tweeted my plea for help:

• Searching via twitter by keywords I thought I used
• Searching google via advanced search: using key words and limiting to domain twitter.com and by date
• using http://search.twitter.com/advanced

None of these achieved any results. Strange, no? Not even the advanced search feature was successful. I know that I can scroll back chronologically through my posts but that is a LOT of work.

Doesn't this seem like a huge failure on twitter's part? Surely there are times when people what to see something from a previous week or month...and how will that fit into the semantic web? If the semantic web is all about the data and finding relevant info, whoa... huge hole.

One answer
My friend and webgurl, Amy, tweeted back almost instantly:

set up an RSS feed for own tweets & search in Thunderbird.

Looking at it from the RSS angle, I pulled my twitter feed into google reader, but that pretty pretty much starts with today, so didn't help me find my moonshine arts tweet. I did find it using advanced search using friendfeed (yeah, I have an account there, too!), so big kudos to them. Good luck if you ever want to find anything in twitter or facebook. It's nearly impossible -- perhaps, this is where google buzz will score its biggest hit.
...and if I'm wrong and there is an easier way to do this, by ALL means, please let me know -- because I'm not the only one who wants to see what they have tweeted.

spam, spam, spam @ google groups

So, I'm the admin for like 5 different google groups. I've set the groups to moderation for new members and membership has to be approved. Still, still, we are getting hit with spam. Finally, as a desperate last measure, I've closed the list down for reading, unless you are logged in. I kind of wanted to keep the list open for reading, but oh well...

I discovered that google groups is being hit with spam and there has even been some chatter on the 'net that google is slowly dumping google groups. I don't know that to be true, but there's the 'net gossip and the Jquery list dumped google groups back in October.
http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/Google_Groups_Fail:_JQuery_Dumps_Google_Over_Spam__Interface_Problems