USA Today Reported that Google accounted for 65.3% of U.S. Online searches up from 58.6% in 2006. MSN has 20.7%.

Simon & Schuster is planning to launch an Internet video channel that will feature about 40 short videos of authors talking about their books and what gave them inspiration, as well as walking through the settings of their novels and explaining the context of their stories. The videos will be shown on a site called Bookvideos.tv.
C|NET

The New Jersey Turnpike Authority has claimed a copyright on surveillance video of a horrific, fatal car crash and filed suit for infringement against three Web sites where the video was posted. The video was captured May 10 at the Great Egg Harbor Toll Plaza on the Garden State Parkway by a camera high on a pole just north of the toll booths. It shows a car approaching the booths without slowing, crashing into a concrete barrier and bursting into a ball of flames.
Star-Ledger

on the flip side...

Lucasfilm plans to make clips of "Star Wars" available to fans on the Internet to mash up at will. The clips -- about 250 of them, from all six Star Wars movies -- will land on the Starwars.com Web site tomorrow, part of this week'30th-anniversary celebrations of the release of his hit movie. Working with an easy-to-use editing program from Eyespot Corp. of San Diego, fans can cut, add to and retool the clips.

Body Type: Intimate Messages Etched in Flesh

I need to find a great topic like this to write a book...

Check out this pic (Thanks Time) of Al Gore's office. I love it!

Check out the research study on Wikipedia.

"Altogether, 43 percent of the most visited Wikipedia pages are related to “Entertainment”, which includes pages about music, films, comics, performers, TV series, video games and books. Fifteen percent of the pages are related to “Politics + History”, which includes political figures, such as George W. Bush or Adolf Hilter, and historical events, such as World War II. Twelve percent of the Wikipedia pages are about “Geography”, which refers to pages about specific countries, such as the United States, and places, such as New York City.

Ten percent of the most visited Wikipedia pages are related to “Sexuality”, which includes pages about sexual anatomy and practices as well as actors in porn movies. Almost 30 percent of the pages that are highly visited in all five months are related to “Sexuality”, which appears to hold a “timeless” interest for a large group of users.

Six percent of the pages are about “Science” related topics, such as planets, global warming or Albert Einstein. Five percent of the most visited pages have been classified as being related to “Computers”, which refers to pages about topics such as Wikis, Windows Vista, BitTorrent, iPod or MySpace, Facebook or Google. As mentioned, the word “computers” was chosen as a general descriptor, since computers need to be used to access or use these listed examples. It is also possible to interpret many of these pages as being related to “navigational” queries. Prescott (2007a) analyzed the most popular queries in 2006, as measured by the Internet market research firm Hitwise, and observed that “MySpace” and “Google” were in the top navigational searches for 2006."

Anseln Spoerri via First Monday

Here's a nice little ditty of the usability of breadcrums.

This essay derives from a Roundtable on Technology and Change in Academic Libraries, convened by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) on November 2-3, 2006 in Chicago.

I love this little ditty about elevator pitches.

We've known for some time now that 80% of a library's book collection does not get used much if at all, and that 20% of the collection gets 80% of the use. Given our budget pressures, can we continue to accept this reality? Or should we use data mining to be on top of our game like Walmart and know exactly what is being used and direct our funding in that direction?

Libraries need to get into analytics big time...

Does your library have these? Mine does, and it is a good thing!

I gotta read this book.

Yup, some folks are nuts...

Searching for information on your cell phone by typing keywords can be cumbersome. But now researchers at Microsoft have developed a software prototype called Lincoln that they hope will make Web searches easier. Read more at MIT Tech Review...

A new website called Midomi.com can hunt down a tune for you when you hum or sing it into your computer's microphone. And it will even automatically correct for your mistakes.

Not that great yet, but fun none the less.

Blinkx.com

"Blinkx Remote, offers a quick, concise way to find TV shows--from content providers around the Web--and related information instead of having to wade through video-search results that include partial clips of shows, commentaries, and random collections of episodes in no particular order. Blinkx Remote appears at the top of Blinkx search results when a person searches for the title of a show, and it lets people pin down the exact season and episode that they want to find. In addition, the tool offers links to information about the shows from online sources such as Wikipedia and IMDB.com, as well as links to sites, including Amazon and iTunes, where users can purchase DVDs or high-quality downloads of the show. Essentially, Blinkx Remote is an attempt to create a one-stop shop for all online TV surfing."

MIT Technology Review

http://www.blip.tv/file/205570/

"Attempts to gag the blogosphere from publishing details of a
DVD crack have led to a user revolt. The fight centered on a
'cease and desist' letter sent by the body that oversees the
digital rights management technology on high-definition
DVDs. It requested that blogs and websites removed details
of a software key that breaks the encryption on HD-DVDs.
The removal of the information from community news website
Digg was a step too far for its fans. As quickly as stories
relating to the issue were removed, they were re-submitted
in their thousands, in an act described by one user as a
"21st century revolt".

BBC News

Several faculty at FIU in Florida were caught double dipping. Besides a big salary they were charging (not the department) their students for access to required eTextbooks. Since departments are always looking for revenue streams, this idea, if it catches on, could threaten libraries eReserves services, as they would undermine revenue.

ReleMed is here!

"It’s not often that a librarian is warned to stay away from the bookshelves because of high voltage and that students aren’t allowed to roam freely through the stacks. At Chicago State University, only robots are allowed to browse most books and archives. To get a particular book, students and faculty must log onto the library’s website and place an order for a title. The library’s computer system directs a robotic crane—dubbed “Rover”—to retrieve one of more than 6,300 bins. The crane then brings the bin to a workstation at the front of the warehouse, where library staff picks up the book..."

Los Angeles Times, Apr. 22

While I get it, it eliminates browsing the stacks for surprises.

"Data released today by the American Library Association (ALA) indicates that the number of visits to public libraries in the United States increased 61 percent between 1994 and 2004."

CIL awarded Seneca Libraries and InfoTubey. Way to go, Michael!