Comments sought on draft report

From the ALA newsletter, for those looking to include their two cents:

"R. David Lankes and Joanne Silverstein have produced a draft of Participatory Networks: The Library as Conversation and are looking for comments, feedback, corrections, and additions. The report, produced for the OITP, describes how Web 2.0 technologies can impact the various conversational modes of a working library.... "

A Tour of .Mobi

This week's ResearchBuzz includes an entry on .mobi, the newest top-level domain. It's reserved for sites designed for mobile devices like cell phones and PDAs. See A Tour of .Mobi

And if you haven't checked out ResearchBuzz, do! It's a great source of information on new and interesting sites and trends.

Solutions from PC Magazine: Save the World with Your Screensaver

Remember the SETI@Home project, which lets users install a screensaver that searches for extraterrestrial life while you aren't using your computer? Now there are more projects that use this model, called grid computing. While it's otherwise idle, your computer can search for cancer treatments, help find a cure for Parkinson's Disease... or help SETI find extraterrestrials. PC Magazine provides a nice overview of some grid computing projects and how you can participate. See Solutions from PC Magazine: Save the World with Your Screensaver

Youths no longer predominant at online hangouts with half of MySpace users 35 and up

Can it be that MySpace is growing up? According to this newspaper article:
Youths no longer predominant at online hangouts with half of MySpace users 35 and up

41 percent of MySpace users are 35-54. The article talks about some of the other social networking sites too but doesn't mention one of the newest, TagWorld.

I wonder how many of these sites will be around in a couple of years, how many will merge, and how many will simply die from lack of market share. I also wonder if these sites will actually be able to make money. They're valued quite highly, but then so were a lot of dot.com companies a few years ago. Time will tell.

Web sites mentioned at the last Tech Talk meeting

I just unearthed my notes from last week's Tech Talk meeting and found a list of web sites Andrew showed us. I'm posting them here, so we can refer back to them.

http://zoomr.com
http://www.experienceproject.com
http://www.blish.com (buy and sell digital content)
http://www.wize.com (comparison shopping)
http://www.viewscore.com (more comparison shopping)
http://www.mycroftnetwork.com

Many thanks to Andrew for bringing these to our attention!