1 in 4 Users Can’t Google
No, this is not about a failure rate while using Google. This is about a failure rate to even find Google. Jakob Nielsen has published a startling statistic: If you thought it’s easy to get to Google, think again. In […]
20% Is All You Can Hope For?!
I knew he was right when I found myself printing it out. Jakob Nielsen has a new report on how much users read online. The report is only 1,068 words long, but this is apparently beyond the point most readers […]
Freedom, Secrecy, and Open Access Fuel 2008 Learned Societies Meeting
A recent story in the Chronicle of Higher Education covers the 2008 meeting of the Association of Learned Societies meeting, held last week in Pittsburgh, PA. It’s interesting reading, given the tenor of our times. Academic freedom is a major […]
The Web Fills Up = Nature Abhors a Vacuum
Demonstrating that Aristotle’s assertion “Nature abhors a vacuum” applies even to online resources, a recent report from WebSiteOptimization.com illustrates how Web 2.0 has created enough content and interactions to begin to fill the capacity generated by broadband access. Yet, broadband […]
A Twitter Experiment
Life is an approximation of reality. What we know and what is possible are two different things. Experiments help test and bridge the gap. With that spirit, I’m experimenting on this blog with Twitter now. You can find a link […]
Do the Test — Friday Fun for Sharp-eyed Editors
Think you have sharp eyes, Mr. or Ms. Editor? Try this test, from a Web site in the UK: How did you do?
Rockefeller Press Policy Leaves Open Questions
This is a bit off-topic for this blog, but of interest to scholarly publishers, and I found myself doing a lot of thinking and digging about this for some reason. The announcement by Rockefeller Press that they will leave copyright […]
Impact Factor Inflation — What Causes It?
Impact factors have been increasing by 2.6% per year, on average. While this is lower than most economies’ inflation rates, it’s indicates a growing economy. But is the growth caused by supply or demand? In a draft paper from the […]
New Internet Trends — Social, Mobile, Robust, and Profitable
Morgan Stanley has updated its Internet trends report. You can view it below: Some interesting items stand out on what has become the de facto publishing medium for scholarly publishers: Consumers rule! Not only will consumer Internet bandwidth traffic surpass […]
SUSHI — Raw Data Gets Sliced and Served
SUSHI (the Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative) was launched in 2005, and is now well on its way to becoming a NISO standard. A new article in Learned Publishing by Oliver Pesch from EBSCO outlines the history, purpose, workings, and […]
The Facebook Nightmare Scenario
A great video on YouTube shows what it would be like if Facebook were made real. It’s very funny and a little bawdy by my prudish American standards, so don’t watch with your kids, and turn your speakers down to […]
ShopText Melds Magazines With Digital
Image via Wikipedia Hearst Magazines recently announced it’s rolling out ShopText, a system that uses text messaging to link print products with online. Readers of print can text a keyword to a number, and receive samples, buy products, or access […]
Is Twitter’s Hockey Stick Meaningful?
While it may be a fluke, it may be meaningful that, as Hitwise notes, Twitter has hit the hockey stick in growth, a tipping point of adoption and use that may herald a more mainstream place for the micro-blogging platform.: […]
Wikidemia — Scholarship and the Internet
“Wikidemia” is a term I hadn’t heard before I read this very interesting roundtable discussion from the UPenn Department of Romance Languages. At the heart of the discussion is the notion that scholarship without the Internet and its collaborative tools […]
Exploit Your Cognitive Surplus!
Image via Wikipedia One question I’ve been asked consistently since I’ve started writing this blog for the SSP is, “How do you find the time?” In some cases, it’s said with wonder. In some cases, it’s stated with what I […]