The Importance of Being First
Position in a daily arXiv email report can determine future citations. A German physicist struggles to determine why.
Watching the Wrong Things?
Scholarly publishers have traditionally focused on articles, issues, subscriptions, citations, impact factors, and business models. But maybe by focusing on these things, which are much more about us than about our readers (who are becoming users today, a significant shift […]
Open Access Doesn’t Drive Citations
In the best-designed study of this topic yet, no citation advantage emerges for OA articles.
A Trillion URLs
With an index now of 1 trillion URLs, Google is poised to dominate search. But will Cuil throw a wrench in the works?
Citations & the Missing Link
A paper examines faulty citations, but the authors are on shaky ground.
Eigenfactor
Does the Principle of Repeated Improvement Result in Better Journal Impact Estimates than Raw Citation Counts?
The Paradox of Online Journals
Online availability of articles may shorten citation window, lead to fewer articles being cited new research suggests.
Is It Up or Down?
The stakes for downtime are increasing, and nobody is immune. Not even the people at downforeveryoneorjustme.com.
Reputation Matters
A new (and flawed) study reveals that reputation matters. In fact, it’s core to scientific expression.
Market-based Solution to Info-glut
Finding a solution to a glut of information and a scarcity of attention can work for email and scholarly publishing.
The “h-index”: An Objective Mismeasure?
A “mystical belief” in simple math and hard numbers like the h-index can mislead smart people.
0 = Initiate Final Algorithm
You may have heard of this elsewhere, a site called “You’ve Been Left Behind” (www.youvebeenleftbehind.com). It’s been created in anticipation of the Rapture. The site will store many megabytes of documents and send these materials under certain conditions to up […]
Information Overload = Too Much Dog Food
An old Silicon Valley maxim exhorts technology firms to “eat their own dog food” (aka, use their own technology). Now they’ve realized they’re eating too much. And so are we.
Lois Smith: “Comment-ier” Isn’t Better
Commenting is one option among many for measuring the success of a blog.
Short Attention Span Publishing
Are you ready for the era of “short attention span publishing“? As noted in a previous post, usability around “task completion” or “success rate” is the real measure of a Web site’s value, and this is only going to be […]