ResearchBuzz

I know there’s been a lot of discussion up about a British slavery archive that’s now available. Here in the US, the Lowcountry Africana Web site, which will document the lives of slaves at Magnolia Plantation in South Carolina, will be available in March 2008. This site will be part of the larger Africana Heritage Project; details about both at http://www.aikenstandard.com/news/315721644559365.php .

Upcoming K-Web to draw connections between climate change and various aspects of human culture. Details: http://www.thestar.com/Life/article/209849 .

The Computer History Museum people asked me to post this as a favor, so I will. Note I am far more likely to post events like this that are $10 suggested donation at the door. Far LESS likely to post events that are eighty kajillion dollars. So anyway: Computer History Museum Presents “An Evening with Gideon Gartner, in conversation with Neill Brownstein” — Tuesday, May 15, 2007: Lecture - 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM Member and Invited Guest Reception - 8 PM - 9 PM — 1401 N. Shoreline Boulevard Mountain View, CA 94043 — details at http://www.computerhistory.org/events/index.php?id=1172860013 .

Finding businesses and services in South Carolina: Palmetto Biz Buzz.

There’s a very enthusiastic group that’s putting together an online archive of lighthouse photos at http://www.lighthouse-archives.org/ . Please visit and give them an encouraging word. And hey, if you have any lighthouse photos…

Roanoke Times offers slightly less controversial database.

WTF headline of the month: Ancestry.com Research Confirms Pocahontas and President Bush Are Related .

MySpace for churches.

Thank you Family Matters for your nice words about Information Trapping. And thank you to SWC for putting it in your library.

Citysearch is adding video .

The Google Books project gets beltsanded . And not in a nice way. Great comments. I’m thinking a lot of these problems could be solved if they had human review through massive Mechanical Turking.

Which news sites are using RSS best? interesting study.

New folks at Yahoo! Research.

Heh. New online database of aircraft values. Subscription-based of course.

Nice! New digital archive for South African books on the way.

Blah blah busy work home thyroid family blah.

Now that that’s out of the way, a few thoughts before I get back into writing up sites and services.

* WIKINOMICS — My husband and I had a long drive last weekend so I bought the audio book version of Wikinomics to listen to — I thought I could give a book report. We had in the past listened to The Long Tail and Freakonomics while driving and quite enjoyed them, so we figured Wikinomics would be a good fit (and I’m a Don Tapscott fan.) Unfortunately, after about 40 minutes my husband informed me soberly that if we didn’t listen to something else he would drive off the side of a mountain (we were on the Blue Ridge Parkway.) I’m going to try to read the book…

* CRAIGSLIST — I was at a party and watched a 20-minute conversation about what a great resource Craigslist is. I have even started hearing Craigslist as a verb. “I decided I didn’t have room for that desk anymore so I Craigslisted it.” If I were a classified ads manager at a newspaper, I would be spending every spare second mad-scientist-ing my department, trying to find new and better offerings. Flashier Web sites like MySpace and YouTube are getting all the attention, but Craigslist is going to knock over an industry.

* YAHOO GETTING ACQUIRED BY MICROSOFT — Oh, I hope not. I really, really hope not. Horrified might not be too strong a word. This whole “Live Search” thing has been a mess, and I’m afraid of Microsoft getting Yahoo and doing the same thing to it. Yahoo is doing some amazing things — Yahoo Pipes for just one — and I’d hate to see it get stifled. On the other hand, I would love for Yahoo to acquire IceRocket for the trending tools and blog search.

* SECOND LIFE — I’m still working on Second Life. In fact, I’m renting part of an island. Yes, an island is a bit more expensive. However, we have a lot more control over content and what we sit next to. I’m building a search engine information center, conference area, and bookstore. And of course there’s a beach for soaking up rays and listening to the seagulls. I’m thinking about setting up a mall-type area for just libraries and similar sites that want an SL presence but don’t want to pay rent. Anyway, stay tuned.

* NOSTALGIA — Remember when Ask was putting stickers on apples?