Search engine optimization has traditionally had few, if any, social components. It was a world where mediocre content coupled with masses of backlinks was a surefire path to the top of the search engines. Webmasters who cleverly interlinked their content and made hundreds of directory submissions, forum signatures and reciprocal or three way link exchanges […]
Personal Cloud Computing Services: the Future of the Web?
Update 2024: This article is more relevant than ever today, with even major word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software (like Microsoft Office) has moved to the cloud to join competitors like Google Drive. These once were the foundational traditional software programs installed on just about every individual computer. Just about everyone in the industry is […]
Kindle eTextbook Rentals and the Future of Textbook Publishing
Amazon’s recent unveiling of a Kindle Textbook Rental Service, which allows students to rent electronic versions of “tens of thousands of textbooks,” is the latest news in the radically changing textbook publishing market. Amazon boasts savings up to 80% of the print cover price, offers very flexible rental periods, and enables students to access their […]
How Do You Evaluate the Blogs and Websites You Visit?
If you’ve been in school in the last decade or so, you were probably given a handout at some point explaining how to evaluate internet sources. These documents usually give a list of criteria to inspect on a website so you can determine whether it is authoritative and reliable. I remember being told to investigate […]
Harper Collins’ 26 Checkout Policy Challenges Traditional Role of the Library
Harper Collins recently released a new library ebook policy in which the licenses to its content expire after 26 uses, forcing libraries to purchase them again. This represents a very dangerous trend affecting the very role of the library, and underscores a need for library and information science professionals to take a stand against competing […]
Getting Blog Visitors From Google Maps and the Growing Impact of Local Search
Update: Late in June 2011, Google pulled third-party reviews from its Places pages in order to emphasize reviews from Google users. They did keep a small link to other sites around the web with reviews, however, so traffic generation is still possible. As I was checking the analytics for my sites the other day, I […]