Free Skype Out Calls, That's Huge
Now Playing: BBC overnights news on the radio
Topic: Web 2.0
I heard that Skype was now offering SkypeOut calls (from your Skype account to a normal phone number on the PSTN) for free. Running up to the Washington Monument and listening to a local NPR station on my Walkman, I exclaimed "Holy Sh*t" out loud.

Am I only one that thinks this is a huge story, another strike against the telecoms and their eventual decrease in prominence and monopoly? I've searched via Google, Tecnorati, Digg, Slashdot--wait, Slashdot has the story, and it is old, from May 15th, TechMeme, and didn't see any posts about this news. If it happened awhile ago, then I must have missed it and nobody thought it was news relevant. If not, I hope to seem some analysis of this story.

Forget Google and their new spreadsheet app (Battelle describes it as a FU to MSFT vs. Nick Carr describing Google as an Excel Add-on), Skype offering free SkypeOut calls for the rest of the year is much more important story and has a larger impact for everyday people.

And PirateBay is still giving them hell, as evidenced by their new logo:

Failure is Good
Now Playing: Editors - Munich
Topic: Web 2.0

(turned 26 on the 26th, no birthday cake, just beer and baseball with my borther, a perfect birthday)

In response to Google's introduction of ad-click videos (not pay-per-click video ads), Umair again points out a seemingly obvious yet profound insight about new media and innovation in the future (emphasis added):

"Now, most of the chatter hinges on a simple and totally erroneous conclusion - people won't go for it, because they hate branded ads, and it will fail...

But that's either irrelevant, or it's actually a very good thing. Because Google's strategy is predicated on making millions of failures - amplifying the value of each. Failure is a deep source of advantage for players at the edge, because the marginal costs of experimentation are essentially zero.

Keep that in mind - because it's increasingly going to be what separates players like Google and MySpace from the rest of the pack (Yahoo/MSN/media players/etc), who don't understand the new rules of innovation." (Umair's post "Next Big Things: Post-Branding")

Currently Playing: Editors - Munich (heard on Shralp episode #31 from May 21, 2006)

A Concise Description of Ah-Hah Moments
Now Playing: Juliet Lloyd - Ordinary World
Topic: Web 2.0
I finished Battelle's book The Search, way back in January when I first came to D.C. but still never posted my comments. With little paper flags stuck in the sections that I wanted to comment on, those flags have been like middle fingers flicking me off every time I sit at my desk. The book lays there, naked without its jacket, and I keep telling myself that I need to post the three flagged sections (like the hundreds of things that I've wanted to but never posted)

Rather than hash out either my comment on the paid content-firewall issue (which I briefly covered here reviewing that Economist podcast with Dave Sifry of Technorati) or my comments on the always-on Google power of the future, here's the critical quote from this great book:

"But what may well become possible in the world of perfect search is the ability to take the clickstream of that journey and turn it into an object- a narrative thread of sorts, something I can hold and keep and refer to, a prop to aid in the telling and retelling of how I came to my answer. Tracks in the dust, so to speak, that others can follow, or question to discover how I came to my conclusions. And these tracks are not just potential narratives for others to read; they can also be objects that can be spidered y a search engine, providing them with an entirely new order of intelligence about how people learn. In the aggregate, these clickstreams can provide a level... As Bush outlined, the memex gains its potency by capturing the traces of a researcher's discovery through a corpus of knowledge, then storing those traces of intelligence so the next can learn from and build upon them. Clickstreams are the seeds that will grow into our culture's own memex- a new ecology of potential knowledge- and search will be the spade that turns the Internet's soil." (pg. 257-258)

I've mentioned these ah-hah moments a couple of times before, but it the section quoted above that that cemented this idea concisely and eloquently. It captured an idea, sensation, experience that I've had many times since first surfing the next back in '96 or '97.

I remember and believe in these ah-hah moments they're the foundation of learning and acquiring new knowledge. And that's not me talking but it's from a academic video on the study of learning that my Dad bought my brother and I when we were in high school. Maybe he thought we weren't serious enough with our studies or maybe he just thought we'd enjoy it ( we didn't) but I do remember this one thing from the video.

We really learn and remember new information (transforming it into knowledge during this process) when we can combine old knowledge with new knowledge (which I call ah-hah moments). Building upon the past and creating new insights, that is the essence of learning. Sounds a little like Lessig or Newton's " standing on the shoulders of giants" quote doesn't it?

Currently Playing: two new albums-
1) Red Hot Chili Peppers- favorites are "Charlie," "2st Century," and "Snow (Hey Oh)"

2) Snow Patrol- favorites are "Open Your Eyes," "You Be Happy," "Set The Fire to the Third Bar," "Shut Your Eyes"


A fellow Last.fm user echoing similar sentiments about the new RHCP and Snow Patrol albums (can't speak to the new Goo Goo Dolls).

Another Great Video- Fed Chief Parody
Now Playing: The Police - Parody Video on Fed Chair Ben Bernanke
Topic: Web 2.0
Go read everything that you know about user-generated video exploding online, including the section in the new issue of WIRED, and when when you strat thinking that it's all a bunch of garbage, watch the video below:

Media and Marketing
Now Playing: Rob Dickinson - My Name is Love
Topic: Web 2.0
Man I get really excited about this stuff, so much so that here I am posting at 12:55am (now 1:41am EST- damn PC) in the morning, screaming at my crappy quasi-broadband EDVO connection over my smartphone. Or maybe it's my almost 4-year old Dell Notebook ready to crap the bed as my Uncle Ed would say. Regardless, here's why the future is bright for media and technology and everything in-between; a quick hodge-podge of good finds from the last couple of days.

1) Forwarded this to Zeldman and BoingBoing, let's see if we can spread the web design/CSS geekiness joy of this love song about web standards.

2) Reddit linked to Advertising Age's article on How to Be a Master of the Digital Domain. I don't read the magazine but my colleagues do at the MarComm/Ad Roundtable so I gave it a glance. Lucky me, though the article itself wasn't too eye opening, it did mention my oft-referenced blogger guru Fred Wilson and even a small photo too. Here's Fred's take on the Magazine Publishers of America's second "Magazine 24/7" conference in New York.

3) Discovering the debut of the Marketing Voices Podcast from Podtech.net, with an interview with Steve King, Senior Advisor at the Institute for the Future.

[I had heard somewhere through the grapevine that in addition to Adam Curry's Podshow venture receiving a bunch of VC money, John Furrier of Podtech had also received a bunch of money as well.

I've enjoyed most of John's podcasts, found a few quite thought provoking and few quite dreadful (probably the interviewee more than anything), and have listened on and off since he first started. He has a distinct style of interviewing that often involves acronym-ridden summaries like "so what really you're saying is XXX is like XXX..." But generally, John knew what was going on and I highly enjoyed the caliber of his guests, including the VCs, and even the last question, making a five-year forecast into the future, slowly grew on me. Just glancing at the new site, it does look like they've received some money. The old website wasn't bad but this new one has the look and feel of professional media company. That's a compliment.]

Jennifer Jones' interview with Steve King was good, echoing a lot of the sentiments that I took away from Scoble's book. It's late so I'll post tomorrow comparing notes from Scoble and this interview, a few common themes arose as I listened to the podcast. And I hope Jennifer or someone at Podtech reads this or my comment on their site (nevermind, my cookie handling is giving the Wordpress login heart palipatios, I'll comment later) because, though I understand the need to reduce comment spam, having to register & log in to comment was a small but slightly annoying chore.

4) Upcoming D.C. shows:

This Sat. night Phoenix (music overview & samples here) is playing 9:30 Club, $15 tickets. They had a song playing during the karaoke scene in Lost in Translation.

Eric Hilton of Thievery Corporation is playing May 13th at 18th Street Lounge (ESL) and it's going to be a killer show. Music overview & samples here, quick blurb on the show below:
"For those of you in Washington, DC, Eric Hilton will again man the
decks at the Eighteenth Street Lounge on Saturday May 13th for what is
sure to be a memorable night. Expect to go on a musical journey with
forays into the finest dub, Brazilian, reggae, and other outernational
sounds"

"Third Annual Testicle Festival, brought to you by the good people of the state of Montana" is this Saturday night in Arlington. Thanks to DCist for the juicy details.

Oh yes, a great two weeks it's going to be.

Currently Playing: Rob Dickinson - My Name is Love

Posted by cph19 at 1:30 AM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 2 May 2006 1:56 AM EDT

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MySpace Killer: Mp3 Sharing
Now Playing: White House Correspondents video w/ Colbert
Topic: Web 2.0
I've been on a small MySpace bent the last couple of days after finally getting to this design tutorial from Mike Davidson on making well-designed MySpace pages. I've hated their crude layout and design tools so I was relieved (and impressed with Mike's clean design) that someone had found a way to realyl get under the design hood of MySpace.

But getting back onto the site kept reminding how popular the MySpace platform has become on the internet. It's traffic is approaching Google's page views per day and they've gotten so much press coverage these days that everyone seems to know about MySpace. Of course, that means that everyone is talking about the ultimate MySpace killer, whether is be Facebook or some other social networking site.

Remember, it's the type of users and now the network size that has made MySpace so popular and the site started originally as a way to share music. With that in mind and padding this article on downloading the streamed version of any posted mp3, there's the seed of a real MySpace killer.

No, it's not another social networking site but it's a way that brings down MySpace under it's own popularity and based on it's original music roots. Can we create a porgram that automates the XML trick described in the article? A small, simple yet elegant app that could take a MySpace address where streaming mps are located and automatically list the mp3s and download the files as well. This isn't revolutionary, but think about what it would do to MySpace, an app that would spread like wildfire around the community and really leverage the network for music sharing.

Granted, there are lots of issues around this, not least among them that MySpace could change the way it loads the streaming mp3s so that the XML trick wouldn't work anymore, but an app like this would make huge ripples. Someone out there, can we do this?

Survey on New Media
Now Playing: Economist Podcast - Survey of New Media w/ Chris Anderson
Topic: Web 2.0
I'm spreading the word as I'm sure that many others as well, about The Economist's recent issue that includes a survey on New Media. Great thoughts and conversations, including a podcast w/ Chris Anderson of WIRED and one with Dave Sifry of Technorati.

Highlights from the Chris Anderson (aka Mr. Long Tail guy) interview:

1) There will still be the superstar performers/artists, but the gap between their sales and the average folk will diminish
2) Rather than people coming together over mainstream content that was pushed because of broadcasting scarcity (media monopoly of the airwaves or means of distribution), people will come together based on the stronger bonds of actually shared interest in content (because we will all be content creators, in the very basic sense since our playlists will be tracked and shared with the network). Imagine that, coming together over actual shared interest rather than over tenuous links of geography/location.
3) New Media companies (and if Old Media companies can make the transition) will have to unbundle content into microchuncks, one-to-one broadcasting, but in a smart, rebundled manner (sounds like what Umair pointed out was missing from the recent Disney deal to offer some limited content online for free).
4) Your collective memory and learning will now be accessible and probably value to yourself and others (exactly what I was thinking about a year ago).

Especially with theme #4, check out the David Sifry podcast, which discusses this idea of your collective learning/ah-hah moment engine. I'm reading The Virtual Handshake by David Teten and Scott Allen on my smartphone and here's Cory's Doctorow's perfect quote on this concept:

"Author Cory Doctorow calls his blog his 'outboard brain:' the place where he archives information that he needs. Your files, and better yet your blog, are a powerful way to organize your own accumulated learning." (pg. 180 of the PDF)

Fred, Umair, or Jeff, any thoughts on this, I assume you guys will read the survey and maybe listen to the audio interviews.

NY Times Redesign and Mobile Browsing
Now Playing: David Gray - Babylon
Topic: Web 2.0
It's old news now that the NY Times redesigned their website and I do compliment them for the increased XHTML/CSS design; it's clean, simple, and seems fast-loading. It's nice to see a top-tier web destination redesign with these standards and style. I can barley remember what it looked like before their last redesign (check out the Wayback Machine to see previous designs).

What's disappointing is no longer being able to view the site from my smartphone, which I could do before relatively easily before the redesign. Yes, the pages were a little awkward with the graphics and ads, causing lots of scrolling or choosing the printer-friendly versions to get full screen-width flow of text, I was willing to do that for their content.

Now, as soon as I click on an article from the main page, Internet Explorer immediately crashes and I have to start all over again. So it means no more NY Times during my downtimes during the day. While I'd rather hit NY Times over CNN or Goggle News, I'm having to choose these second-best options for now. Can the NY Times fix this, which I attribute to some CMS or javascript error, so that I can continue reading the NY Times son my mobile device?

I've been meaning to post since the NY Times redesigned back on April 01 (02?), but I've been busy with work. It wasn't until Fred's Union Square Ventures blog.

I barely read his original post on web services after seeing a MIT Sloan Management review article on the same subject and immediately posted about the article because it seemed relevant. Well, it was that exact article that did indeed prompt Fred's post. So I apologize: lesson learned-- read the entire post before jumping in to make a comment that's already discussed in the post.

Currently Listening: David Gray - Babylon

Back for Now, But My Attention is Scarce
Now Playing: Coldplay - Talk (Junkie XL remix)
Topic: Web 2.0
Thanks to Justin for posting a comment, chiding me on the recent dearth of posts, been busy at work and although a lot of good ideas have stemmed from my most recent reading, I just haven't had the time for even any basic analysis.

The attention economy, focusing on our increasing scarcity of time as information keeps overhwelming our inboxes and eyeballs on a daily basis. The general idea has come up a lot over the last year or so, spanning the various reading/podcasting that I do to keep on the convergence of technology, the internet, media, and culture.

Between Fred Wilson, Adam Curry's podcasts (including his recent golden ticket idea), Bubblegeneration (and Umair just responded to the Disney news today as well) and linking concepts from Battelle's Google book and Scoble's blogging book, the legitimacy of the Attention Economy concept is cementing in my mind.

I don't have the time to write up much on the idea but saw this post on an Eric Schmidt talk that mentions the idea and that finally sparked me to post on the subject. So do yourself a favor and start reading Fred and Umair if you're interested in the future of new media, advertising, and the internet and technology, because these guys (among the many out there) are talking about it a high level. I wish that I could stand on the shoulders of these giants to see what they see so reading their analysis gets me as close as I can for now.

Now, if only I can subtlety hint to my colleagues, who work at a sister Council, that they should be reading this stuff...

Currently Listening: Coldplay - Talk (Junkie XL remix)

Moblogging Flickr
Now Playing: Corinne Bailey Rae - Like a Star
Topic: Web 2.0

Protest Un-Smart Net Filters
Now Playing: Corinne Bailey Rae - Like a Star (again)
Topic: Web 2.0

From BoingBoing, net filter company SmartFilter is blocking BB for unfounded, un-"smart" reasons that only prove how net filters, great (like the Great Firewall of China) or small (Net Nanny) will always fail. Here's how to get around internet filter.

Currently Listening: Corinne Bailey Rae - Like a Star

** BONUS mp3 ** In anticipation of The Brazilian Girls (eat your heart out JK) this Fri. night at 9:30 Club, their "Don't Stop" single. Here's what happened last time they came to D.C.

The Daily Standard Article on Web2.0: It's Worthless!
Now Playing: The Roots - Star; Public Enemy- He Got Game
Topic: Web 2.0
Haven't posted in a while and given that its late right now, I don't want to try analyzing The Daily Standard's article on Web2.0 that Zeldman pointed out. Rest assured, there are some controversial points in there and ranking high among the misconceptions is this choice quote:

"Meanwhile, digital piracy, enabled by Silicon Valley hardware and justified by Silicon Valley intellectual property communists such as Larry Lessig, is draining revenue from established artists, movie studios, newspapers, record labels, and song writers."

Exactly, it's either a black or white world on copyright according to the average pundit, politician, or MSM journalist like this article's author, Andrew Keen. If you've ever read any bit of Lessig, then you'd know that he's against illegal music downloading that doens't compensate creators. Questioning the world's current copyright balance is much different than being called an "intellectual property communist." It's an unimaginative and pathetic label that Lessig has heard a million times before from less vigirous MSM journalists. Congrats Mr. Keen for jumping on the communist copyright bandwagon.

Young Consumers Are The First 'Technology Everywhere' Generation
Now Playing: The Fray - Over My Head (Cable Car)
Topic: Web 2.0
Thanks to the Sage RSS extension for Firefox (see the cool art that it sometimes produces), I have a growing list of sites that I frequent when there's spare time (more in abundance now before the holidays). It leads to those ah-hah moments that I love so much because they validate my late-night reading/blogging marathons.

Take the juxtaposition of two Industry Analyst Reporter News' headlines and mix in a post from the mighty fine Mediaeater and you have another interesting point/counter-point:

---

"Reducing piracy 10 points worldwide could create 2.4 million jobs, $400 billion in growth" (link)
+
"Young Consumers Are The First 'Technology Everywhere' Generation" (link)
=
"MySpace's millions changing the face of music" (link)

---

I have a hard time believing the Business Software Alliance's estimates on piracy but add the second article and the estimated cost savings from reducing piracy doesn't matter because it equals the third article.

Currently Playing: The Fray - Over My Head (Cable Car)

Point / Counter-Point from Schwartz & Carr
Now Playing: Al Green - Let's Stay Together
Topic: Web 2.0
Catching up on newsreader feeds and read Jonathan Schwartz's recent posts, including a podcast from the Web2.0 panel w/ him, Tim O'Reilly, and Mitchell Baker. He recently published an article on corporate blogging for the October 2005 issue of HBR.

Point:
"For executives, having a blog is not going to be a matter of choice, any more than using e-mail is today. If you're not part of the conversation, others will speak on your behalf -- and I'm not talking about your employees...
Then find your voice. Be honest and open. Be respectful of your audiences. Don't treat blogging like advertising-it's not. Use humor. Link to those who interest and influence you...
Trust me, your market and your employees are clamoring for executive engagement and insight. They will value and remember your candor. And you'll be surprised by how much you learn from them." (HBR article).

---

Nicholas Carr, of "IT Doesn't Matter" fame/infamy (depending on your prospective) had this post on Microsoft's recent decision to share the advertising revenue from its search engine with users (straight from Bill Gates' mouth). Here's Carr's response to Sun's recent strategy moves:

Counter-Point:
" But if Sun is to succeed, it needs to get its act together - to adopt a single, coherent market positioning and stick to it with relentless, unwavering discipline. Blogging is not a strategy. (12/10/05 post)

---

The first sledding session of the season, jibbing a plastic drainage pipe with the Scoot-n-Ski on top of Cobbs Hill.

HUGE: Del.icio.us Joins Yahoo!
Now Playing: Sia - Breathe Me (Mylo remix)
Topic: Web 2.0
The RSS feeds on my Google home page are lit up like a Christmas tree over this one:

Del.icio.us Joins Yahoo!

This is HUGE, can't wait to see what the blogsphere does with this (see Technorati for the blog chatter). Reddit, Mediaeater, and Blogspotting are posting the story.

And of course Fred posted on this given his early investment in Del.icio.us.

Can Smart Aggregators Save Mainstream Media
Now Playing: Frou Frou - Let Go
Topic: Web 2.0
Finally, a follow-up to last week's post on the future of the MSM.

I finally sent feedback and comments to WAMC's The Media Project, a great radio show that examines the mainstream media (MSM). Stumbled upon the show driving back from a Nantucket wedding two years ago and have been a faithful internet listener ever since. Never having written them before, I was pleasantly surprised to hear back from Alan Chartock, the professor and head of WAMC.

The Media Project always has a discussion on the current state of the MSM, including the newspaper industry, which has been losing readers and struggling financially for the last 5-7 years, conservatively. A lot of that comes from the rise of the internet and the ability to filter what you want to receive as your news. It's the long-touted rip, mix, burn culture coming to fruition, especially since RSS feeds and news readers are starting to become so popular. What does all of this mean for the newspaper industry, which has traditionally been a physical good requiring substantial production and distribution costs (covered by an advertiser-dependent revenue model)?

The internet severally reduces the costs of production and distribution but a newspaper (besides its online edition) has always been viewed as a single, discreet commodity that derives its full value from the whole of the content, not from its disparate pieces. Fred Wilson has suggested (as have others) that the future of media involves these four criteria:

microchunk it

freeing it

syndicate it

monetize it

* I added remixing to my email to Alan, Lydia, and Rex.

Rex liked the perspective but had a great counterpoint which deserves attention: while microchunks and remixing may work for electronic content, what about the publicly-traded companies that demand shareholder returns while the idea of microchunks dictates that web information remain free? Newspapers' revenue streams are circulation and advertising (the former pays for the newsroom) and a paper can't sustain a big staff and strong reporting (which creates the valuable content) without the circulation revenue.

It seems like a catch-22: how do newspapers maintain the creation of valuable content while trying to embrace the trends of New Media that dictate freeing (microchunking and remixing) that very content that makes a newspaper valuable (great reporters and strong reporting)?

Rex has undoubtedly been, and will continue, grappling with this formidable challenge. I'm not sure that I have a great answer but let's try: Smart Aggregators. Wait just a sec before you say, oh here we go, more Web2.0 mumbo jumbo. The economic or business concept of an aggregator has been well established, and not just within the pre- and post-Dot Com Eras. Following the microchink concept, Umair at Bubblegeneration discusses the idea of a smart aggregator in his mediaeconomics presentations (PPT file):

Aggregation-- ‘Rebundling of content from fragmented platforms & formats, re-purposing, & delivery across new platforms & standards’ (Slide 53)

Smart Aggregators don't just rebundle content from diverse platforms/standards, they rebundle content, information about that content (e.g. tags) and about the network, application, device, etc. (Slide 55)

Can newspaper act as smart aggregators more efficiently than web-based tools? When it comes to local and regional news, they probably stand a chance. But ask the NY Times how it approaches the power or reach of Google News or other news aggregators for national or world news and the papers may have a different answer.

Aggregations add value to exchange process rather than to the goods themselves. (Digital Capital, pg. 50)

Are newspapers valuable because of the content that they amass, consolidate, and distribute (exchange) or from the news reporting and news stories that they create? Certainly, it's the former but I agree w/ Rex that newspapers' value comes from strong reporting and good journalists (content creators). Is the Huffington Post, which was chided at its inception but has become quite popular and seemingly successful since starting in May, a quasi-newspaper or just an aggregator, adding value by bringing together different authors onto a common space where their combined voices are stronger than if they stood alone on their sites/blogs?

The real costs of producing a newspaper article is sunk into the first copy; the marginal costs of printing and distribution greatly influence the paper's price. (Digital Capital, pg. 77). The internet changes the rules for information goods because their marginal distribution costs tend toward zero (Information Rules).


Food for thought-but I'm tired now, so post some comments if you have answer to the newspaper's catch-22 when it comes to microchunking and remixing.

Just so you thought I wasn't being too serious, thanks to Mike for telling about the hilarious Secular Central clip from the Daily Show. I can hear Alan saying it now, "Bill O'Reilly, him I do not like."

Posted by cph19 at 12:43 AM EST

Updated: Friday, 9 December 2005 1:07 AM EST

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Last.fm + Flickr = ?
Now Playing: Foo Fighters - Everlong (KROQ acoustic)
Topic: Web 2.0

+

www.flickr.com This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from cherbert. Make your own badge here.

=

?

Resisting the Pull of MySpace
Now Playing: The Flaming Lips - Mr. Ambulance Driver
Topic: Web 2.0
I resisted MySpace for a long time; I remembered something about it from my Hawai'i trip last March when Mike's friends took me surfing and kept talking about this MySpace thing. It made me feel old and out of touch, not knowing anything about an internet trend, which is supposedly my expertise. Then it came up again within the last few months and I decided even if I wasn't into the social networking bug (LinkedIn is different, that's business networking) I needed to understand the subject. Begrudgingly, I got sucked into MySpace, but I keep a healthy distance.

It's hitting the mainstream now and here is Wired's a great article from November 2005 on the MySpace phenomena. Now here's Business Week's stab at the topic:

Currently Listening: The Flaming Lips - Mr. Ambulance Driver (iTunes link)

Correlating Amazon and Your Local Library
Now Playing: KCRW
Topic: Web 2.0
Thanks to Reddit's post on Greasemokey extensions, there's a solution to a question I posed a couple months back. I was a little slow to this and found that Jon Udell had already solved the Amazon-Public Library correlation challenge: how to link Amazon's search results through their API to your local public library.

I don't have the Rochester Public Library's LIBRA system working yet but RIT's works well. Drag this bookmarklet, RIT Libraries, to your link toolbar in Firefox or IE (screenshot here).

Here's the bookmarklet text (what the hell is a bookmarklet?): javascript:var%20re=/([\/-]|is[bs]n=)(\d{7,9}[\dX])/i;if(re.test(location.href)==true){var%20isbn=RegExp.$2;void(win=window.open('http://albert.rit.edu'+'/search/i='+isbn,'LibraryLookup','scrollbars=1,resizable=1,location=1,width=575,height=500'))}

Do your regular Amazon search for a book and when you're found it, click on the bookmarklet in your browser and will automatically query the RIT Library (in a new browser window). It's as easy as that so spread the word.

Last.fm + LivePlasma
Now Playing: Bloc Party - This Modern Love
Topic: Web 2.0
LivePlasma + Last.fm = a visual, mashed up way to explore your musical tastes

(based on a search for Broken Social Scene)