Mplayit iPhone app directory on Facebook

Mplayit’s Facebook-based directory of iPhone and mobile apps includes all 100,000 plus iPhone apps and a few for other platforms, as well. Applications have a dedicated page displaying videos of the app, a detailed description and reviews. You can also click to buy the app from Apple’s App Store.

There is also a "Pandora-like" feature that recommends apps based on the ones you have previously viewed. The site also displays in real-time what is happening in the app stores, such as Apple’s, to show users what apps are receiving the most downloads, reviews, etc.

Cool stuff.

Google Books drops foreign texts

Bowing to powerful legal pressure, Google Books is dropping foreign texts from the archive. In concession to the numerous foreign governments and bodies that have been asking for changes to the deal Google pushed through the courts, Google Books will contain only texts published within the U.K., Australia, Canada, and those that fall under U.S. copyright. Named plaintiffs in the settlement now include authors in the U.K., Australia, and Canada, who'll gain representation by the Book Rights Registry Board in order to acquire their share of cash from Google. The Rights Registry is also required to actually seek out authors "who have not yet come forward" from now on--it's amazing that this wasn't the case beforehand. The modified deal even adds a legal representative for unclaimed or "orphan" books; the rep is charged with protecting author's rights. Also in the deal is more scope for authors who want their books to be available for free (rather than sold via Google's partner companies) and who wish to tag them with creative commons or other licenses.

Google's original plan effectively gave them the authority to do what ever they wished with millions of published texts. That it was a U.S.-based settlement that covered books published everywhere raised objections from authors and rights bodies outside the U.S. This "settlement" should appease those interests, but will also result in many useful and valuable foreign texts being excluded from Google Books.

Happy 40th Anniversary Sesame Street!

Today is the 40th Anniversary Sesame Street! Enjoy this video in which the Cookie Monster visits a library. Of course libraries offer much more than books nowadays. Perhaps the Cookie Monster could even get milk and cookies with his books.

The Florida Digital Newspaper Library

The Florida Digital Newspaper Library provides access to the news and history of Florida. All of the over 800,000 pages of historic through current Florida newspapers in the Florida Digital Newspaper Library are openly and freely available with zoomable page images and full text. The Florida Digital Newspaper Library builds on the work done in microfilm within the Florida Newspaper Project.

The Florida Digital Newspaper Library includes:

• Current Florida newspapers, digitized from 2005 - present


• Historic Florida newspapers


• Historic News Accounts of Florida
  
  With the exception of the East-Florida Gazette in the 1780s and a small press at Fernandina in 1817, Florida had no colonial newspapers. Even in the immediate aftermath of cession in 1821, only a few newspapers served Florida. Historic News Accounts of Florida consists of stories and reports about Florida gathered together by the Goza and Mickler families and donated to the P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History. All are from non-Florida newpapers and cover events in Florida from 1762 - 1885. The articles pre-dating the Territorial Period help to "fill in" the journalistic record at a time when there was no Florida press, while the articles from after 1821 both complement and supplement news published in Florida.

The Complete Guide to Google Wave: Free downloadable eBook

Google Wave is a new web-based collaboration tool that's notoriously difficult to understand. This guide will help. Learn how to use Google Wave to get things done with your group. Because Wave is such a new product that's evolving quickly, this guidebook is a work in progress that will update in concert with Wave as it grows and changes. Read it here.

You might also like 7 things you should know about Google Wave from EDUCAUSE.

Woopra: web analytics you can use

Woopra is a comprehensive, information rich, easy to use, real-time Web tracking and analysis application. It delivers a rich library of visitor statistics through an innovative desktop application. Woopra’s revolutionary server architecture, combined with its intuitively designed client software, enables seamless tracking of visitors. Webmasters can track over 40 different statistical events and analytics on multiple websites and blogs.

Woopra breaks the Web statistics mold by allowing lightning quick search functionality along any data point in the system. What information do you need to help you manage and develop your site? Specific user names, IP addresses, geographic locations, user browsing data, visitor history, visitor paths, arrival and departure points – what do you want to know?

Here is an introductory video:

In October iPhone eBook apps outpaced even games

From Flurry

In October, one out of every five new apps launching in the iPhone has been a book. Publishers of all kinds, from small ones like Your Mobile Apps to mega-publishers like Softbank, are porting existing IP into the App Store at record rates. Flurry first evaluated the iPhone as an eBook reader in its July Pulse ("You Trying to Swindle my Kindle?") where it looked at consumer demand for eBooks. In that report, we observed that during the month of August 1% of the entire U.S. population was already reading a book on the iPhone. Now, with books shipping in droves, we are seeing the supply-side explode.

The sharp rise in eBook activity on the iPhone indicates that Apple is positioned take market share from the Amazon Kindle as it did from the Nintendo DS. Despite the smaller form factor of the display, we predict that the iPhone will be a significant player in the book category of the Media & Entertainment space. Further, with Apple working on a larger tablet form factor, running on the iPhone OS, we believe Jeff Bezos and team will face significant competition.

Feature Creep

Thanks to Tom Fishburne, The Management Cartoonist

gmail addressing tips

I found two gmail tips on Everyday Loopholes. I think they're pretty clever. I found another on Google's website.

One is that you can append things to your gmail address. An email addressed to validgmailaddress+anythingyouwant@gmail.com will reach the valid google email address. Here's the link to "Gmail Address + Anything You Want" at Everyday Loopholes.

The other is called "Google Twofer" on Everyday Loopholes. It points out that signing up for gmail actually means an email address that ends in gmail.com and another that ends in googlemail.com. Both go to the same mailbox.

Lastly, dots are meaningless in Google address names so all of these emails go to the same address:
homerjsimpson@gmail.com = hom.er.j.sim.ps.on@gmail.com
homerjsimpson@gmail.com = HOMERJSIMPSON@gmail.com
homerjsimpson@gmail.com = Homer.J.Simpson@gmail.com
Google explains it here.

You can see the results of test messages by clicking on the "show details" link in the Google mail message. As Everyday Loopholes suggests, it might be useful to use some of these alternatives when signing up for email at websites and then filtering if necessary.