SLA 201060 Sites in 60 Minutes

John DiGilioManager, US Research; Reed Smith

Gayle Lynn-Nelson Senior Librarian Relations Consultant; LexisNexis

Agenda - Gayle Blogs Resources Research & Reference Travel Technology Fun

Agenda - John

Social Media & Networking Business & Productivity Research & Reference News & Feeds Fun & Tech

Gayle: Blogs

Law Firm Competitive Intelligence Above and Beyond Legal Business Development Royal Pingdom

John: Social Media & Networking Google Follow Finder Klout Social Times Txt.io Mister Wong Listorious

Gayle: Resources 10 Minute Mentor Caringbridge Wisechoice 1000 Awesome Things SoloPractice Bed Bugs Beam it up Scotty

John: Business & Productivity

Simply Hired Screenjelly LibGig Doodle Mikogo Slideshare

Gayle: Research & Reference 4FreeCLE Lawyering Survival Guide Presentation research E-discovery decisions Formulating research assignments

John: Research & Reference Duck Duck Go Spokeo Cha Cha Interment.net Zuula Exalead

Gayle: Travel Vacation rentals Enterprise search for travel sites Health concerns and international

travel Looking for the best seat

John: News & Feeds .Collected NY Times Skimmer Newsvine Netvibes / Libraryvibes Read Write Web Popurls

Gayle: Technology MakeUseOf.com LegalTechTrainer Techmeme Techzilla Managing your Online Afterlife

John: Fun & Tech Schmap ZipList MyFav.es Envirogadget Forgotten Books Blip.TV

Gayle: Fun Store your DNA forever Courtroom & deposition war stories Free/discounted e-books Free book trades Build an online catalog of your

collection

This blog provides a community where law firm competitive intelligence professionals can share their ideas, ask questions, and learn from one another through collaboration. Whether it is a product review, suggested reading list, article on law firm CI topic, the CI Blawg is a place to share those with others in the profession. Those willing to contribute can request access to the blog and can add blog posts at any time.The only restrictions imposed would be that any postings should :be related to law firm competitive intelligence; be respectful to the audience (avoid negative personal comments or inflammatory speech);not be blatant advertising for a product or service;protect yourself, your firm and your clients confidential information;be personable and have fun (also, contributors must disclose their name on the blog, although you do not have to disclose your firm if you so choose.)

Above and beyond KM is a blog about how law firms work and how knowledge management (KM) can help improve their efforts. Mary Abraham’s observations are based on her experience practicing law and then praticing knowledge management in a New York City firm. This is a go-to legal km blog.

This was originally a legal marketing/selling blog. Jim Hassett has takin on Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFAs) in a big way. After surveying a large group of managing partners he has produced the “the LegalBizDev Survey of Alternative Fees. His blog posts include excerpts from the survey, making it a premier site to stay current on AFAs.

This is a blog by the team at Pingdom about the Internet, web development and tech, and of course their own services. Pingdom offers services to monitor the uptime and performance of websites and servers on the Internet. This is something you might want to share with your IT departments. If nothing else it lets them know you are on their wave length and thinking of them and how to make their job easier.

Follow Finder analyzes public social graph information (following and follower lists) on Twitter to find people you might want to follow.

Follow Finder generates two lists based on the public social connections on Twitter (follower and following lists):Tweeps you might like: We start with the list of people you follow, find others with similar lists, and then identify accounts you might also want to follow. If people with similar lists tend to follow accounts that aren't in your list, we'll recommend those additional accounts to you. For example, if you follow CNN and the New York Times on Twitter, and most people who follow CNN and the New York Times also tend to follow TIME, we'll suggest TIME as a user to follow. Tweeps with similar followers: We find people with similar public lists of followers to yours. For example, if ten people are following you, and the same ten people are following a second user, we'll include the second user in this list. You may already be following some of these people.

The Klout Score is the measurement of your overall online influence. The scores range from 0 to 100 with higher scores representing a wider and stronger sphere of influence. Klout uses over 25 variables to measure True Reach, Amplification Probability, and Network Score. The size of the sphere is calculated by measuring True Reach (engaged followers and friends vs. spam bots, dead accounts, etc.). Amplification Probability is the likelihood that messages will generate retweets or spark a conversation. If the user's engaged followers are highly influential, they'll have a high Network Score.

Founded by Nick O’Neill, The Social Times vision is “learning the skills and tools necessary to help businesses and individuals build social capital.”The Social Times is more than just a blog. Our events, mixers and conferences take place all around the country, with an online presence linking all physical events back to the website. We update our site daily with news and videos, and serve as a hub linking our users to all types of media pertaining to building social capital.The Social Times is the single place online that builds the community within the web industry both online and offline, and we look forward to seeing you at our next event.

Mister Wong is Europe's largest portal of its kind with over 7 million monthly users. It was founded by Kai Tietjen in March 2006. Though it first started in Germany, Mister Wong is now available in English, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, and French. The German version already has close to eight million saved websites.

Mister Wong offers you an efficient way to save and manage all of your favorite websites in a personal account. You can access your favorites online no matter where you are, whether it's at work, home, on your laptop, at university, internet cafés, and even on your cell phone. With the use of tags, you can organize your favorite bookmarks comfortably and individually. You decide whether you want to make your bookmarks private so that only you can see them, or public for all to see. With the large collection of saved public bookmarks, Mister Wong is an ideal peer-to-peer search engine where you can search for subjects by tags and find results recommended by the community.

With Mister Wong, websites which have been saved by many users receive higher rankings. This is why it's called social bookmarking, and is an excellent addition to traditional search engines. Saved pages on our portal is reviewed by the community and hence users can enjoy exceptionally good search results. Use Mister Wong to find the best websites covering a range of subjects, sorted by "most popular", "brand new" and "hot now". On Mister Wong's homepage, you will also find a list of recommended popular websites.

Listorious makes it easy to find who matters on any topic with the best Twitter people search on the web.

We empower thousands of people to curate Twitter by allowing them to tag their lists and profiles in our Twitter directory.

Listorious was created by Sawhorse Media in New York City, a company that tells you who matters on the real-time Web by creating fun, engaging, and useful products. Sawhorse's network includes the Oscars if Twittter -- The Shorty Awards, and the leading destination for journalists on Twitter -- Muck Rack. Check out the rest of Sawhorse's network of Twitter curators.

This site contains about 400 10 minute videos on a variety of legal topics. Although some substantive law topics are Texas based, many are not. Also more general topics like law practice whioh you see I have entered in the search box as well as technology are covered. The best thing about these high quality mentoring videos – they are free!

Also notice some of the choices I have, to search by speaker or by category if I so desire. I liked this flexibility.

Here you can see a few examples of what came up when I searched law practice. What I did find interesting is it seems each title is repeated – not sure why but this is what I found.

A CaringBridge website helps keep loved ones informed during difficult times. In return, family and friends give patient and caregiver support through guestbook messages.

If you need to keep others up to date on someone's medical condition this is the place to go. You only have to update in one place which is really nice. Notice also the option to use English or Spanish. They also have made the site available via mobile access.

A few things to note of interest:Simplifies Communication:Reduces time and emotional energy spent on repeated phone calls and e–mailsKeeps everyone informed with the same, accurate informationProvides Encouragement:Connects a patient’s entire community, creating a network of support for everyone involvedFamily and friends can post messages of love and encouragement from around the world

How many of you have children that are about to go off to college? I know how stressful that can be having had one myself. Looking for colleges has really become somewhat of a job today. This site is a great place to look for good colleges for teenagers.

This site claims their information is more accurate and objective than any other resource. WiseChoice collects official statistics from the U.S. Department of Education and cross-references them with information that colleges report about themselves. They don't just present the facts, they help you to interpret the facts.We also conduct our own surveys, asking actual students about their college experiences. And we combine sophisticated mathematical algorithms with softer personal data. That's how we translate needs and wants into perfect college matches.

This site is just that, 1000 awesome things! It is also a book you can buy.1000 Awesome Things is just a time-ticking countdown of 1000 awesome things. Launched June, 2008 and updated every weekday.

Here is what Leo Babauta of Zen Habits has to say about the site:“There’s something riveting about 1000 Awesome Things that makes you want to keep coming back. Aside from the great humor, it reminds you of the little things in life, and how awesome they can be.” This is really a place to go to feel good!

This site provides great resources for starting your own practice, or enhancing your practice.

Solopractice university bills itself as the #1 educational and professional networking community for lawyers and law students, designed by lawyers for lawyers and dedicated to helping you build your very own solo practice.

I do not know about the rest of you but this really creeps me out. Working in NYC and knowing what a problem bed bugs are now has made me totally neurotic.Researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey (my alma mater for my library degree) have created a homemade bedbug trap using a plastic cat-food dish, an insulated jug and some dry ice pellets. This device was mentioned on this site and here is what one reader had to say; Dude, I am so going to try this once a month or so.

Anything and everything you want to know about bed bugs is on this site. There is lots of talk about the infestation in NYC.

Beam It Up Scotty is a service that allows anybody to quickly send their favorite image, audio or video file to their cellphone. It will be automatically converted into a cellphone compatible file format.After the file has been uploaded to our system, you can choose to compress it to reduce download time and transfer costs.After conversion, they will give you the download link. Using this link you can download the file to your phone.

So what does all this cost? – nothing unless your provider charges you something for the file transfer. - For details contact your cellphone provider.

Simply Hired is a vertical search engine company based in Silicon Valley, and we're building the largest online database of jobs on the planet. Our goal is to make finding your next job a simple yet effective, enjoyable journey. We can't always promise you'll discover your dream job, but we'll give you the best chance possible to get a bigger paycheck, a more considerate boss, or a shorter commute

Screenjelly is a free service that records your screen activity along with your voice and lets you share it as a video with your friends via Twitter, Facebook or email. It's the quickest way to show what's on your screen and get instant feedback

Screenjelly is designed to quickly share bite-sized visual information, not to create a full tutorial. Limiting the recording to three minutes is the best way to ensure that your message is compelling and to the point and more importantly within your viewer’s attention span (which may be even lower).

LibGig is a new professional networking website dedicated to bringing together everyone who accesses, organizes, creates, manages, produces or distributes information for a living. Our goal is to establish a common, human link within the enormous and multi-faceted information industry through dialogue, interaction and sharing of interesting stories, as well as dynamic and exclusive content that encourages feedback and debate.

LibGig Careers Searchable job listings from diverse employers who may be posting uniquely here Profiles of featured employers Intriguing “odd” jobs that might defy categorization; internships, consulting gigs, interim assignments Library vendor jobs for information professionals Free resume consultation from a librarian-owned resume firm Relevant queries answered by top recruiting and career experts Who’s Hiring Job Alert: Semi-monthly e-newsletter sent to the desktops of 6,000+ subscribing job seekers. Includes: recent job listings posted on LibGig Jobs plus job hunting tips and career development information.

LibGig SchoolsThe most inclusive and up-to-date list of ALA Accredited LIS schools including their specialties, degrees, certificates, doctoral programs, admissions and financial aid contacts – and all in one place! Alumni profiles, photos and contact information Links to education, certification and training options from groups such as I Schools Caucus, SLA and Click University, Knowledge Management Professional Society (KMPro), Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals, Continuing Ed, Certificates, Courses, and Training.

LibGig Community Profiles and interviews of community leaders, innovators, visionaries and problem-solvers Exclusive LibGig blogs, featuring perspectives from different parts of the information industry plus a sampling of the best of the library community blogs New product announcements and reviews An events calendar that highlights upcoming conferences, parties, job fairs, deadlines, due dates, mixers, and contests that is supported by you, the community Information industry news aggregated through feeds from a plethora of top news sites and publications.

The world’s leading online scheduling tool, Doodle takes the pain out of finding the right date and time for a group of people to meet and makes scheduling virtually effortless. The basic service is a free online coordination tool which requires neither registration nor software installation.

Looking to host an online meeting without paying through the teeth? Look no further. Mikogo is a free desktop sharing tool full of features to assist you in conducting the perfect online meeting or web conference.Take advantage of the opportunity to share any screen content or application over the Internet in true color quality with up to 10 participants simultaneously, while still sitting at your desk.

Mikogo can be employed for a range of professional, academic, or personal uses, including:online meetings web conferences product demonstrations web presentations remote support webinars and more!

Provide online technical support for your customers. Conduct product demonstrations for business customers. Use Mikogo to discuss and edit a current team project. The ideal tool for free online group collaboration.

SlideShare is a business media site for sharing presentations, documents and pdfs. SlideShare features a vibrant professional community that regularly comments, favorites and downloads content. Content also spreads virally through blogs and social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook and twitter. Individuals & organizations upload documents to SlideShare to share ideas, connect with others, and generate leads for their businesses. Anyone can view presentations & documents on topics that interest them. The site is growing rapidly with over 25 million monthly visitors.

SlideShare is the best way to get your slides out there on the web, so your ideas can be found and shared by a wide audience. Do you want to get the word out about your product or service? Do you want your slides to reach people who could not make it to your talk? Are you a teacher looking to share your lesson plans? It only takes a moment - start uploading now, and let your slides do the talking!

I know many of you are now taking on more and more responsibility for your organizations CLE. And free CLE is popping up in a number of places. One site for finding these programs is 4FreeCLE. The site indexes free offerings from numerous providers. The existence of this site highlights the trend and availability of free CLE from a number of sources.

This is the lawyering survival guide by Sam Glover and Aaron Street. It provides great information on how to use technology in a small firm practice. It is great for your young lawyers who might want to build their own practice. Forms and tips abound.

This is the go to resource for people who want to create better looking, and more informative, presentations. There are lots of tips and step-by-step instructions, as well as great discussion of various schools of presentation styles.

Here is what Garr Reynolds – the owner of this site has to say about himself:I'm a former "salaryman" (Osaka), former Apple employee (Cupertino), jazz musician, branding enthusiast, communications specialist, and design evangelist currently working in Japan as a fulltime marketing professor for a local private university. I'm also director of a Japanese design group and love living here in Japan. He is quite unique as is his website.

This is actually a blog but I wanted to include it under this category. It is a great blog to keep up to date on e-discovery decisions. It is entertaining and engaging but most of all very informative thus the reason I wanted it included here.Joshua Gilliland, Esq , the blog creator, is a California attorney and has conducted over 100 Continuing Legal Education seminars on e-Discovery from Miami to Anchorage. Josh is the Professional Development Manager for D4 LLC. Josh creates educational marketing, CLE’s and consulting for D4. Josh was at CT Summation where he did Professional and Business Development, where he planned webinars with Magistrate Judge John Facciola and e-Discovery experts, conducted mock depositions and organized mock trials with experienced e-Discovery attorneys.

OpenRegs.com provides all the same information one can find in the federal register and to some extent regulations.gov but in a much more user-friendly format. The most important feature is that it tells to the day when comment periods for regulations will close. The site also incorporates Web 2.0 technologies in the form of blogs and discussion forums, but so far it appears few people have taken advantage of these features.

Duck Duck Go is a new search engine, like Google.

Here's why you should use us instead of Google: Zero-click info (compare) Privacy kept (compare) Search sites with !bang Disambiguation pages Info topic summaries Less clutter (compare) Less spam & ads (compare) Shortcuts & other goodies Category pages Customization settings

Spokeo is a search engine specialized in organizing people-related information from phone books, social networks, marketing lists, business sites, and other public sources. Most of this data is publicly available on the Web. For example, you can find people’s name, phone, and address on Whitepages.com, and you can get home values from Zillow.com. That said, only Spokeo’s algorithm can piece together the scattered data into coherent people profiles, giving you the most comprehensive intelligence about anyone you want to find

Spokeo is different because it indexes information that no other search engine does. Spokeo aggregates data from hundreds of online and offline sources, including but not limited to: phone directories, social networks, marketing surveys, mailing lists, government census, real estate listings, and business websites. All data is publicly available, so anyone can access them from their respective sources. However, putting all the data pieces together would take you months. Spokeo automates the data aggregation for you and makes it FREE.

ChaCha is like having a smart friend you can call or text for answers on your cell phone anytime for free! ChaCha works with virtually every provider and allows people with any mobile phone device - from basic flip phones to advanced smart phones - to ask any question in conversational English and receive an accurate answer as a text message in just a few minutes.

What’s your question?Simply text your question to 242242 (spells ‘ChaCha’) or call 1-800-2ChaCha (800-224-2242) from your mobile phone to ask any question. What are you waiting for? Ask away!

Interment.net is a publisher of cemetery transcriptions for use by genealogists and local historians. Visitors use our online library to help them locate burials of their family and friends, trace their family history, and learn something about cemeteries in general.

About 500,000 people each month visit Interment.net to use the online library, making us one of the most popular FREE genealogical references on the Internet.

While the staff of Interment.net actively visits cemeteries and compiles records, we mostly rely on folks to submit their transcriptions and compilations to us. Many of the transcriptions published here are of cemeteries that no longer exist. Hence, Interment.net provides a place where cemeteries can be preserved in documentation and used by generation after generation.

Zuula is the best way to find what you are looking for on the Internet. With Zuula, it is quick and convenient to get results from all the top search engines. Search engines often return very different results for the same terms. So checking multiple search engines will give you the best results, and Zuula makes it easy. Currently, Zuula offers Web, Image, Video, News, Blog, and Job searches.

Zuula provides the results from your favorite search engine unaltered, so you can check those first and then get results from other search engines simply by clicking on their tabs. If you want to switch back and forth between search engines, Zuula remembers where you were. And Zuula keeps sponsored links (which are paid advertisements) clearly separated from the regular search results.

Zuula is very customizable and easy to use. For each search type, you can set your preferences for which search engines are included and in what order. The search engine tabs can also be rearranged right from the search results page by dragging and dropping them.

The Zuula search service is currently in Beta form and we are working hard to fine-tune Zuula's features and performance.

Have you ever thought of taking a vacation and really wanted to rent something but had no idea how to go about this? Well then Vacation Rentals by Owner, aka VRBO is just the site for you.

Established in 1995, they have been in the vacation rental business for over 14 years. In fact, VRBO was founded by vacation rental owners who self-manage their second homes, like many of you might do. They provide an online space for homeowners to advertise their vacation properties and make it easy for travelers to search 130,000+ rentals in over 100 countries worldwide. Notice my arrows, this is to show you the breadth of what is available – not just domestically but internationally as well. And if you know the destination you want you can just type it in. Also if you want certain amenities you can type that in as well. You will see I have typed in Australia with 2 bedroom and 2 baths – why not dream big!

A little while ago, two companies independently created a new way for you to shop for travel products: visit one web site that would search all the others, then buy from whatever web site you want. The traveling public, liked this idea, and both Kayak and SideStep have become very popular. Kayak and SideStep are now one company; they have merged.

Whether you have been a Kayak or SideStep user, you will benefit from access to more comprehensive rates and availability data, a faster search, larger portfolio of products and services and an overall improved customer experience.

I am sure many of you want to find ways to save money when traveling. This site is here to help to just that that. How? By searching many travel sites at once.

You will notice my arrows to show my city of departure, the date and time I want to travel, how many people, if I prefer nonstop flights and the variety of travel sites I can click to search at once.

About WHO

WHO is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system. It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.

In the 21st century, health is a shared responsibility, involving equitable access to essential care and collective defense against transnational threats.

I have highlighted a few things of interest; where you can go to health topics directly and where you can jump to information on international travel and health concerns.

NABBING THE PERFECT SEAT

In 2007, SeatGuru was purchased by TripAdvisor.com. Sharing the common goal of finding the truth from real travelers, SeatGuru and TripAdvisor work together to bring you the most up-to-date information about travel. Last year I focused on tripadvisor and said I loved it and use it frequently.

Preview seat maps" including where to find the power outlets as well as that extra inch of legroom" for 73 models of aircraft on 39 different airlines. Like most airlines these days, the site is no-frills, but you'll never get stuck next to the bathroom again.

I am going on a trip in July to LA for my dad’s 90th birthday. I have entered my airline and flight number and once I hit go it will bring back the best seats on the plane. I can also get a comparison chart, travel tips and frequent flier tips. It is a pretty nifty site for travelers.

Collected is a service where you easily gather feeds and news sources in to collections where you (and others!) can get a good overview and follow them on a daily basis. You can even export your collection to a new feed that you can use in your favourite reader such as Google Reader, Net News Wire, etc.

Collected gather news websites, twitter feeds, flickr feeds, blogs, or just about anything that uses RSS, Atom or XML.

Collected is built on our wish to make the Internet a more fun and easier to use place.

The New York Times has released an article skimmer interface for their news articles providing a really great way to scan headlines similar to reading a physical paper. It’s part of their prototypes series for projects that are still in the testing phase.

Founded in 2005, Netvibes pioneered the first personalized dashboard publishing platform for the Web. For consumers, Netvibes.com is the most awarded startpage where millions of people around the world personalize and publish all aspects of their daily digital lives. For agencies and publishers, Netvibes’ universal widget technology (UWA), widget distribution services and Premium Dashboards help rapidly deliver brand observation rooms and user-personalized marketing campaigns. For companies, Netvibes Enterprise delivers secure, scalable personalized workspaces, portals and industry dashboards.

ReadWriteWeb is one of the most popular technology blogs in the world, known for offering insightful analysis about each day's Internet industry news.

ReadWriteWeb was founded on April 20, 2003 by Richard MacManus and is now one of the most widely read and respected blogs in the world. Our readers are smart, tech savvy, engaged, decision makers. 46% have 'significant input' or "make final information technology purchase decisions." As one advertiser put it, "The real users of the Web read ReadWriteWeb."

popurls is the dashboard for the latest web-buzz, a single page that encapsulates up-to-the-minute headlines from the most popular sites on the internet.

with the intention to get a quick glance on what’s happening on the web while keeping the common newsreader clean from short-term headlines, popurls was launched in march 2006 by thomas marban who is often mentioned for creating the original trend of “single page aggregators”. rather than a tool, popurls is considered as a gate to a highly selective collection of the most popular sites, presented in a usable way for every device & service. after features on thousands of blogs and newspapers like the NY times, yahoo! named it best of the web to finally enter the 30 most popular sites of all time on del.icio.us.

The next time you need an understanding of a basic technology come to this site. Or better yet, check it out everyday to stay up on all the newest stuff. Additionally the site has an excellent how to tips and technology guides.

The aim of MakeUseOf is to guide you through the web and tell you about hot websites that you have never heard of, free alternatives to popular software programs, and all kinds of “how to” tips for Windows, Mac and Linux computer users.MakeUseOf launched in July 2006 and now has over 200,000 active subscribers and serves about 5.5 million pageviews a month. It also ranks among most popular blogs on the web according to Technorati. Over the last few years MakeUseOf has been recommended by several mainstream sites and mentioned in hugely popular publications like Telegraph and PC Magazine, including their Top 100 Websites for two consecutive years.

Here we find technology tips and tricks focused on legal topics/issues from Anita Evans, as technical trainer at Baker & McKenzie.

You can see a picture of Anita as well as the search box to type in your question. And the arrow in the middle is to alert your eyes to her humor.

As she gained experience in training legal professionals, she identified a gap between an attorney’s use of technology and their understanding of these tools to practice law. She says she has seen many great legal minds not competent or capable of using the technology tools given them. Frequently, attorneys try to work around the functionality. This distorts the natural flow of the software itself. Additionally, technology training in law firms is not mandatory because it is not billable. The preference is learning just in time, usually during a time crunch.

This insight gave rise to the idea that ALL legal professionals, especially attorneys, need instruction on the use of technology in their profession and thus was born Legal tech trainer.

Instead of wasting time visiting several tech sites to learn what the latest news is, just go here. It aggregates.

I am very interested in buying an iPad but have decided to wait until they get the bugs out. Of course when I saw this information about printing coming I found it quite helpful. I also like the fact it lets you know how long ago something is posted – see the arrow showing 20 minutes ago? I think that is very cool.

I subscribed so that this shows up on when I open google.

At this moment, the must-read stories in technology are scattered across hundreds of news sites and blogs. That's far too much for any reader to follow.Fortunately, Techmeme arranges all of these links into a single, easy-to-scan page. Story selection is accomplished via computer algorithm extended with direct human editorial input.Their goal is for Techmeme to become your tech news site of record.

Tekzilla feeds your tech hunger!

Revision3 is the leading television network for the internet generation. We create and produce all-original episodic community driven programs watched by a super-committed and passionate fan base. Our hyper-connected audience gets the vast majority of its entertainment, information and social connections through the internet.The company was founded in 2005 by technology visionaries , because they couldn't find anything they wanted to watch on traditional television, and is now led by Internet TV pioneer Jim Louderback.

They develop, nurture and discover the shows that sit at the center of these new dynamic and rabid communities. The hosts are experts not actors, with tremendous influence over their audiences. They have professionally produced HD shows wich run from under a minute to over an hour, and are watched anywhere, anytime, on any device and through any service – from handheld iPhones to notebooks and PCs, all the way up to home theaters and HDTVs. Their shows are viewed through their our own website, along with more than 40 distribution partners including TiVo, iTunes and YouTube..

Ok I am sure those of you that attended last years session are saying to yourself this lady must be obsessed with death – I showed the deathclock for iPods. Well, I thought this was another really interesting site to share with you and yes it does have something to do with death.

I read about this one in Time magazine, in the September 2009 issue. It deals with managing your online afterlife. Think about what happens to your online accounts after you die? This is all about digital legacy. Deathswitch is a Houston based company which has a different system for releasing funeral instructions, love notes and “unspeakable secrets” it suggests you store with your passwords and account information. The compamy will regularly send you e-mail prompts to verify that you're still alive, at a frequency of your choosing (could be once a day, could be once a year) After a series of unanswered prompts, it will assume you are dead and release your messages to intended recipients. One message is free, for more the company charges a fee – the last I saw it was $19.95 per year.

Schmap is a leading publisher of digital travel guides for 200 destinations throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. More than 90 million Schmap Guides have been downloaded since first release in March 2006: this phenomenally popular series can also be browsed online, with versions optimized for iPhone and Nokia usersThe innovative technology behind Schmap Guides lets end users publish schmaps (to share trip itineraries, local reviews and more), and powers a popular range of Schmap Widgets, syndicating more than 6 million maps a month - together with content and event schedules for travel, sports and concert tours - to a fast-growing network of websites and blogs.The company’s latest releases, Schmap Enable and Schmap.me, go to the heart of the current mobile internet revolution, allowing websites and end users to share mobile friendly maps with their visitors.

Giving You More Time to Do What You LoveAt ZipList, we want you to spend more time doing what you love – playing with your kids, visiting with friends – and less time managing the items on your to-do list, like meal planning and grocery shopping. So we’ve created a free tool to help you do just that, giving you more time to do what you want.

Save Time, Save MoneyIn this economy, we’re all looking for ways to maximize our grocery budget. Creating a shopping list has been widely recognized as one way to save money at the grocery store. By sticking to a list, you’ll reduce impulse purchases and keep from picking up items that already fill the pantry at home.Until now, the weekly grocery list typically has existed on a sheet of notebook paper taped to the refrigerator. ZipList makes it easy for you to manage your shopping list by storing it online, and you can share it with family members so they can add their own items, or even help you shop.And you’ll always have an up-to-date list as ZipList seamlessly syncs on the web at www.ziplist.com, as well as with standard cell phones and other smartphones. You also can add and remove items via text message, email or instant message. And if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can even download the new ZipList app for free.Sort your grocery lists by aisle or store to make shopping trips both convenient and efficient. ZipList even allows you to mark particular items as important, which is great for picking up just the critical items at the supermarket when you’re pressed for time.

Meal Planning in MinutesMore than a shopping list, ZipList offers access to an extensive recipe database of more than 300,000 recipes, including ready-to-make meals from MarthaStewart.com and Everyday Food. Not only can you search for recipes, but it’s a snap to add all of a recipe’s ingredients to your weekly grocery list with just one click.A recipe box enables you to save your favorite recipes in one place for easy access. A Recipe Clipper Recipe Clipper even allows you to clip the URL from any recipe you find on the web and save the ingredients in shopping list format, or store it in your Universal Recipe Box. So the next time your family wants lemon chicken or cheddar-stuffed burgers, the recipe is just a click away, and another click to add the ingredients to your list.

We all know that we need to do more to look after the planet and that’s why EnviroGadget focuses on gadgets that look after the environment or respect the planet in some way. A surge in consumerism seems to be fuelling a throwaway society. So let’s enjoy gadgets and gizmos that give something back or consider the environment. There’s always another gadget, but only one planet.

We are an independent publisher, specializing in historical writings. This includes works such as: classical fiction, philosophy, science, religion, folklore, mythology and sacred texts, in addition to secret and esoteric subjects, such as: occult, freemasonry, alchemy, hermetic and ancient knowledge. We have fiction and non-fiction books in both print and as e-books for download.

Our mission is to make independent Web shows sustainable. We provide services to more than 50,000 independently produced Web shows. More than 44,000 show creators use blip.tv every day to manage their online and offline presence.

Now moving on to some fun sites.

Here is the first in my section. It is the Swiss SNA Bank. For $399 a Swiss company will secure your DNA, personal information, photos and other memories in a nuclear bomb proof vault in Gstaad. Their web site says: every person is composed of two parts, the body and the life experiences…why not store it in a safe place? Whew, now that we know our baby pictures can survive a nuclear holocaust, we can rest easy!

Judge Jerry Buchmeyer’s wonderful collection of courtroom and deposition war stories lives on, even thought the good judge passed away in 2009. This is worth bookmarking and exploring. While it comes under my fun category it actually has some really good information.

Need free e-books? I think we could all use something free! This is a great site that I found when I was about to buy a kindle and then decided to wait for the ipad.

Notice the ability to search by keyword, topic or author, we like that. Also there is a category just for free ebooks as well as new releases.

Kobo is a global eBook retailer backed by Indigo Books & Music, Borders, REDgroup Retail, Cheung Kong Holdings, and other leaders in technology and retail.

Whether you’re on an iPhone or Blackberry, Mac or PC, Sony Reader or a device they don’t even know about yet, Kobo is geared toward helping book lovers enjoy eReading anytime, anyplace, on any device.

Are you looking for free books? Well look no further than PaperBackSwap.com. You can post titles you are willing to give away and earn credits when other users take them. When one of your listings is requested, you can print a mailing label from the site – just pay postage and pop it in a mailbox. Then cash your credits in for any of the more than four million books available from other members, at no charge.

Have you ever dreamed of building an online catalog of your collection? Look no further – Bookbump.com is here. You can search for books you own, and the iTunes look alike fills in author and publisher information and provides synopses, reviews and citations. The site also lets you keep track of books you have lent to friends.

You do have to join in order to use this great site.

Thank You

John DiGilio Manager, US Research; Reed Smith Gayle Lynn-Nelson Senior Librarian Relations Consultant;

LexisNexis