Some great finds this week. Much more on the cool sites and articles than any really big news. Also some great reports about the status of the internet. ENJOY!

• 48 Unique Ways To Use WordPress - WordPress is more than just a blogging platform and this is a nice list of ideas to give a shot using WordPress.
• Stumpedia - Human Powered Search Engine. People can thumb up or down sites for keywords.
• Picnik Now Offers Premium Features For Free - Online image editing startup Picnik has announced that users will now have full access to all of Picniks editing features for free. Very Nice!
• Student Noses Buried in Facebooks - The place for socializing and goofing off. College students still can’t get enough of Facebook.
• fav.or.it - Fav.or.it, a new RSS reader with integrated commenting and community features, has launched its public beta.
• Blockbuster year for mobile phones - More than 1 billion phones were sold globally for the first time in 2007, a 16 percent increase from 2006 sales. Just providing a quick update to my mobile phone pridictions.
• Linkspank - Old Friends. New Stuff. - New social networking site. Dime a dozen, but still, FYI you heard it hear first.
• Will Facebook Profile Tabs Lead to Better Apps? - Instead of simply announcing the news of the upcoming Facebook Profile tabs this article actually digs a little deeper to make some observations.
• Wayfinding within your Web site - Extremely well written and visual article about navigation and wayfinding on a website. This is the sort of post you have to look outside of Higher Education blogs to read. Really nice job by our newest BlogHighEd member.
• Measuring Multimedia Content in a Web 2.0 World - Free white paper on measuring multimedia on the Internet
• Rewriting the Beginner’s Guide - Part V: Keyword Research - Great article for understanding Keyword research
• US: Google: Does Search Data Indicate a Recession? - The news is buzzing this morning, starting with a report from UBS that alleges that Google’s paid clicks are down in January. Analysts from a number of firms have been speculating that this may be a sign that a slowing economy is affecting search.
• Lack Management Support or Buy-in? Embarrass Them! - Highly recommended read! The problem with Management support is not that you have not tried hard enough of that your ideas are not good enough. The problem is you have not tried to leverage your optimal weapons: Customers, Competitors & taking action to…
• Wordpress Crawl Rate Tracker Plugin - plugin for Wordpress that allows you to track crawl activity for MSN, Yahoo & Google from your dashboard.
• Search Engine Pitfalls & Remedies of Redesigning Websites - Some tips to include SEO in the redesign process of your website.
• 75 websites you can submit your blog to - The title says it all
• The Google Bomb (aka Googlebomb) is Back for George Bush as “Who is a Failure?” - What a great way to teach people some basic SEO! Show them how a Googlebomb works with a powerful example. I guess it was only a matter of time before someone did it again.
• Carnival of Education #160: Tools and thought provoking discussion for students, educators, and more - A nice collection of links to resources pertaining to education. There are links for teachers, tools, reactions and more. Nice post.
• Communiversity - Upload. Post. Explore - Communiversity is a place for REAL students to share their college experience so that others can EXPLORE and learn what post-high school is really like. I’ve played with this site some already and I’m going to have to classify it as alpha not even beta. Otherwise it’s something that everyone in Higher Education Web person needs to setup an account.
• Le Monde.fr : Réseaux sociaux : des audiences différentes selon les continents - I know it’s on a french site, but still very cool. A Look at Social Network Popularity Around the Globe
• Beware of Freeconomics - An amazing well written article exploring the prices that we might be paying for our demand for all things free. Definitely a must read.
• Yahoo! Buzz - Long awaited social bookmarking site by Yahoo finally released. Similar to Digg or Reddit. This one will be big!
• Why Yahoo! Buzz is a Brilliant Idea - An actual good article discussing Yahoo! Buzz
• Estimates Put Internet Advertising at $21 Billion in U.S., $45 Billion Globally - Two reports are out today on the size of the Internet advertising market.
• “Other Duties as Assigned” - College Web Guy gives a all too clear example of what a day is like for anyone who knows a little about Technology in Higher Education. Great post and the comments are definitely worth the read also.
• BricaBox - We’ve taken the best of blogs and social networks, added some amazing new tools and features, and created a platform for you to create your own version of your favorite social content website. Choose from our one–click selection of BricaBoxes below to g
• Google Outlines The Secret To Its Success - Apparently, there’s some level of mystery involved in Google’s success. So much so that Google’s chief economist Hal Varian put together a bunch of ideas on why Google continually succeeds.
• GrandCentral: The New Way to Use Your Phones - According to the site: GrandCentral doesn’t replace your phones; we just link them together and help them do more. How do we do that? We give people One Number…for LifeTM - a number that’s not tied to a phone or a location - but tied to you.
• Paid Links - The Steroids of SEO - Some good reasons comparing Paid Links to Steroids and explaining why.
• 5 Essential Tools for Digg Analysts - Tools to analysis Digg and see what’s going on. A great place to start when trying to understand this social bookmarking site and how it works..
• Blog Directory - Find Better Blogs at Blogged.com - A new blogging directory. Go submit your blogs and rate others. A good way to actually find the best blogs in a niche.
• How to Use LinkedIn to Create Authoritative Content - Looking for a credible source to strengthen your article, blog post or white paper? Need a quote from an expert to bolster your case? There’s an excellent source you may not have considered—LinkedIn.
• SocialBlade - Digg Front Page Data - A Tool That Disects the Front Page of Digg - Have you ever wondered how many diggs it took to get a particular story to the front page of Digg? Well this is your tool.
• Lynx Viewer - The Lynx Viewer allows webmasters to see what their pages will look like when viewed with Lynx , a text-mode web browser. It is also presumably, how search engines see your site. Great tool for optimizing your website for SEO and making sure that it’s co
• Facebook Fatigue? Visitors Level Off In the U.S. - The number of people who visit Facebook has been leveling off over the past few months in the U.S., and even dipped by about 800,000 individuals in January.
• Social Media Will Change Your Business - Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up…or catch you later
• How to Source Great Images for your Website - Nice article about using images and graphics on a site and great collection of free stock libraries. Maybe you have noticed that I’ve started to take advantage of this in my blog posts. Definitely an easy way to add some color to your posts.

Have a great weekend!