• Brand Autopsy: BREAKDOWN | Colvin vs. Gladwell
  Great rundown of two hot books on the concept of deliberate practice.
  (tags: deliberatepracticebooks)
• Drilling Down - Maybe Canadians Have More Friends - NYTimes.com
  "Canadian Internet users are far more likely than Americans to use a social networking Web site, according to September figures released by the research firm comScore"
  (tags: comscoreStatsSocialNetworkingCanada)
• The Cool Factor - Never Let Them See You Sweat - NYTimes.com
  Calmness: the most important 21st century career skill you can have - and one apparently anyone can build if you commit yourself to it.
  (tags: psychologydisciplineselfimprovementobamacareers)
• MIT Mobile Web
  Super example of mobile done right. Wish every brand did this.
  (tags: Mobileeducation)
• SmartBrief on Social Media | Sign Up
  Free email newsletter on all things social media. I subscribe to a bunch of these and they're awesome.
  (tags: newsletterssocialmediaSmartbriefcuration)
• MediaPost Publications - Blogs And Mainstream Media Intersect - 11/26/2008
  Great roundup of existing stats, including this one: "95% of the top 100 US newspapers have reporter blogs."
  (tags: mediaBlogsJournalismStatsTechnorati)

• The Ultimate Blogger Writing Guide — Copyblogger
  Great set of tips here for every writer.
  (tags: Blogswritingtipsstrunkandwhite)
• What's Your News Story Idea - BusinessWeek
  "What’s Your Story Idea? gives you the chance to have a direct impact on BusinessWeek.com’s coverage"
  (tags: BusinessWeekcrowdsourcingCitizenJournalismJournalismPR)
• compfight + a flickr™ search tool
  Best Flickr search tool evah.
  (tags: FlickrSearchPhotographyDesigncreativecommons)
• Your guide to disabling SearchWiki | Googling Google | ZDNet.com
  (tags: GooglesearchwikisearchWikis)
• Tweak Your Daily Searching With These Browser Bookmarklets | MakeUseOf.com
  I heart bookmarklets.
  (tags: BookmarkletsSearch)
• Free Twitter Backgrounds - Twitter Themes
  (tags: twitterlifehacksDesign)

Zinio, a digital magazine service I became a fan of as I moved to go media green, just got a whole lot more useful with the addition of awesome search and social sharing capabilities.

The service, called Zinio Inside, opens up 50,000 back issues of popular magazines and newspapers from around the world to full text indexing. Once you find what you're looking for, many of these magazines archived articles can be previewed for free, with individual digital downloads available for purchase in many cases starting at 99 cents. Zinio is also offering free magazine subscription this month through their Read Green program.

Once you find what you're looking for, you can click a button to share a link either on a social network or with a friend via email. For example, this link takes you to the above AdAge story on Richard Edelman, our CEO, which I highlighted in the search above. In addition, they allow you to share it as a widget. (If you're viewing this in a feed reader you may need to click through.)

Great stuff and handy too. And although most news sites offer solid search capes, they don't make it easy for consumers to separate sidebar content and captions. This service does. More info is here. One more chink in the armor of tangible media. Now if they can improve their iPhone service and turn it into an application, this will get even more interesting.

• CJR: Overload! Journalism’s battle for relevance in an 
age of too much information
  (tags: JournalismTrendsattentioncrashattentionOverloadmedia)
• IBM Press room - 2008-11-25 IBM Reveals Five Innovations That Will Change Our Lives in the Next Five Years - United States
  "You will talk to the Web . . . and the Web will talk back"
  (tags: IBMpredictionsTrends)
• Where Do Online Viewers Go for Video? - eMarketer
  "Google, including YouTube, has a 55.4% share of video viewing visits to online video site properties among US Internet users"
  (tags: StatsemarketeryoutubevideoGoogle)
• Time Video: Walking While Working
  A treadmill-desk combo that lets you exercise and work simultaneously - and she burned 2000 calories in a week. Amazing.
  (tags: workplaceFitness)
• Digital 'attention crash' a curse and a blessing for PR: Rubel
  Coverage from my recent visit to Montreal.
  (tags: blegoPRattentioncrashattentionMarketingEdelmanCanada)
• 5 Blogs Winning The Numbers Game Vs. Traditional Counterparts
  Not sure I agree with his methodology, but interesting nonetheless... "Individuals, even relative unknowns can be more compelling than media brands"
  (tags: BlogsMagazinesmediablego)
• Mobile Web Replacing Wire Web: Report | mocoNews.net
  "The mobile web is replacing the wired web in Southeast Asia"
  (tags: asiaStatsbroadbandMobile)
• As holiday season closes in, e-books exploding in popularity
  (tags: ebooksAmazoniphonebookstangiblemedia)
• With Twitter, a Desperate Need for Context - GigaOM
  Om asks: "How does one make sense of the torrent of information that comes with this immediate media? "
  (tags: journalismcontextmediatwitter)
• HOW TO: Convert Your Blog Into a Podcast on iTunes for Free
  (tags: Blogspodcastingtexttospeech)
• Office Gossip Rampant and Harmful in Marketing Orgs
  "An overwhelming majority (84%) of US advertising and marketing executives say it’s common for their employees to engage in office gossip"
  (tags: AdvertisingMarketing)

I am always on the lookout for little mobile gizmos/gadgets that make my life either more productive or more enjoyable. Here are three recent purchases that I am thankful for. Any of them make great stocking stuffers for your favorite geek.

My MacBook Air constantly runs hot. Even when all I am doing is running a browser for awhile, the fan kicks in - and it's loud. Targus makes a neat fold up cooling pad called Targus HeatDefense. What I like about it is that it doesn't consume any power, it's easy to fold up and it works flawlessly. Within seconds of putting it under my Air my fan speed dropped 50%. It's under $25 on Amazon.

I have a small desk at home so rather than get a big set of speakers, I found one from Alltec Lansing that does the trick. The one catch is that it runs on batteries, but the sound is amazing. I use it to stream classical music from Pandora off my iPhone. The Alltec iM-237 is under $35 on Amazon.

Finally, I have a laptop bag addiction. I can't seem to find one I like. They're either too big or too small or they hurt some part of my body. Recently, I found one that's like porridge - just right. Brenthaven makes a pair of sling bags that are under $75. They're extremely comfortable, easy to pull on and off, distribute the weight, are thin yet roomy and also offer a lot of laptop protection. My Air fits in the smaller one, though snugly. Gearlog reviewed them recently.

Happy Holidays everyone.