March 20, 2007, Vol 1, Issue 10

After what seems like a long, long wait, spring is finally here. Flowers, April showers and baby animals, what’s not to love about spring?

We’re refreshed and eager to bring you some new and exciting research ideas. Ready? Set? Let’s “spring” right into some research action!

Who are we kidding? You were born ready…

Friends from all over.

We’re social. But not all of our friends live in the same neighborhood, do yours? With so many friends and so little time, how do you stay in touch?

Check out this widget, Explode which lets you bring all your friends together on any network or site. It’s a great way to share your network with others regardless of where your friends have their site.

You can also comment and view comments made by anyone across any network. And while it’s a great tool for all you bloggers out there, it also reinforces the inevitable and continuing trend of convergence of social networks. (Or at least we think so!)

Intermission.

Let’s all go to the lobby, let’s all go to the lobby….

Wendy here. I love sticky notes. I have 10 different sizes and 5 different colors. Some lined, some plain. And now, I can put sticky notes on the web.

MyStickies lets you to put little yellow squares of digital paper on web pages anywhere and everywhere. And it has an interface to browse, search, sort and edit your sticky notes from any computer that has internet access.

They must have had me in mind. I love that.

Analysis paralysis.

Analyze this! Here’s a great tool we recently found that was just too good to keep to ourselves.Statsaholic.

Statsaholic blends Alexa website traffic graphs with a “lightweight ajax-enhanced interface to satisfy hard-core traffic chart junkies.”

Now you can compare and measure website statistics for up to five domains at once, switch traffic chart types and ranges without page loads, and generate report pages that are easily bookmarked and shared. It is beyond groovy.

Stump the Researcher.

A reader asks: I’m not a visual guy. But I need to create charts and graphs to help get my point across in presentations. Like I said, this does not come easy to me. I’ve seen Ven Diagrams, Pyramids, Flow Charts. But are there others and how do I know which one to use?

Oh, reader, let us help you chart the way to becoming “Mr. Visual.”

And submit your own question – send an email!
Click here for the answer. It’ll just take a minute.

So, enjoy the nice weather, but don’t let spring cloud your mind. Remember to leave the research to us. It’ll free up more time for you to stop and smell the roses.

Until we meet again (in two weeks),