New citation format: Blogs & Podcasts

A common question we receive on our help desk is, “How do I cite a blog?”  Blogs are increasingly becoming a mainstream source, and students are often finding the information they need for their papers in this relatively new type of source.

To help, we created the blog format. You can cite a full blog article, a blog comment, and even interviews and product reviews.

Blogs are information sources that you should treat with some care.  There are thousands of blogs that are written by professionals and experts, but there are thousands more that may not be. Obviously blogs are becoming a very important medium for information transfer, so to categorically deny this source as a respectable citation medium would be the wrong thing to do. Just take pains to double check the quality of what you’re citing.

And let’s be honest: this applies to all sources you use. Always confirm the quality of your materials when you do your research.

EasyBib featured on CNET Webware

Easy as ABC: Web Apps for Students

“This one is a little bit of an old school pick, but it’s an indispensable resource for every student.”

Thanks guys!

Our first widget: minibib

Our first foray into widgetry: we bring you minibib.

What’s minibib?

minibib is a quick and easy way to let your users start citing sources directly from your Web site. Selecting a source from the widget brings them back to EasyBib.

What’s the use case? Well, every now and then we get an email from a public library or a school library asking if they can add a link to EasyBib from their resources page. We’re always thrilled when we get these emails because we know librarians are our hardest audience to please, and know that if they’re linking to us it means they appreciate our work (to all the librarians out there- thanks :) ).

So we thought, hey, instead of just a little old link, can we spice it up a bit?

From that little question grew the idea of minibib. Take a look and let us know what you think.

Introducing ISBN AutoCite

Hi everyone,

As the new design settles in with our users, I wanted to make a few blog posts about some of the new features we have on EasyBib.  The first of these will cover ISBN AutoCite.

Some of the most common sources cited on EasyBib are books. On the old version of EasyBib, book information had to be entered in element by element. Now, given that the bibliographical information in books are already organized by ISBN number, it was only a matter of time until we were able to marry a database full of these numbers with our service.  To cite a book via ISBN number, you first need to go to our book form.

Once there, you just type in your 10 or 13 digit ISBN number (often found on the inside cover of the book or on the back, near the bar code).

Then, click Autocite, and your information should soon pop up.

I’ll admit: we do not have every ISBN in here (many out of print sources are not in our database)- but we’re working hard to collect more data and bring this technology beyond books - to periodicals, web sites, and more.

One last note - MyBib Pro users used to have access to a service called “InstaCite”, which allowed them to search books based on titles and authors. While the ISBN Autocite database is much larger than our old InstaCite database, we do not yet have search by title/author - we will though, very very soon.

Introducing Murphy

EasyBib, this is Murphy.

Murphy, meet EasyBib.

Let me introduce you to what is called Murphy’s law in the computer space.

Murphy’s law basically says that if something can go wrong, then it most likely will.

You have also probably heard of so called “bugs” before when your geeky computer friends (People like me! ;)) talk about programming?! Well, bugs and Murphy’s law hang out at bars at night and plot where they could cause confusion, and then they will!

What am I referring to? I am referring to our launch last Friday.

In some respects it all went pretty well, but I am sure some of you noticed that you could not log into your accounts or it gave you another weird error when you tried or some accounts had sources/lists missing when you got in.

The reason for those issues is that we did not just change the design when we relaunched EasyBib (Version 5). What we did over the past six months is actually pretty unique in the web space. We started from scratch.

Most of what we did is not directly available to all the people using EasyBib every day. For example, we did a lot of reorganization of the bibliographical data which allows us to expand our service more easily in the future.

So even though you just see the new design, all of you will benefit from the background changes in the long run. We will be able to shift from 2nd into 3rd gear with the website and accelerate on new features and all the stuff you have been asking for over the years, and all the new ideas you can come up with.

As for last Friday, my good old pal Murphy (we go back over 10 years) made sure it did not go all as smooth as planned. So of course I don’t want to shift all the blame on poor Murphy and the bugs. There’s plenty of space here for us to improve as well and let me assure you that we will!

All the issues have been resolved, I talked to many of you guys through the helpdesk and let me thank you one more time for your patience and all the best wishes you guys sent in. If you still experiencing any of said hiccups, make sure to get in touch us.

As always, thanks for using EasyBib.

Stay tuned for more - you ain’t seen nothing yet!

You don't own the business. The business owns you.

EasyBib began in 2001, when Neal and I were still in high school. We kept it through college, through working at other jobs, year after year after year. We’ve always had to split our time on it; there was always something else.

When we decided to do EasyBib full-time, there was a palpable sense that we’d finally shed the constraints of normal life and enjoy being empowered, responsible, and in charge of ourselves (sidenote: prior to EasyBib, I got an introductory taste of what freedom tasted like at drop.io. My experience there emboldened me to take the plunge here).

Our excitement was all about owning the business and doing what we wanted to do with it, being able to take it in various strategic directions and making a big impact along the way.

What we didn’t realize was that it wasn’t us who were going to own the business - the business would end up owning us.  Our schedules would be defined by our customers’ needs, not our own, and our strategic path would be defined less by our own vision than by the course the business inevitably takes.

It reminds me of that Big Lebowski quote: “sometimes you eat the bar, sometimes the bar eats you.”

Or that one joke about aliens visiting Earth, and after witnessing owners scooping up their dogs’ output, getting the wrong impression about who’s in charge. Or maybe the right one. =)

Anyway, we spent the whole day today trying to diagnose and solve an obscure issue we were having on migrating existing MyBib Pro accounts to our new platform. It’s working now, and finally getting it solved is one of those rushes that only real-time jobs can provide.

We’re not proud of the delays or the issues that people have experienced, and we hope they don’t continue to occur. If you’re one of those unlucky folks, please email us and we’ll look into it immediately.

But it just goes to show - at our old jobs, we might have just waited until Monday.  Thanks to Till for pushing into the late weekend night on this one.

We're live.

Months. Weeks. Days. Hours. Minutes. Seconds.

Sunrise.

Sunset.

Sunrise.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

We’ve poured our souls into this one.

New stuff. Lots of it. Basically: everything.

Philosophy: that’s the same.

Easy. Practical. Accurate. Fast. Reliable.

More to unearth, more to come, more more.

More.

From these guys.

Walking the bridge

The other night Darshan and I (btw, my name is Till) met some friends at Brooklyn Water Park (Dumbo). And I am not sure why, but when we were gonna split up, a few of us decided to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge - for the experience. Hehe…

Anyway, even though I currently stay in Park Slope, which would be the opposite direction, I went along. And it’s just a great experience, which I wouldn’t want to miss.

The Brooklyn Bridge is an awesome landmark. Spanning across the East River, connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan. It’s very impressive at night. So far I’ve walked the bridge twice since then - also during the day.

This is just one of the things which is so outstanding yet it doesn’t cost anything.

Just like EasyBib. :D

The more things change

Tonight I walked through Greenwich Village. The first time I did that was back in 2003, when I interned for Google and had an apartment here. The last time I came here was probably more than a year ago.

This walk in particular brought back a lot of memories: maybe it’s because it is the summer time, maybe because I feel the same sense of freedom I did back then.  That summer: full of the late night crepe runs, early morning CVS sprints in my PJs to pick up stuff like shampoo and soap, the short jaunts to midtown via the BD, the conversations with Afzal who owned the nearby newstand, the feeling of endlessness.

There are some new fixtures in the neighborhood, but most of the old is still around and bustling. I love this city.