Advocate's Studio

Seems a dramatic question, especially on a blog that is so mobile-friendly. But, as often is the case, there is another point of view on the benefits of cell phones and smartphones. Sure, they make your life “easier” by keeping amazing tools and applications close at hand, wherever you might be. But that constant companionship has drawbacks. Tony Shin’s infographic lists out some of the pitfalls of unfettered cell phone use, which brings home one of my favorite mantras: everything in moderation.

Created by: OnlineMastersDegree.com

Cartoon By Martha Sperry

Studio reader Jen Rhee pointed me to this infographic after reading my article on my old blog site called the State of Wikipedia. It is quite timely, as it follows the recent news about Encyclopedia Britannica abandoning its print volumes. The infographic offers some sobering statistics on Wikipedia’s wild popularity as a research tool, still growing while interest in libraries and book research is on the decline. There is good and bad in that – perhaps the most troubling stat for me is that more than 50% of students will halt their research if there is little to be found on the subject in Wikipedia. And, as always, I am troubled by heavy and sole reliance on a resource that is edited by the masses, although Wikipedia has fought hard to keep their content on the up and up.

Check out the infographic below for some interesting data on the Great Wiki’s impact on traditional research modes.

Via: Open-Site.org

I love a good infographic. Now I, and you, can make your own with Visual.ly’s infographic tool. I wrote about Visual.ly a while back when the site was new and the tool was in development – simple, infographic creation without a graphic design background.

If you want to check out the tool and create your own masterpiece, head over to Visual.ly, click on the “create” button, connect to Twitter and pick a hashtag of interest. Visual.ly will then fill in the blanks about your choice, adding data and design elements to bring the hashtag to life in graphic form, in about a minute or so.

Visual.ly has already served as a collecting point for homegrown infographics, with a social forum for browsing and liking contributors’ material. Now Visual.ly offers built-in tools for creating your own. Share it on Facebook or Twitter or on Visual.ly, download it, email it or embed it. Nice tool for the visually-inclined.

In honor of the new iPad fervor on launch day, check out my iPad 3 infographic below:

 

infographic created with visual.ly

When you blithely trot around on the Web, do you ever stop to consider the millions of others like you ambling around in the park, so to speak? A lot happens in a day on the World Wide Web and MakeUseOf has painted a picture worth, in this case, probably about 168 million DVDs worth of words. What happens each day in our virtual reality? Check out the image below for the stats:

Created by: MBA Online

With my crazy day-job and travel schedule these past few weeks, I haven’t been able to post my usual volume of quality content. Here is a quickie until I can get some more fully featured posts up. Nice simple infographic about what sites on the Web are designed for certain business- related tasks. Enjoy.