I missed the original launch of Askville by Amazon — apparently on Dec. 8 — but find that announcements are beginning to appear around the blogosphere.   This new answer service says, “ask a question, get real answers from real people”   But, I must point out, not necessarily from experts.

How does it work?  Here’s some information from the FAQ:

Just type in your question in the big box with the blinking cursor and click on the Ask the Community button. Keep in mind you have a 120 character limit for your question title.  This will send you to the Question page.  You will have the option of submitting additional details (1,000 character limit) about your question to help the community answer your question.  Create a topic for your question or choose from the list of suggested topics [this is required].  Click on the “Ask the Community” button and you’re all ready to go. 

As a librarian leary of the potential for incomplete, incorrect, and just plain misinformation online, I worry about this type of service.  It seems inevitable, however, that some will turn to an online “community” for certain types of answers. I’ve read a number of studies showing that people tend to turn first to their friends and neighbors for information, and the Web has become a type of neighborhood for many. 

This is not the place to be sure of a correct or authoritative answer to a question — try your reference librarian.  Depending on the nature of your question, however, you may be satisfied with having the opinion of the participants.  Just remember, their level of expertise can only be guessed at.

Quintura kids   Search Engine for kids
Quintura for Kids is web-based, doesn’t expressly promise protection from inappropriate material, but it’s powered by Yahoo Kids so all search results should be G-rated. [via lifehacker]

 ProfileLinker Takes Meebo approach to social networking
Do you belong to many social networks?  ProfileLinker wants to aggregate your social networking experience.  From TechCrunch

Google Notebook adds search 
Google Notebook lets you save and organize text, images and links. A newly added search bar lets you search not only your own notebooks, but also other users’ public notebooks. This is an addition to the collaboration features Google added a while back.  Similar to Clipmarks  [via lifehacker]

CyberNotes:  the best bookmarklets for your browser
What a bookmarklet is and why we should care. [via Micro Persuasion]

 Geek to Live: The best apps of 2006
Lifehacker picks favorite apps

Newsweek Declares 2007 the Year of the Widget
Includes link to Time’s Person of the Year: You

 The Ultimate Guide to the Invisible Web
There’s information out there that is actually not indexed in the big search engines. Such Web pages are part of what’s called the Dark, Deep, Hidden or Invisible Web. From Online Education Database.

Research Beyond Google: 119 Authoritative, Invisible, and Comprehensive Resources
The invisible web comprises databases and results of specialty search engines that the popular search engines simply are not able to index. Includes links to many specialized search engines.

Bloggers Beware: Debunking Nine Copyright Myths of the Online World
The misinformation that’s flying around about copyright is encouraging people to do things that are not merely illegal, but potentially extremely costly.  From LLRX.com

A Dummies Guide to Choosing Creative Commons License For Your Own Work
Includes some real-life scenarios to help you choose a suitable Creative Commons license. From Digital Inspiration.

 Directly Linking to Copyrighted Files On the Web Is Now Illegal - Weird but True
Two recent court rulings, one in the US and other one in Australia, could have some impact on the nature of internet and the way we link to content stored on other web-servers.  See the U.S. ruling.  Digital Inspiration.

 Top 100 Libraries 
The HAPLR ratings

Books of the year 2006 — Fighting to be tops
History, politics, science, business, biography, memoir or fiction—there is something for everyone in this round-up of the year’s best books from the Economist.com.

NY Times Best Sellers

Best Books for Young Adults 2006
from YALSA

Fit to Print: The top censored news stories of 2005-2006
10 important news stories ignored by corporate media, topped by “net neutrality.”

Best Jobs in America
CNN Money.com, includes link to how Money picked them.

E. coli Scare Tops List as Number One Food Story of 2006

Top 10 health stories for 2006
from Harvard Health Letter

Best Hospitals 2006
from U.S. News Best Health reports

The BusinessWeek 50
from Business Week online, top performers 
  
Top 10 Scams of 2006
from ConsumerAffairs.com

Top Lifehacker posts for 2006
As usual, some great stuff here.

Google’s Top Searched in 2006
Social Networking, Web 2.0 and Software Piracy were in the top Google searches

Top 25 Stories from Google Earth Blog for 2006

Microsoft and AOL Release Top Searches of 2006

The Top 100 most influential figures in American history
from The Atlantic online

 Cambridge Information Group buys ProQuest division 
Iincludes ProQuest, Chadwyck-Healey, UMI, Micromedia ProQuest, Serials Solutions, SIRS, eLibrary, and CultureGrams.

Ingram acquires Coutts Information Services and MyiLibrary affiliate
Rounds out their service to academic and professional libraries throughout North America.

Serials Solutions Central Search offers access to LexisNexis
Joint customers of Serials Solutions, a business unit of ProQuest Information and Learning, and LexisNexis U.S., a leading provider of information and services solutions, will now be able to search the LexisNexis® Academic service through Central Search, Serials Solutions’ federated search engine, via an XML gateway.

 2007 Predictions for the web and software
Top 5 picks for hot markets in 2007 from Don Dodge

2007 Web Predictions
Wide-ranging predictions from Read/WriteWeb

Mark Anderson’s Ten Tech Predictions For 2007

Microsoft Prognostications: What’s Up in 2007? 

Gartner’s 10 Key Predictions for 2007
Including that prediction about blogging reaching its peak which has been a topic of discussion recently. 

 Google offers to digitize journal back runs!
Find several posts on varied opinions.

 Top 10 New Google Earth Features of 2006
Highlights some of the best features introduced to Google Earth this year