Is social media really making a difference? This article questions whether all that energy going into Web 2.0 applications is going to provide solutions to the major problems we face as a planet. Or is it just a load of fluff, bad videos and entertainment?

Clearly it is changing lives - assuming they have the technology, individuals can take on corporations and governments. We are connected. How we talk to each other and how businesses talk to us is changing. But a lot of the content is so…frivolous. Just look at what is top of Digg and Youtube over the last 7 days.

As someone who spends a lot of time trying to make sense of it all, I’m always reassured when I listen to other experts who are also struggling to make sense of it. It’s confusing.

Always a great read, Jonathan Wolff, wittily argues that UK academics are spending too long publishing research papers that are not being read by anyone. It is the case that academics are under a lot of pressure to publish as part of the way that they are evaluated and monitored and many are not reading all they feel they should be.

One answer would seem to be better tools for retrieving the information they need rather than having to trawl through a lot of papers. Academics are also partly responsible for the volume of content through the peer review system - why do they put themselves through it?

Just recently, I’ve had a few discussions with people about e-book readers, not least because of growing awareness of Amazon’s inappropriately named ‘Kindle’! Amazon has a nice video of how great the reader is but I’m still not convinced these things are going to take off.

This article talks about the rather more attractive but also flawed Sony Reader. At least the Kindle has wireless connectivity to download books on the road and deliver your morning paper.

They are going to be popular with the (wealthy) early, early adopters but it is going to be a long, long time before electronic technology can match paper for reading novels.

There has been an interesting discussion within the ICG membership this week about the pros and cons of PowerPoint vs Word for reporting back findings.

Personally I haven’t written a Word based report for years now and use PowerPoint to create both text based and graphic based slides both for the desktop and for the presentation floor. It keeps it brief.

Whatever the format, we market researchers need to find better ways of communicating stuff. This site is a marvel in the way that it presents data to help you decide how to present data.

What a great innovation…Even though we live in an increasingly digital world we are still using more and more paper, often just for one-off purposes. Producing and recycling paper uses a lot of energy but we could save loads by re-using. Now we just need to design a printer that can handle creased paper…

Here is a really useful list of sites offering (some free, some paid for) market research.

I am delighted to report that the talented Matthew Minns has joined Kindle Research after over 10 years as a qualitative researcher specialising in communications and new media. He is a fantastic addition to the company and will be playing a key role in our continued success providing research consultancy to organisations in education and technology.

It is also a good opportunity to refresh this website and we are currently looking at options - new design to follow soon.

Kindle Research is coming up to 3 years old and needs some help. Up to now I’ve been relying on help from other independent consultants and agencies to deliver projects. But now I could really do with having a senior researcher who I can work with day-to-day to help deliver the volume of work and to help grow the business.

Brighton is a great place to work, I do some really interesting research and there’s loads of potential. I’ve placed an ad on MrWeb.

If you are interested, do not hesitate to get in touch.

A committee of MPs suggests that the 22% of undergraduate students who are dropping out of UK universities do so because of lack of support.

According to the report, Universities are getting larger, can be impersonal, and fail to provide individual tutors to support students through their degrees.

I suspect that universities aren’t delivering on their promises of support. Those students most likely to drop out - those from poorer backgrounds, with disabilities and with families - have their expectations raised, get to university and end up let down.

Consumers frequently complain about what a drag it is to remember, pack and carry around all the power chargers for their various gadgets. This offering from Ionhub has got to be a winner if it can keep up with all the different adapters.