It is finally Friday. I don’t know about you, but this week has felt very long to me. So for this Friday I have a grab bag of bits and pieces I’ve been bookmarking throughout the last couple of weeks. I hope some of them are useful for you.

This article, Web 2.0 fails to excite today’s researchers, is an interesting look at the slow adoption of Web 2.0 for research and publication efforts by academics. Overall, I found the article to be insightful and full of good resources for those who want to explore the web applications for those academics who want to explore more social and open access ways of distributing and collaborating on research.

However, I’m a little puzzled by this sentence: “After all, it only takes one or two librarians to provide a library with a veneer of embracing Web 2.0 technologies.” It seemed quite out of place and I’m not quite sure what the point was supposed to be by including this in the article. Many libraries actually are doing quite a bit with Web 2.0 technologies in their libraries and are connecting with their users in new and more meaningful ways. I’m not sure why there needed to be a swipe at librarians in an article about academics. The academics could probably learn a thing or two about using technology if they asked a librarian.

But if you actually like to collaborate online, you should check out Lifehacker’s great article on the Top 10 web collaboration tools (that aren’t Google Wave). Great set of tools, but what else would you expect from Lifehacker?

Also from Lifehacker is a list of the Top 10 underhyped webapps, 2009 edition. Trust me, you will find something new that you will be able to use via this post. I happen to love the PDF to Word application and am looking forward to playing around more with Aviary. What is your favorite web app that is underhyped?

Finally, because it is Friday, I’ll leave you with the xkcd cartoon of the day. And yes, it is definitely scary! Have a great weekend!