Twitter

Armed with a bit of knowledge about what Twitter is all about, share your thoughts on this fast growing online phenomenon.

To be honest, I guess I am still a bit confused about Twitter and its uses. I read the "About Us" page of Twitter, and also checked out the various Calgary Public Library twitter sites. I tried searching for a few local companies, without much luck. I also tried searching for friends who might be on Twitter but could not find them either. It seems to be a tool that would be more useful for businesses - a chance for them to blog (or I guess the correct word is "tweet") about upcoming events and/or deals.

Since I already belong to Facebook, I can't see myself joining Twitter just to update everyone on my status/whereabouts. I did a bit of my own research on how people use these two social networking sites, and found an interesting article: http://www.twitip.com/twitter-versus-facebook/. I think the biggest benefit of Twitter is that it reaches far beyond your inner circle of friends - connecting your status and questions to the world.

For now, I am happy keeping informed of Twitter, but not necessarily signing up for an account - however, I am open to it . . . who knows what tomorrow will bring!

LibraryThing

Do you see any practical applications for LibraryThing either at home or at work? Will you start using this site?

I really enjoyed finding out about LibraryThing - it was user-friendly and is a great tool that I could see myself using both at home and work. I always see or hear about books I want to read, so it would be a useful way of keeping the titles all together in a list (rather than the millions of little pieces of paper I jot them down on!). Similarly, I like to keep track of which books I've read - for booktalking at Library tours and outreaches, but also just for my own sake. LibraryThing is great because it allows you to have access to all of the publication information (including reviews), but you can also put in your own comments about books. A great technology!

Online Productivity Tools

Do you see yourself using these tools or will you stick to more traditional methods. If you were to use one of these tools regularly, which would it be and why?

This was the first time I have tried Google's online productivity tools, and I was impressed! At work, we already have a shared online calendar (Sharepoint) that we all use to keep atop of what's happening in the branch; however, I could definitely see myself adapting to Google's calendar as well. It was very user friendly! It would be useful for planning complex social events with friends (ie: birthday parties, baby showers, etc.) to easily communicate available dates, and see what days people are available (assuming everyone put all of their appointments and events in their calendar). Students would likely find this useful as well, since I always remember it being a challenge meeting up to do group work.

I tried making a quick powerpoint presentation and must say that I liked the templates available on Google documents - maybe I've just grown tired with the ones available to me on Powerpoint. The document feature also seemed easy to use. I like the idea of not having to carry around a "saved" copy with me: even though USB drives are much tinier than discs, they are still a hassle and I am always paranoid about losing mine when I am taking my presentation on the road. That being said, I guess I am a creature of habit, and until more people start going that way, I'll probably still stick with Powerpoint and Word - simply because it is so widespread, and readily available to me at work and home. If an internet connection fails at a school or outreach, at least Microsoft's Powerpoint and Word still work...

Still, great to have tried these tools, and I will be sure to let customers know about them too.

Flickr & YouTube: Usefulness of These Sites

Personally, I find YouTube to be quite entertaining and useful - it's great for settling those nagging questions or bets at house parties! I was recently at a friend's housewarming party, and she had a few people there who were in Canada to study English. One Canadian and one young man from Chile were able to "bond" over their mutual love of soccer - they spent the evening showing each other YouTube clips of some of the most amazing soccer plays ever - despite a limited ability to communicate in the same language! Even the other day at the library, co-workers were discussing a customer who asked for the music to the opening song of the Friendly Giant. A quick search in YouTube brought up the song, plus its full name and credits! Whenever I am learning new rhymes for children's programs and I get stuck on a tune, I go to YouTube first to see if I can find it there. Often there is a children's choir performing the song, and it's just what I need to solidify the tune in my head. You could definitely waste time on YouTube if you're not careful, but I believe it's a great way for people to be creative and share videos.

As for Flickr, I wasn't as familiar with the site as I was with YouTube. As far as I know, most of my friends don't have Flickr accounts but use Facebook to share photos with each other. Still, I liked being able to search for photos by tags on Flickr, and it was great that there are so many public photos that you can browse. I enjoyed looking at photos of vacation spots I've been to, as well as searching the Basset Hound group for photos of my favourite dog breed! An advanced search option would have been nice, since most of my searches brought up thousands of photos, and it would have been nice to narrow my search to topics AND locations. I am curious, if these photos are public, if they can be used in presentations and such, as long as credit is given to the source? Otherwise, I'm not sure on how useful Flickr would be for me, unless my friends all suddenly got accounts. I enjoyed searching for photos, but I still use Facebook as my photo sharing social media site.

RSS

I enjoyed the exercise this week on RSS, or "Really Simple Syndication," because although I was familiar with the concept (and always see the RSS option button on websites), I have never subscribed to an RSS feed.

I found Bloglines simple to use. I chose a few sites recommended by them to add to my subscription: celebrity news, entertainment news, simple recipes, and book sites. Then, I tried adding websites myself: I added the Weather Network for Calgary, as well as the Unshelved library comic strip.

Personally, I see RSS as a fun distraction - not necessarily a technology I will come to use regularly, but fun to go and see what's new when I am bored or have a few minutes to surf the web (not during work time of course!). I know that I bookmark a number of my most visited sites to "Favourites" both at home and at work, and for me this option works well. I can go and check sites, as is necessary, without having dozens of new feeds to keep up with; however, I can see how subscribing to Bloglines would be useful if you don't tend to use the same computer all the time - for our customers, for example! This way, you can mark websites you frequent and not worry about remembering the URLs.

Google Universe

Like most people, I primarily use Google as a Search Engine. I have used it to find images and blogs, and directions as well, but that's about it. I was amazed at how many projects Google is involved with! Many of the ones listed in the Lab section, I didn't even understand!

This week, I had fun exploring Google Earth, Google Maps, and Google Books. The book I searched had an entry much like the ones you find on Amazon. There were publisher reviews, the option for me to write a review, as well as a book excerpt and pubication information. On Google Maps, I had fun searching the Street Views of places I've been; and, on Google Earth, it was fun to see constellations, as well as satellite images around the globe.

As cool as it all was, I am still a bit perplexed on the point of some of these features. How practical are they for your average everyday person? I debated this with a friend, who argued that it is useful to have Streetview when you are looking up directions and want a better idea of landmarks nearby (eg: you can see the address you are looking for is next to a McDonald's). Or if you are going to be stargazing, it's useful to have a map of the constellations and see their relation to one another. Or if you are thinking about buying a book, check out some of the reviews from other people. I guess, for me, a lot of these things are "extras." Fun to explore if I have the time, but not necessarily sites or features I would make use of each day. Just my thoughts!

For you, is Facebook useful or a time-waster?

I guess a bit of both. Facebook has been useful, allowing me to reconnect with friends and acquaintances - some of whom I haven't seen in years! (eg: people I went to school with, university classmates, people I met on my travels). It's neat to see what they are upto - looking at photos or sending messages (publicly via the wall or privately). My high school reunion was even organized via Facebook - which had me thinking about the digital divide. What if you didn't have a Facebook account??? I suppose the organizers felt that if you didn't have a Facebook account, you likely kept in touch with at least 1 person from school who does...

That said, Facebook can also be a time-waster. It's one thing to go on for a few minutes to see what's new, but if you are spending hours on Facebook when you could be doing housework, working out, or meeting friends in person (imagine!), then I wonder how "useful" it really is.

Just my two cents worth :)

Wikipedia

How easy or difficult was it to find articles that needed editing? Were the errors you found factual or grammar/spelling?

I did not find any grammatical errors - perhaps the subjects I was searching! I did notice a few articles were a bit awkward (perhaps the nature of having several people contributing to them).

I chose to edit an article by adding more information to it. Mark Teague, a children's author and illustrator, had his first full-length children's novel published in October 2009 (our Parent Child Book Club just read it!). It was fun editing an article in an encyclopedia. It was a bit tricky navigating the Referencing section, but I managed to figure it out.

Delicious: Advantages/ Disadvantages

What are the advantages of storing, sharing, and tagging web content this way? What are the disadvantages?

I think one of the obvious advantages of Delicious is that you can bookmark sites and then be able to access them from any computer. I believe you can also control who has access to those sites (for example, all Calgary Public Library staff have access to the CPL 2.0 blogs). This would make it easier to share information amongst friends or colleagues, rather than e-mailing good websites you come across all the time. Tagging is a way of organizing information - and there certainly is a lot on the web! An advantage of 'tagging' is that you can use current language in your tags, so it tends to be more user-friendly than some databases or catalogues out there.

As for disadvantages of social bookmarking sites such as Delicious? I suppose you could have trouble finding information if you don't think of the "correct" tag that someone may have used to sort the information - the very fact that it does not use arbitrary language can work against you as well. Browsing by subject can have its advantages, but if you do not know exactly where to look, it could be a bit time consuming. I did not see the option to enter a search term into a search box within a Delicious site, such as Best Websites. While I wouldn't worry about this on a site managed by librarians, I could see it being a bit overwhelming on other Delicious sites. For example, I searched the "game" bookmark in all of Delicious and was overwhelmed by all of the sites out there even somewhat related to the word "game."

Still, a fun exercise to explore Delicious!

Which aspect of Web 2.0 are you the most intrigued by?

I must say that I am most intrigued by the blog itself! While I read several blogs on a regular basis (most for work, although a few personal ones as well), I have never had my own blog account!

Just setting up this blog has made me reflect more on what I'm saying (and how I'm saying it) - it will be interesting to be at the "creating" end of one.