Assignment #22

I explored Webware and found a search engine called YoName which lets you search for people in FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn and a couple of other social networking sites. I found myself and a couple of friends in MySpace and FaceBook and a college friend on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a social networking site for adult professionals. Exploring Google Labs earlier in the week, I found a tool called Google Notebook. I think it will be very useful. I downloaded the browser extension so that I can keep the Notebook open while I search Web sites and work on my blog. I do most of my kcls27things assignments and work on my blog at home so I think it is very cool to keep my notes on the Web instead of on two computers.

Are you being served?

After reading all five articles for this week’s lesson, I was not sure what I thought of them. I needed some mulling time. It seems to me that college and university librarians are the main audience for these articles and for the kinds of services they advocate. There’s value for public libraries as well but many of the Web 2.0 services do seem to be targeted at one particular demographic: college-age students. Events in Virginia earlier this week seem to bear this out. News reports repeatedly mentioned some of the ways college students are reaching out to each other during this tragedy: Facebook, blogs, IM, and Second Life. University and college libraries should be meeting their students where they are and serving their target demographic.
Public libraries serve a much wider range of patrons and some of them may be interested in Web 2.0 services and others may not. I’d love to see our library embrace Web 2.0 ideas and incorporate them into a thoughtful, well-rounded and diverse service plan that meet the needs of all our patrons.

WTF: 15 minutes of fame on Technorati

I wrote briefly about Technorati a few blog posts ago. I registered and claimed my blog and discovered that I already had a small community of KCLS bloggers who linked to my blog! (Hello! aseaberg, acrossanddown, and Truckin' Beagles!)

Technorati really amps up social networking opportunities. What struck me while searching for blog posts that mention kcls27things in Technorati is how many of us are forming communities of linked blogs. We even create community with people we've never met in "real" life.

As I also learned while tooling around in Technorati, kcls27things is a hot topic. The number of posts about 27things by KCLS bloggers reached a critical mass, inspiring the service to ask someone to write a Where's the Fire? (WTF) blurb explaining kcls27things sudden popularity. "WTFs are short blurbs that explain the buzz around people, things, or events—why the hot topics are so hot—and you can vote the best ones to the top." kcls27things made the Top 10 Searches today as you can see below.

Tagging is del.icio.us! Part 1

I enjoyed finding new tools for customizing del.icio.us that are bookmarked in the kcls27things account. I've been adding Library 2.0 bookmarks to my del.icio.us for a couple of months. I imagine this tool could be useful for building collections of good websites and sharing them system-wide.

One of the features I like best is that I can use del.icio.us to update information on my blog. I have two del.icio.us link rolls that display in the sidebar. When I add certain tags to websites, their links automatically show up on my blog. When I am tired of a link, I can delete it from del.icio.us or remove the tag so that it doesn't show up on my blog anymore. See the Help pages for more information and tools.

A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

When I signed up for a MySpace account, I was a bit dismayed because it reminded me of a depressingly dingy, low-rent shopping mall. Then I visited MySpace pages created by the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenberg County and Steele Creek Library and I became a believer. Their spaces are nothing like the drab default profile pages that MySpace provides when you first sign up. Looking at these sites, I can see the value of building a library presence in MySpace and other virtual environments. They are engaging, informative, and offer teens a safe place to learn and play.

And build you must. MySpace is a do-it-yourself project. Knowledge of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) really comes in handy. (Good thing I've been taking lessons at W3Schools at night). I suspect the boring profile defaults were designed to provoke users into changing them as quickly as possible!

I've been tinkering with my Profile on MySpace thanks to a gem of book I checked out from KCLS: MySpace Visual Quick Tips. I still have a lot of work to do but I am having fun learning!