2.0 Twitter

Just the name Twitter sounds kinda goofy to me, and to think that a major breaking story is called a tweet. That aside, Twitter seems to be a well liked new media. It looks like a bunch of very short blogs, a place to share links, and in the library’s case, a place to advertise. Since I’m not a Twitter member, I’m not able to search it and see it in its entirety. From what I can see, it is a conglomeration of random topics, so you might have to find more specific people or sources to follow which you’d find more helpful. It’s nice that it’s in real time, but hopefully we won’t get too caught up in following tweets, rather than actually living our own real time experiences.

2.0 LibraryThing

LibraryThing looks really amazing. It draws its book data from Amazon and several hundred other libraries. Among its many features, it is another way for people who love books to connect and share what reads they’ve enjoyed, and find other title recommendations. LT is helpful in keeping record of that the titles you own, read, and want to read.

Are there practical uses for it? Yeah, if you work in a library, it would be a great resource to introduce to customers for reader’s advisory, and all the reasons just mentioned. It’s a site I think I will continue to explore.

2.0 Online Productivity Tools

I created a sentence in Google Docs, and then I sent it to myself. Yes, I was happy to figure out how to do that much. It says that it’s secure, and that you can retrieve it from any computer. This seems like a smart online tool, and it will likely prove to be very convenient for those who need to create documents but don’t want to or can’t invest in the traditional software. Although your work is saved somewhere out there in a storage facility, and easily accessible to its user’s, I still value working with Word and keeping my USB Flash Drive.

I have a day-timer/calendar which works pretty well for me. As for the Google Calendar, once again it could be very useful since you can access it anywhere and it can be private or you can make it open for others to view it as well.

Which one would I use regularly? Probably Google Docs. It might be useful if collaborating on a piece of writing, and maybe one day I’ll be without the software and storage device. Although, it’s taking forever to log into it right this moment.

2.0 Flickr & YouTube

I must say I like good photography, so Flickr is pretty cool. It’s nice that you can view pictures without having to create your own account. Of course you hope people are mindful about what they make public.
When I searched for Calgary, I found pictures taken in Calgary, and then doing the same search later, I was shown pictures of dogs, so I don’t really understand that. When I searched for groups, there might have been a group based in the city, but the pictures could have been taken elsewhere. It seems that photography has become an increasingly popular hobby, so this is a good way to connect with others with similar interests, and show off a tone of pictures you may not have known what to do with otherwise.
YouTube is all about video clips. Like TV, It can be a source of entertainment, information, or complete garbage. Basically, it’s user-friendly. It provides suggestions for what you’re looking for, and it provides other clips that might be of interest.

2.0 RSS

I have my RSS set up, I chose topics of interest, and now I can read the feeds. It’s a good idea to add feeds both ways, through the sites and using URL at the beginning to see how it happens either way. I’m enjoying Quotes of the Day, and having links to places like BBC, you can keep up with current events. Of course there’s also library related stuff and book reviews, so those will be popular among many of us. Sure it could make info gathering convenient, just gotta do it.

2.0 Google Universe

Google is info at your fingertips. It's great for finding out what the heck customers are talking about sometimes. Although Google Earth isn’t always accurate, it is helpful when looking for general directions. Google provides this handy Blog site, and the Directory looks like a helpful source for researching into various areas of interest. Under Labs, there’s a Script Converter and Transliteration which converts one language into another - very cool and potentially a really useful tool.
I would say use Google, but keep in mind that it is the internet, and there is a lot of junk and inappropriate material out there.

2.0 Facebook

When it comes to Facebook, this social networking site seems to have grabbed the attention that it has because of what is available to its users. You can connect with way more people than you could in your everyday life. Just type in a name, and if you’re lucky you’ll find the person who you haven’t spoken to since grade one. You don’t need an email address or phone number, but now you can invite him/her to be on your Friends list, and maybe stay in touch.
It is interactive because you can write emails, share comments, or send out a mass of invitations to everyone on your list for a gathering or become part of a group which may reflect your values.Personally, I decline most of the invitations to join groups, games, or to accept gifts. I find that that’s just a whole lot of clutter.

2.0 Wikipedia

For this blogging assignment I tried to find something that Wikipedia hasn't covered in depth. I looked up Canadian Sign Language, and the result was: “Did you mean: catalan sign language,” which is Spanish. When broadening the search to ‘sign languages,’ it produced a list of many sign languages used around the world, but the Canadian version was not included. It does mention Canada when looking up American Sign Language, saying that ASL is dominant in the US and English-speaking Canada. From what I have learned, CSL is very similar to ASL, but not the same.

Although Wikipedia is not always a reliable source of information, it is a very helpful tool when wanting to obtain some very basic knowledge on a topic. It could provide related ideas and/or key words which would be useful when searching in the more credible resources.

2.0 Delicious

Considering the endless number of topics that we could encounter, Delicious is a fairly organized method of displaying them. However, improvements could probably be made. At first it is a rather confusing site to start working with; there's an overwhelming number of topics/tags to choose from. When creating a bookmark, a user has to choose a more commonly used word to make it findable. Interesting stuff could get lost or go unnoticed if a word becomes less popular, but maybe that's just how I'm seeing it right now.

Newbie

Blogging certainly seems to be an effective way to communicate to a wide rage of people; it's a medium that can likely be used in many different ways for countless topics. As a newbie, I am just interested in exploring this.