Week Seven: Microblogging

Look at me getting this done on time. I didn't do so good last week :(

This week's assignment: Twitter
I just have to say that I was never going to do twitter. I'm a big weirdo and when things become really popular and people can't quit talking about something, by the time it occurs to me to join I am so tired of hearing about it, that it is the last thing I want to do. Case in point, Twitter :) So, here we are week 7 and that is my task at hand. I'm doing it for the library and for the library only. When I get hooked and can't pry my fingers away from the keyboard, you know who to blame.

My twitter name is elizabethiepoo (it said be original lol).

So far, I'm not sure what I think about twitter. It's purpose is fairly similar to facebook, though it is nice to not have to deal with games, quizzes, etc. clogging up my news feed. I do like that is strictly what the person wants to share, but I kind of like not being restricted to just 140 characters. It's basically like texting via the internet.

It wasn't easy to find people to follow...twitter is "stressed right now and that option has been disabled" so there is no search option right now. Luckily 23 things posted links to several twitter accounts and from there I can follow that person as well as others in the class that are followers of them. Ha ha we've outsmarted you twitter ;)

I have to say that I do feel pretty cool since I am now following Justin Timberlake, Ben Folds and the Dixie Chicks....I'm now part of their close inner circle and we're going to start hanging out right?? Yeah, I'm definitely much cooler now. I'm also following several of my favorite magazines, fashion sites and foodie faves and discovered Random House, LibraryJournal and Penguin Publishing on twitter. I've discerned that just because I follow someone they don't necessarily have to follow me, which keeps me from posting on their page or speaking to them. Rude...I mean I'm kind of a big deal. lol. I kind of feel like....have you ever gone to someone else's family dinner and get caught in their family discussion. You just sit their awkwardly, privy to more information than they'd probably like or normally share. You can't say anything because they don't want your input and it's none of your business. Twitter seems to be a bit like that. I kind of feel like a spy with no interaction. Which I think is AWESOME by the way. ;) If we could all just share more than 140 characters.....hehe

I haven't really found any posts that helpful, but some have been interesting to read which has helped me get through this long week...so I guess it was helpful.

At first I was a little skeptical on how twitter could benefit our library. I read the article "100 ways to use twitter at your library" that was linked on the 23thingsks page. I found some interesting suggestions there. I think it could be helpful. I'm not sure how many of our patrons have twitter though. With facebook, there is a very large amount of our patrons that are on there. Maybe with twitter's increasing popularity we will see the numbers go up. I liked the idea of using it for question and answer discussions. We might try it out over the next couple of months and see if we have any luck, otherwise we might just stick with facebook.

My biggest pro for twitter: No ads, quizzes, games, applications, etc to clog up my news feed making it easier for me to keep up with what's going on with those I'm following.

My biggest con: Near constant need to tweet. From what I gather, the point of twitter is to post what you are doing many times throughout the day, which can take a lot of time especially if you are following a lot of people. I don't think I'll be very good at keeping it up-to-date.

We shall see...I'll post again when I have more time to play with all of these gadgets ;)

Week Six: Tagging and Social Bookmarking

Ok, I know I'm a little late (last week was a busy week). I decided to try delicious first and I think I'm finally getting the hang of it. This could be a very useful tool, though I think I would use it more in my personal life rather than for work. I've already tagged several sites that I frequent and have found several I'd never heard of. I think I know what I'm doing this weekend....hehe :D

My username is http://delicious.com/beths23things

I also joined stumbleupon, even though my boss warned me of it's addictiveness. So far, I haven't found anything to impressive, but it's only day 1. I'll keep you all (I'm pretending that people are reading this ok. LOL) updated

Week Five: RSS and Feed Readers

Ok, I know I say this every week it seems, but this week's lesson was excellent and I am loving it! I have seen those little RSS Feed icons everywhere, but never really investigated what all you can do with them. I have added them to my "favorites" in my web browser, but had no clue that there were Feed Reader websites that I could use to have all that information just come to me, without me having to click each link seperately or without just going to each of my favorite sites everyday and seeing what's new. WHAT A TIME SAVER!!! Did I already say that I am loving this.

I decided to go with Google Reader. My plan for all these lessons is to hopefully always choose the tool associated with google because I like the home screen when you log-in and all of it right there in front of you, without me having to type in various sites. Google has my calendar, picassa photo sharing, blogger and now this. Very cool. I added several sites RSS feeds to my google reader. Both for professional as well as personal use. I will list the sites I am following below. I am also following several 23 Things KS class members blogs using google reader now.

RSS Feeds I am currently following:

9 blogs (23 Things Participants)
VideoETA (New DVD-for movie days) http://feeds.feedburner.com/videoeta-news
Weather.com
Ken Rockwell(photography site) http://www.kenrockwell.com/rss-daily.php
People.com http://feeds.people.com/people/headlines
Dictionary.com http://feeds.reference.com/DictionarycomWordOfTheDay
SLK News http://statelibrary.mykansaslibrary.org/?feed=rss2

I'm sure there will be more added to this list by the time I'm done exploring. :)

I also tried "Activity #3" and added a "feedmyinbox" widget to my blog. You should be able to enter in your e-mail address and receive e-mail updates about my blog. I liked feedmyinbox, but I think I will stick with googlereader.

Great week 23 Things Kansas!

Week 4: Photo Sharing

I had fun this week with photo sharing. I used our digital camera and took a few pics around the library. Here is the address (can't get the link feature to work) to my "virtual library tour" album on flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/47240380@N03/sets/72157623360291324/ Click on "sets" then "Burlington Library Tour" and then you can view as a "slideshow." For some reason that is the only way they will play in the order I organized them. Hmmmmmmm...perhaps I need to work on this a little more

I really enjoy anything photography related, so this was an enjoyable lesson for me. I'm not too familiar with all of the photosharing sites out there. I use kodak here at work and at home. I've used snapfish on occasion, but it's not that impressive in my opinion. Definitely cheap if you order prints from there, but I'm not sure if the quality would be that great. I sent some pics to my boss using their website and she said the resolution was not good. She suggested I use winkflash, which I think I will take a look at this evening.

I'm not sure if I will continue to use flickr for the library or not. I didn't find it as user friendly as picassa or even kodak. I like that kodak has a feature where I can upload directly to facebook which is handy for us at the library. We can upload our pics, edit/touch up and send them straight to facebook without having to open up multiple browsers.

I looked at a few of the photo editing sites. I'm now hooked (and I mean HOOOKED) on picnik.com I can no longer upload a picture without whitening my teeth (and everyone else's in the pic-you're most welcome) before uploading to my facebook page. I love this website! Photoshop.com was fine, but for me paled in comparison to picnik. I have yet to check out animoto and infranview, but for now I am pretty content with picnik.

All in all, a pretty fun week! I will continue to use picassa and picnik for sure. I still need to play around with flickr a little more. What did everyone else think?

Update: May 12th
I now have a premium account with picnik since I loved it so much. It is so much more user friendly than photoshop. Great site