WEEK TEN

TWITTER

Launched in 2008 at SXSW Interactive Festival, the TWITTER craze has increased ten fold to events, government, personal use, and yes even libraries. Basically anyone who wants to express anything about anything can be on this thing. The bonus is you can pick and choose quite easily who to follow and vise versa. It is also an interesting way to have open public dialogue. The trick is to learn post lingo to best promote, communicate, and show your savvy.  

1) know your lists - who are you? As in what is your username and how can people search for you

2) know your audience - where are you? find your city code while your at it..

3) know your prefix - that is properly use the # option and @

4) know your medium - try your best to follow twittetiquette. There are countless articles on this all over the interweb, but here are my fav's:

- Re-tweet responsibly. The RT option can be a valuable way to support and share interests but remember that these are not your tweets, you are just passing the message, so do it with respect and cognisant.

 - @messages can be overwhelming for some of your followers if done too often. If you find yourself in @ mania, try a DM.

- keep it fun! and Try not to be a twit.

Here is an article that I found amusing although not really helpful but anyways: TWIT 
  

My favourite twitterers are: #sledislandfilm, #sledisland, #calgaryweather, #jburman

WEEK NINE

Library Thing

Absolutely LOVE it! You can even search out a REAL Library in your own town, location under 'local'. What a fantastic way to connect with other readers and discuss books in a public setting. Also great to find out new reads. I really enjoy that I can even subscribe to an RSS feed of what I am reading or discussing to my blog. Fantastic!! Easy to sign up and interesting forum.

WEEK EIGHT

Online Productivity Tools

After trying both GoogleDocs and GoogleCalander, I am fairly certain I am a huge google fan. 30 boxes is interesting, but my two personal favs are Remember the Milk and Doodle. Doodle is actually the best thing I have seen for making appointments with a large group of people.

Q: 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?

A: Yes I think I would use these tools regularly for events and external event communications. I do find though, to do lists still serve me best with pen and paper or an ical.

WEEK SEVEN

YOU TUBE and FLICKR

I have added a Flickr gadget to my blog, check it out on the left hand side!! It lets me post all my fav. pics that used to be (an will remain for a brief period) at the bottom of this blog. I also have added a YouTube Feed Gadget at the bottom of the page along with a fav. you tube video. Setting up both of these accounts was simple. The YouTube account let's you change the design of the page as well, which I enjoy; As well as finding videos from other accounts, I can upload my own and share them on social media sites like Facebook, embedding them in actual post.  I have found Flikr's content very useful for images and art history during my undergrad studies. Although the image quality on Youtube is not always the greatest, it can an interesting way to share information, ideas, and independent film.

WEEK SIX

RSS FEED...

I signed up for 'Bloglines' as suggested but honestly didn't find it too exciting. It seems like an interesting place to maybe seek out other blogs, subscribe to regular feeds, or have them emailed to me. You can do the same sort of thing on iGoogle as well. What I do find exciting about RSS Feeds is the ability to post them on a blog/website or allow others to subscribe to your blog via a 'gadget'. These can be found by clicking on 'add gadget' under 'layout'. I placed this above my profile section on the left hand side. I have also subscribed to a feed I enjoy and inserted the feed on my blog through the same process, it just required the feed ulr, which is available on the site I was interested in or can be searched for using sites like 'Bloglines'. This feed can be placed anywhere on your blog using the Blogger Layout actions. So, yes I find the feed interesting and a plausible way to stay upto date on this feed, as well as sharing it with others. I have placed mine at the top of my site for this week, but will probably move it to the bottom of my posts for aesthetics next week. - jb