Web 2.0 Awards

Web2.0 Awards just shows how well some sites have used all the tools available. I could not resist just picking randomly some normal favourites like shopping and travel so when I scanned the awards site and spotted the winner for the Retail group I headed for it. The name Threadless caught by eye as only a few days ago it was mentioned by my niece who was trying to con the dad to buy a t-shirt for her. Must say I thought it was a nice site with the concept of encouraging designers to submit and it does have a community like approach…very much what all this technology is about. Threadless had syndicated content powered by FeedBurner …yet another to check out. Had email , add to del.icio.us, RSS, templates for submitting designs, blogs for comments on designs or send pictures, counter technology etc

The site Wufoo under content aggregation and management could be one to check out perhaps when students need to do their assignments which include the need to conduct a survey…it does cost but there is mention of a “nice free version”. As I have no current need for this I didn’t check it out fully. Checked out a few others and found that it would be handy if maybe Australian versions were created e.g. an Australian Farecast maybe?

Penultimate session...videos and podcasts

Week 8 I guess is helping towards supporting the often quoted estimate that we retain 10% and this increases when visuals are added. So certainly the video clips would add to the value of any attempts towards providing information to our client groups. For my discovery journey I found I could easily spend hours being entertained….checking out the most popular videos today, this week, this month, all time…could get hooked! Checked out the suggested sites but some I didn’t attempt because of software download issues etc. Did not find Yahoo Videos as good …searched and tried to play a selected one… but couldn’t …could be our locked down situation but the ones listed on their first page played OK. One feature missing is the production date to the clips and I tend to use this to help decide if I should check it out etc.
Found YouTube much better in searching and searched “librarians information literacy” picked one but found it already selected…so now back to the drawing board…How about this one…perhaps we could use this in various training sessions for staff or in our selection process the interviewees could be asked their views…. With its indication of when added etc it does help with dating the clip.



Found podcast.net not that current, but may not be for all categories perhaps! The option to listen or download on Yahoo Podcasts site is more upfront which is good and it has dates but surprised to find "duration not available" lots of times and this is not conducive to selection. Some interesting ECU ones but wish they could be more “obvious” and clickable…perhaps it is I the user!!! I think podcasts do have a place and those without visuals could be handy e.g. when driving…perhaps we should look at doing one to help someone find the closest car-park to the Library and identify the Library building…

Oops has LCSH retired?

Social tagging
Without a doubt tagging lends itself to social and collaborative support – this is one tool we in the library world will have no problems in identifying with…just don’t bring LCSH into it! I really like the ability of creating threads and using terms that will help individuals draw personal like things together and hence help the tracing and finding. Note the "links" for the term in the photos from Flickr by Chele in LA nice+smooth ultramedia.
With people trying to be clever with their naming conventions it is handy to look at the tags to have an idea what the site etc is about… As I am not willing to compromise the SOE (…and get into trouble) I have not gone into getting buttons etc so I found the Del.icio.us site useful with its how to information and descriptions. In exploring I discovered this site and am tempted to draw my niece’s attention to it….now a teenager she still loves her lollies…

http://candyaddict.com/blog/top-10-grossest-candies/links/

The audios and clips have helped in developing a better understanding of these tools and I agree the Otter Group tutorial is a good one and certainly drew attention to its use for research and teaching – it did bring to mind perhaps there is a “loose” parallel between tagging and citing! Researchers/Scholars especially advocates of “open access” could find tagging second nature as within scholarly publishing they would have be accustomed to assigning keywords. Monitoring areas of interest is certainly facilitated by tagging. Does add another dimension to our information literacy efforts re formal thesauri/subject keywords and now the informal!

Technorati
Technorati tour was not loading…tried a few times…so just explored and read. Really pleased to have discovered Technorati, searching mechanism opens up possibilities for information…really polite site with messages such as “Sorry, this isn't working right now. Please try again..” Searched this project’s website and found indication of rank which I think is really a numerical listing rather than a ranking against “something”…maybe someone can clarify this!
Interesting finds with the term ecu. Tag has indication of when loaded which is handy for checking currency. Flickr & Youtube feeds into this or other way maybe as it comes up quickly with the videos etc