Posts Tagged ‘social networking’

Learning 2.0: My Things

// December 14th, 2007 // No Comments » // Libraries, Web Stuff

Week 2: Social Networking and Facebook
Week 3: Photos and Images
Week 4: RSS and Newsreaders
Week 5: Play Week
Week 6: Tagging, Folksonomies and Technorati
Week 7: Wikis
Week 8: Online Applications & Tools
Week 9: Podcasts, Video and Downloadable Audio
Week 10: Play week 2: Mashups

Yay, I’m done!

What, you’re not really my friend?

// May 26th, 2007 // 4 Comments » // Libraries, Web Stuff

I just posted this as a comment in response to a post at Information Wants to be Free. There are some really great, common sense comments.

Speaking as someone who has a smaller blog readership and a shorter speaker resume, social software has provided me with connections to colleagues that I never would have had opportunity or courage to make otherwise. I see Ning, Facebook, Twitter (tumblr, jaiku), and to some extent, flickr, as ways to connect with other librarians more frequently than at conferences. It’s tremendously important for us to connect with each other, for no other reason than we do and care about the same things. It’s vital to feel validated and that you’re going down the right path. I guess *that* is what 2.0 tools and “friendship” with other librarylanders does for me.

I like the concentric circle approach of flickr–someone can be a “contact,” “friend” or “family.” I like being able to limit photos to a certain group of people yet add someone whose images I like as a contact. I do not reciprocate contact adding on flickr if I do not like the person’s images; that’s what flickr is all about. I was a little sensitive about this at first but have grown thicker skin.

Purely communication sites are somewhat a different story. I like the detail request feature of Facebook, though I feel like a prat using it, sometimes. I have added everyone on Facebook who has added me (though I must say some people get “poked” more than others. heh.) I have found a few folks on Facebook through their blogs or other doings in libraryland, but I’m not hurt if they do not add me in return. Disappointed, maybe, but not hurt: Facebook is more personal, I suppose. OTOH, I have immensely enjoyed its silliness and am glad of the connections I’m forging there.

I was excited about Twitter at the outset, until people that I wanted to have tweet conversations with did not add me back–simply because they did not know me and already had dozens of followers, I am sure, though it made me feel rather Stuart Smalley for a while.

LinkedIn is another story; it seems to pivot around actual personal connections, which after being momentarily puzzled by this, makes sense to me. IMHO, it’s trying to remedy this whole issue; the way the site works implies that a “connection” is a “connection”–=I would never walk up to Roy Tennant in real life and say, “Hey, you came to my library ten years ago to consult on our nascent digital library! Would you give me a job?” So I can’t do that on LI, either. :) (ftr, I would never do that to anyone who is “only” a web 2.0 connection, either!)

Learning: a moving target

// May 22nd, 2007 // No Comments » // Libraries, Web Stuff

Just as my library is considering adapting “Learning 2.0,” Learning 2.1 is unveiled. Subtitled “Explore… Discover… PLAY!” Learning 2.1 incorporates the Ning.com social network building site and a wiki from pbwiki and is open to anyone. It looks to be a lot of fun!