Infopeople's 23 Things

Thing 31: VUVOX

eileen — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:22:11 +0000

VUVOX is a neat mashup tool that allows you to mix, create and blend your personal media – video, photos and music into neat presentations. It’s free and easy. You can use Flickr photos, Picasa albums, and RSS feeds – and then you can add audio narrations and music. There is an express service or a studio option where you can construct your presentation in a storyboard style. Here’s one I created using Flickr.

Thing 30: Pandora!

eileen — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:43:56 +0000

Pandora is Internet radio, customized for you! You tell it what you like, then it builds a station for you – and you can say yea or nay to its selections, to further get it your way. It’s all free. Sign up here.
Here’s my station, as an example.

Thing 29: NetVibes

eileen — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:27:11 +0000

NetVibes is a personal start page service, like Google or Yahoo, but the emphasis is on customized media widgets. You sign up for a free account, and then you can personalize your page to send you the latest content from RSS feeds, pictures from Flickr, your Facebook page, even email from your webmail accounts!

Thing 28: Flock!

eileen — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:18:26 +0000

Hello! I haven’t added a new thing in a while, so to make up for it, today I have TWO new things. The first thing is a web browser. It’s called Flock, and it calls itself the “social web browser.” What do they mean by that? Basically Flock lets you integrate all of your Web 2.0 activities, from Flickr to YouTube to your RSS feeds in one place. if you have a blog, you can even set Flock up to post entries to your blog! It’s free, and available for PCs, Macs, or Linux. Give it a try!

This just in: the Queen of England has a YouTube channel!

eileen — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 12:12:15 +0000

This has nothing to do with libraries, but it is very Web 2.0. The Queen of England has a YouTube channel!
So you think she did some of that with a webcam and edited it herself?

Change in the 23 Things

eileen — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 11:44:44 +0000

I have changed Thing #12. It used to be Rollyo, but I think Ning has a lot more potential as a tool for libraries to use. Just a heads up to anyone nearing #12. Feel free to check out Rollyo. It’s interesting, too! Check it out!

Thing 27: Spokeo

eileen — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 13:07:43 +0000

Want to keep track of what everybody is up to on ALL of their Web 2.0 sites, from FaceBook, to MySpace, to Twitter, to LinkedIn? Try Spokeo! It’s free, and signup is easy (you’ll need a webmail account with Yahoo, AOL, or Gmail). Once you join, it imports your contacts from your online address book, and then goes out and checks on their social networking activity. Potential library uses? I’m not sure, what do you think?

Thing 26: Jott!

eileen — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 12:52:19 +0000

When I’m driving and remember something I need to do, I often call myself and leave me a message that I can pick up later. It’s a quick and dirty way to build a mini verbal to-do list for myself. Jott takes that idea one step further. Set up an acount for free, validate uour phone number, then you call a toll-free number and leave a message for yourself or any of your contacts who have Jott accounts and are in your contact list (which you build online). Your messages are converted into email and text messages that can be picked up online at the Jotts website.
Pretty cool! Now think about how this could be used in your library! Hint: you can create Jott groups.

Blogs and privacy

eileen — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 14:57:24 +0000

Greetings! Hopefully you are all deep into your exploration of Web 2.0 tools. Some of the tools (like Twitter) can make you ponder hard on what their practical uses might be, but part of the fun of exploring is asking and answering questions like that.
We had a question raised recently by a 23 Things participant that we thought we should share with all of you. The question related to the privacy of blogs: as in, are they private? Is there a way to make them private, so they are not indexed by the major search engines?
The short answer is no, there is no sure way to make a or keep a blog private. Using a tool like Blogger, you CAN change the settings so that Blogger doesn’t publish your blog to other Blogger users. But that does not block the search engines from indexing your blog’s contents. See this page for more details on making Blogger as private as possible: http://dwarfurl.com/da1b6
Blogs are by nature social networking tools. They are meant to be shared. That being said, a certain measure of discretion is always wise, be it in a blog, an email message, or a listserv posting. We in no way mean to alarm anyone with this email, we just want to make you all aware that your blog is out there on the Internet, and people can read it, so write for it keeping that fact in mind.
If you are interested in hearing more about this topic and are coming to CLA 2007, be sure to attend the Master Speaker session with Shel Israel. Shel is the co-author of Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers. More information about the book is at http://dwarfurl.com/14407.

Yikes! Don’t respond to these invites

eileen — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 07:54:48 +0000

Over the long weekend I received a couple of invites to a new social networking site. Guess what? It’s a fake, and if you join it can spam your contacts! The site is called Quechup. Don’t accept the invites! Read more here. And if I inadvertently spammed anybody, my apologies! I don’t think I did, but better safe than sorry, apology-wise.
The moral of the story: always check out the social network site’s URL to make sure it’s legit BEFORE you click on an email invite (that’s basic smart email policy, but with Web 2.0 stuff, I for one have gotten lazy).