Twitter

After looking at Twitter and spending some time exploring what it has to offer, I could see how it might have an appeal to some individuals. It's definitely a way to access or send out lots of information very quickly - information that's usually very brief and to the point. The thing I found a bit bothersome though, was although each individual Twitter is usually quite short, there are often so many, that it takes a lot of time to go through them to find anything that might be of relevance to the reader. So, unless it's something to do with very specific information - like courses at the Calgary Public Library, which doesn't require much in the way of any other Twitter comments to filter through - I feel that's it's largely a forum for opinion and observation and not of much use otherwise.

LibraryThing

Librarything is a great social network for bookworms where individuals can swap reading lists with others. A very interesting feature it has is the 'Unsuggester', which tells which books you will hate based on the books you love. You can also search your books, sort your books, create new collections, edit book information, print a copy of your catalog, write reviews and apply tags. Each book page shows you which members a given book and what they think about it — tags, reviews and even links to conversations about the book.

There are over 1,000,000 users and 40 million books in the system! It’s a very user friendly and easy to navigate site, but the features are so vast that only frequent users would touch on a fraction of those features. It’s definitely a great way to track your reading lists and build on them in a variety of ways.

Online Productivity Tools

I've use Google Docs in the past and created and saved documents and also used their budget template. There are many other functions I look forward to trying and likely using on a regular basis.

For this assignment I created a calendar using Google Calendar, it was very straight forward and easy to set up - I was impressed with all of it's handy features. I think it's at least as good and as easy to use as the MS Office calendar - and it's free.

I definitely see these tools eventually replacing expensive software like MS Office. Not only are they extremely user friendly - especially if you're at all familiar with the same applications in Microsoft Office - but I feel that the fact they're free will draw more and more people, and maybe even better, is you never have to worry about a system crash - since they're saved online, you are never at the mercy of something going wrong with your computer.

Flickr & YouTube

After taking the tour on Flickr's website I was very impressed with all that it had to offer. If you're a photobuff and like to edit and share your photographs, it's the perfect place to save, edit, organize and share your pictures. It's very well laid out and easy to use - extremely user friendly.

YouTube is something I've played around with from time to time. I've never spent a great deal of time using it, but having looked at it a little more for this assignment, I can see the value is greater than simply for entertainment. The fascinating information really was fascinating and the Alberta Library commercials were fun and interesting to watch. There is some "informational" and "newworthiness" about YouTube, but it does seem to lean much more towards mostly being an entertainment site - I plan to become more familiar with it over time and maybe there will be some changes to my perspective.

RRS

I was successful at setting up my RSS account and setting up a number of feeds using both methods, I found the whole process quick and simple. I've noticed the RSS symbol on many web pages and often wondered about their meaning. However, I actually enjoy navigating individual pages and although I have a few favorites, I'm always exploring new ones as well. I could see it being appealing to someone who mostly sticks to the same sites, but for me that's definitely not case, so I don't see it being something that would be of any great benefit to someone like me. Maybe over time I'll change my mind.

Google Universe

I use Gmail and Google Maps regularly, but there are so many other products I'd like to try. I've been meaning to check out Google Docs and took this opportunity to take a look at it. I created and saved a document and also set up a template for our family budget. I like this application because you never have to worry about losing personal files since it's saved on the internet. Another bonus is if you use Google Docs instead of the Microsoft applications, it's free. In my initial use of Google Docs I couldn't find anything about it that I didn't like. I would definitely recommend it to my friends and colleagues. What a great option to be able to access personal documents from any computer anywhere!

Social Networking

For me, Facebook is one social networking site that I've found to be very useful. I've reconnected with family members that I haven't seen in years, and it's how I communicate with my daughter when she's away at university.

I also like the fact that it can be public, when you post to a wall, or private, similar to sending an email. It's fun to see pictures that others have posted and to post ones myself - another way of keeping up to date with people you can't see in person very often.

There are other neat features as well, such as birthday reminders and all sorts of funny little gifts you can send one another. It's not only useful, but it's actually fun!

Wikipedia

Initially it was easy to find an article that needed editing - it didn't take me more that a few seconds to find one with some spelling mistakes, so I created an account in order to keep my identity completely anonymous, and went into the “edit this page” tab – it was very easy and kind of fun. I kept searching through a variety of other sites and wasn't able to find anymore that I could see needed editing though.

The “navigation” menu made it very easy to access Wikipedia and the “search” box was obviously very useful as well. I found the “Recent Changes” option under the “interaction” menu quite interesting – I could see, at a glance, the changes that others had made in the last few minutes.

Delicious

I can see that Delicious, for CPL's "Best Websites", could be a great tracking and sharing system - it's very handy in that it can be accessed from any computer anywhere. Each time I go in and explore, I'm becoming more comfortable with it as I learn more about it and it's usefulness. The Web is the best avenue for sharing of information, and Delicious is definitely something we should be using and encouraging our customers to learn about and use as well.

Blogs

What I hope to learn from CPL 2.0... I have a limited knowledge of blogging, and through this training I'm looking forward to expanding on it and having the opportunity to share that knowledge with others.