Web 2.0 seems provide people not only the ability to communicate across streams and media, but with little or no cost other than that involved in production and getting online. A lot of it feels like people communicating because they can; the 'Hey look at what I can do' factor.
The ability to put things like technorati tags onto an article or blog alerts others to what you consider the blog to be about; but perhaps you have missed the point of the blog entirely? Or you follow a tag to a 20 page blog where only the last paragraph has anything to do with the tag? What I am wondering about here is the aspect of moderation. At least with librarian generated subject headings, you can be certain that the item in question does have some form of relevance.
So looks like the role of a librarian in the up coming library 2.0 future will be one of a guide; of being knowledgable enough to be able to swim the many different streams of the web, evaluating the content and accuracy of information sources to help their patrons not only discover content but also create their own and collate their own information.
Monday, 3 December 2007
14. Technorati
A very good FAQ section on here, gives an extremely good explantion of blog paradigm and like concepts. Just putting in a couple of search terms netted me interesting posts and blogs to look at on the very first page; something that hasn't happened with other blog searches thus far.
I don't like the changing sidebar; at one point there was a really cool wordmap with the most popular searches and hot topics - the size of the word indicated the popularity of the term (or it might be tag). However when I went back to the page I thought it was on, the bar had changed.
I very much like the idea of the wordmap though. The Listener has (or had - it's been a while
since I picked up a copy) where they listed various current affairs topics against two axises, hot vs not and bored vs exciting (or something similar). How they got their data I'm not sure (I think they had a website one could play with - or now I think on it, the SEEK website might have been involved). It's one thing to see '500 people have used this tag', it's quite another to see how the tag compares to other tags.
I don't like the changing sidebar; at one point there was a really cool wordmap with the most popular searches and hot topics - the size of the word indicated the popularity of the term (or it might be tag). However when I went back to the page I thought it was on, the bar had changed.
I very much like the idea of the wordmap though. The Listener has (or had - it's been a while
since I picked up a copy) where they listed various current affairs topics against two axises, hot vs not and bored vs exciting (or something similar). How they got their data I'm not sure (I think they had a website one could play with - or now I think on it, the SEEK website might have been involved). It's one thing to see '500 people have used this tag', it's quite another to see how the tag compares to other tags.
Friday, 30 November 2007
13. Del.ici.us
The most useful part of this exercise to me was the Beelerspace introduction to Del.icio.us, or rather from that blog to a rather obscured link to another post by the same author about how Gmail uses tags instead of folders to organise email's (which is a ramarkably good system).
I tend not to use bookmarks on the web; generally I have too interest in going to sites other than the ones I can get to easily via google (yay google), as well as having so few subjects I would actually either go to or remember I have previously searched for to make it worth my while.
I wonder how long it will take dubious advertisers to start spoofing tags? Google's extremely effective search strategy was a response to people who abused meta tags to gain site rankings in search engines; I can see people creating bots to create accounts to add tags to their site to gain eyeball traffic (this can be seen on some big software download sites which allow comments and ratings - because the site is so big the comments arn't moderated so arn't exactly useful).
I tend not to use bookmarks on the web; generally I have too interest in going to sites other than the ones I can get to easily via google (yay google), as well as having so few subjects I would actually either go to or remember I have previously searched for to make it worth my while.
I wonder how long it will take dubious advertisers to start spoofing tags? Google's extremely effective search strategy was a response to people who abused meta tags to gain site rankings in search engines; I can see people creating bots to create accounts to add tags to their site to gain eyeball traffic (this can be seen on some big software download sites which allow comments and ratings - because the site is so big the comments arn't moderated so arn't exactly useful).
Thursday, 29 November 2007
12. Rollyo
I can see this having potential uses, especially the example one for quotes (since I have done many searches for quotes for our roster, where many of the same sites would show up each time).
It took me a little thought to work out the difference to Google, though. Usually a Google search provides accurate enough results from pages that I trust within the first page that I don't really need to have it narrowed down further.
It does seem useful if I did have a collection of sites that I searches all the time; but I don't have enough to make it worth my time setting up a rollyo for the few sites I do search. Still I might revisit this sometime.
It took me a little thought to work out the difference to Google, though. Usually a Google search provides accurate enough results from pages that I trust within the first page that I don't really need to have it narrowed down further.
It does seem useful if I did have a collection of sites that I searches all the time; but I don't have enough to make it worth my time setting up a rollyo for the few sites I do search. Still I might revisit this sometime.
11. Librarything
Very nice site; I's very impressed with the layout and the ease of use. Almost naivly simple to sign up to an account.
I like the suggestor and unsuggestor searches; I looked for a fairly popular author with lots of books (Terry Pratchett), and it actually came up with not only similar and appropriate books (which I had already read) but also a few I shall have a go at. I'm a little annoyed that they seem to focus quite heavily on results from Amazon, but I suppose if they have access to that behemouth's database of ratings, suggestions etc then they would be foolish not to use it (not that I've had much success with Amazon's suggestions before).
What would be great would be the ability to export our reading history from My Info so it can be imported into sites like this (or even a home based database, of which there are many).
My bookshelf; http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=radnom&shelf=list
I like the suggestor and unsuggestor searches; I looked for a fairly popular author with lots of books (Terry Pratchett), and it actually came up with not only similar and appropriate books (which I had already read) but also a few I shall have a go at. I'm a little annoyed that they seem to focus quite heavily on results from Amazon, but I suppose if they have access to that behemouth's database of ratings, suggestions etc then they would be foolish not to use it (not that I've had much success with Amazon's suggestions before).
What would be great would be the ability to export our reading history from My Info so it can be imported into sites like this (or even a home based database, of which there are many).
My bookshelf; http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=radnom&shelf=list
Friday, 23 November 2007
10. Bob knows where it's at
It's not always easy to work out where to get the tags or how to use them to embed the image or video that one has generated; if I didn't know things about things I'd probably give up in disgust and confusion. But when it works it can be amusing.
9th task, willy nilly subscription
Well, I have found and subscribed to the essential rss feeds; Unshelved and Tales from the Liberry.
I have been attempting to get on to the LIANZA website to see if they have any rss feed but I am being stymied by the cursed lack of bandwidth our internet connection (and fairly likely the LIANZA website as well). From searching I've found a few conference blogs from the LIANZA 2007 conference, but nothing that really looks like a useful feed from LIANZA itself (I was hoping to find an rss version of the mailing list but to little avail. Perhaps if I ever manage to get on their homepage I'll find something there).
I have been attempting to get on to the LIANZA website to see if they have any rss feed but I am being stymied by the cursed lack of bandwidth our internet connection (and fairly likely the LIANZA website as well). From searching I've found a few conference blogs from the LIANZA 2007 conference, but nothing that really looks like a useful feed from LIANZA itself (I was hoping to find an rss version of the mailing list but to little avail. Perhaps if I ever manage to get on their homepage I'll find something there).
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