Thing 23 - YouTube

I realy enjoyed viewing some of the videos that were posted on YouTube. Some of them were really pretty good. I found YouTube to be pretty easy to use and search for videos that interest me. One of the things that I disliked about YouTube is that I found the website to be a little busy for me. There was way too much to look at the same time. I chose the video that I did because I love humor and I wanted something that related to work.

I can see the library possibly using YouTube as a way of advertising programs by including a small portion of a video from say a program. This can be a great way to advertise for future programs. It may be a way for patrons to see what we do for booktalks, storytimes, etc. It can be great for publicity too for storytime providers that we hire out for special programs and events.

Thing 22 - Flickr Fun

I did some exploring with one of Flickr's mashups called FD Toys (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/). I had a great time exploring and learning how to use some of the utilities that it has to offer. There were so many different great utilities on this site that you could almost do anything with your photos. I enjoyed making a magazine cover, and a photo collage with hockneyizer. The letter from Santa is adorable. It is so cute! I really enjoy pictures and taking photos on a personal level so it was fun to be able to play with them and be creative in different ways then I am normally able to do so. I would like to come back to this again later and explore some more.

Thing 21 - Flickr Tags

Flickr is different in several ways from the traditonal photosharing web sites because it has many features to offer. Flickr allows its users to organize their photos by using tags. The tags allow users to find photos taken about a particular topic or subject matter. The tags are great for photos that are shared with everyone. Individuals can also organize their photos into sets or groups that fall under the same heading. The sets can then be organized again into collections. The user can set up their photos in a way that they can be stored for either private or public viewing. You can control who (family and friends) is allowed to view your photos. Flickr also allows you to browse for your photos by folksonomy.

Thing 20 - Exploring Flickr

I chose option 1 for this assignment. This one took a lot longer than it really should have. I had originally chosen one that did not give me the option to download it. This current picture was very easy to add into my blog. This picture was taken by Vantes.

Flickr is a great website for sharing pictures with family and friends. It has a lot of great options for organizing and sorting through your photos. I love the option of printing them out and picking them up at Target.

I found Flickr to be very easy to use and I thought the tutorial was very informative. I didn't realize that if you had a Yahoo account that your same account information could be used for a new Flickr account.

Thing 19 - Web 2.0 Awards List

I really enjoyed checking out some of the websites on the awards list. There were several great sites that I was not familiar with. I came across a site (sorry not library related) called minti (http://www.minti.com/). I am a first time mom and so I love to check out new information about parenting, etc. This is a pretty good site for people to ask questions about their kids or just get some information from other parents. They had posted several great tips, advice, and tricks of the trade. I really enjoyed learning about what others have gone through with their children.

This site was pretty busy to look at and had a lot going on with its homepage but it is a site worth exploring. This site allows you to read and write advice, check out groups and become a member of one if you like. Its a great site for parents looking for a support group on various topics. I can't really see this application being useful in a library setting unless you have a customer looking for this type of information. For me and possibly some other parents out there it could be useful to them in a personal setting.

Thing 18 - Technorati

I enjoyed exploring around a little more with Technorati. It was kind of interesting to see what others are reading and searching for. I would like to explore some more and create an account later when I have a little more time to play.

I did do the keyword, the tag, and the blog directory searches. My results were different from each one. Let me share with you:

Search results after doing a keyword search, show all results that show an exact phase, search in all blogs (2805 results):
http://technorati.com/search/%22learning+2.0%22



Search results after doing a tag search (1,121 results):
http://technorati.com/tag/Learning+2.0


Search results after doing a blog directory search (1,009 results):
http://technorati.com/blogs/learning+2.0


I did have a little bit of trouble figuring out how to do the keyword search. I think that I have done it right. Overall though it was pretty easy to do the searches and get results.

Thing 17 - Folksonomy & Del.icio.us

I love the idea behind the bookmarking on the del.icio.us website. What a great idea!!!! It has always been a pain having to save over and over again the same website addresses in your favorites on each computer that you use. This is a much more efficient way of accessing the website URL from any computer. I can definately see this as a tool that I can use both professionally and personally in my daily life.

I did not create an account yet with del.icio.us but I will certainly do so later. I did enjoy playing around with the account already created. It seemed like it was very easy to use. I can't wait to create my account and start saving my URL's to it.

I can definately see the potential of this tool for research. Is is so much easier then having to remember where I saw an article or what the website address is. Of course on the simplier side of things, yes it is a very easy way to create bookmarks. Using the favorites feature will be a thing of the past!