Thing 19: Other Social Networks

Web Junction is one of my social communities, providing that means I get the newsletter and read it. I also get FLYP newsletter and read that. Ning although visually appealing did not particularly interest me. I did enjoy some of the different lists of sites that you provided. College 2.0 was fun . I wished that was around when I went to college. However when I was in college I was learning FORTRAN, a computer language, and the computer filled a room the size of the Dunnellon Library. We had key punch cards to run the program. The equivalent these days of that computer would fit in a laptop.
Bake Space was fun but you can still get the recipes without joining. I realize this defeats the purpose of socializing but I never have been a social butterfly. The movie site was even more fun because my husband and I collect movies. We have all sorts of genre various series and quite a number of actors. Yes, I have it sorted and categorized in a database on my computer at home and the movies are labeled and shelved in a special area of my house. This is necessary since we have 2500 + movies (some VHS, some dvd, some copies and some originals).
I liked Fuzzster, but everyone seems to think that their pet is the brightest, cutest, funniest or whatever. I don't dare put my dogs on that site. They will just put all those other animals to shame. I already subscribe to GoodReads but I tried Shelfari on Forest Fomentation's recommendation.

Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog

I enjoyed this one. It is sort of like shelving books. Yesssss I do enjoy shelving, I like putting things in order. I can see this network as a source for opinions on books when I have yet to read the book.

Thing 18: Facebook and MySpace

Facebook me!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1616301577&ref=profile#/home.php?ref=home

Yikes 3 days and I am so far behind!!!!
No! No! I did not skip 17. 17 is between 16 and 16 revisited. Anyway getting back to facebook, I found that going through the tutorial videos to be very helpful. I went through more than just the one. ( I just wish I had done it before going to Facebook) It really helps to read the full lesson before starting. I joined a couple of groups and found 1 friend from the library program and discovered a number of old high school chums just by having my high school listed. I also wrote on the wall and sent a couple of messages to melloves23things. The last time I wrote on a wall and floor I was three and a half years old, wrote Zorro all over and my mother decided I was ready for school.
I also visited MySpace. I liked some of the library sites because of how they were really geared for teens and tweens. This is so important to maintain their reading and participation in library activities and I can see how this may help to re-popularize the library. I was not impressed with some of the individual accounts, however. I am not sure if this is because of some preconceived ideas of this website or because I had difficulty navigating the site and the tour video did not want to download.
At any rate I had a bit more preference for the ease of use on Facebook. I also liked the fact that you had to get permission from an individual to list them as a friend. This allows a network of your own design. When I googled Facebook vs MySpace, I came up with 7,330,300 hits or something like that. Then when I went to one article it had had 12 comments within the last hour. Everyone enjoys voicing their opinion about this question so why should I be the exception. Not that long ago there was a news story about sexual predation and Facebook vs MySpace. Both websites were very aware of these issues and working hard to try and develop programming to root out the predators and have a safer site. Although MySpace seemed to be more accessible to the child predators, it was found that Facebook was beginning to get more. In a library we have to be aware of this especially if we are having unsupervised children and young adults utilizing these websites.
I believe that Facebook is growing because of the networking phenomena. In college in frats and sororities, these were our social networking and acquaintances that we utilized for jobs or other services. Although Facebook is fun and can be recreational, I see it more as a professional network site. Whereas MySpace is more for music and basic friendship and socializing. Of course, I could be wrong.

Thing 16: You Tube Revisited

I found this web site called SandFantasy.com. They had these videos of doing sand art set to music. It was rather incredible! Although it took awhile to download, it was worth the wait.

Thing 17: Podcasts

http://podcast.com/show/95955/Discovery-News-%28Video%29/
Well, well, well! This particular thing basically is giving voice and/or video to blogs. I searched through podcast.com and checked out podcastalley. I watched and listened to Discovery News and watched a chimpanzee invent a brush tool, I listened to CNN news but it just made me realize that the chimps are more intelligent than most humans in the news. I listened to authors on Tour and listened to various comedy routines. I started to listen to Stuff You Should Know only to find out aphrodisiacs do not exist. All I know is chocolate does wonders for me. The Education Podcast Network was interesting and it is a good way to catch up on some courses until I realized that anyone and their dog can teach. With some, their dogs have a great deal more to say. Podcast and podcast alley were the easiest and fairly speedy to download but then it was at a definite quite time on the net. I did subscribe to SirsiDynix merely because of their involvement with libraries. The only problem is they have not updated their "pod" in some time. I guess that can be a problem.
If I were to do a podcast, I would have to make the commitment to continually update and come up with something new to say. That can be very difficult because sometimes I sit and think and sometimes I just sit.

It's my Thing and I did what I wanted to Do

I always thought that if I won a great deal of money. I would love to own "Starry Night" by VanGogh. This is one of my all time favorites. Since that will never happen, I will sit back and admire copies.

Thing 16: You Tube

Well here is my video. Personally this was not particularly hard, however I'm not sure I like this one. I see children come into the library every day and get on You Tube, FaceBook, My Space, etc. There are a couple of kids that watch some of the jazz greats from old video or they watch some educational products. This is the good side of this website. Unfortunately, some un-parentally-monitored children will watch brutal martial arts fighting, WWF (fake) wrestling and a number of other inappropriate videos. Children are finding out the hard way as to what is inappropriate behavior and unfortunately these websites are poor substitutes for the necessary adult supervision. If the library has a reponsibility about the appropriate book content, do we also have a responsibility as to what is brought into the library via the web? These ethical issues remain with the community and parents of those children.
As to why I chose the underwater video, if anyone has read my blogs they would know my love of the underwater realm and since the octopus is one of my favorite creatures it stands to follow that this would be a favorite.

Thing 15.5 : Rollyo

This gives a whole new meaning to "Roll Your Own". There is a big potential for use in the library for this. This way you have a listing of those websites that are favorites and you have a new source for other suggestions. I like it!!!!