This was probably the least intensive week so far, or at least the one that grabbed me the least. That's not to say that the applications were any less interesting, just that they weren't things I could see myself using. For instance, even if I decided to pursue a more healthy lifestyle (and God knows it wouldn't hurt me), I don't think I would use Traineo. Mostly, it's the touted use of "motivators" that puts me off. If I wanted to do something, that's one thing. Then someone might mention, "hey, have you been doing something different recently? You look great!" and it would feel like an accomplishment. But with this system, your parents, friends, or whoever are vested in your success. Frankly, if someone asked me to be their motivator, I would feel put-upon and not want to help out, whereas if we were doing it together, it would be more of a team effort. I guess I just don't like the idea of everyone else knowing what I'm doing all the time. It would make me feel even worse if I didn't do very well, knowing that other people were getting updates and watching.
Dogster and Catster, on the other hand, seem much more fun (maybe even more rewarding?). I don't have any pets at the moment, but I can definitely see how people who already treat their animals as children would relish the opportunity to create a webpage for their beloved little people. Blufr is a lot of fun, a neat timewaster and way to collect trivia. As for Chug'd and BottleTalk, I'm just not very interested. Not being a drinker myself, it's hard for me to see the appeal, but I can understand how people who make their own drinks or appreciate the artistic sensibility inherent to wine tasting would find it useful. Even people who are new to alcohol would be able to view drinks tagged by other users and try new things based on reviews and "recommended if you like" functions. I liked YouPlay, but it didn't seem that much different from PopCap, the main difference being the specific games offered.
The adventure activity was kind of a disappointment, since my favorite hobby is reading, and we've already looked at so many awesome book related widgets and applications. Instead, I took this opportunity to go back and revisit the library-related web 2.0 applications that we've already looked at, to go more in-depth. I've added books to my virtual libraries and gotten many books UnSuggested to me since then!
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Week 6 of Learn 2.0
I liked the video for this week, New Jersey obviously has a devoted library following! I have to say, though, most of the people seemed to like that the library was so quiet, something that I'm not sure we can lay claim to. Between music playing outside and in, constant programs, daily children, and no outright cellphone bans, we're probably not the quietest place to be. But just because we're not "shushing" people like the stereotypical librarians of old doesn't mean that we let the noise get out of hand. People who are alive make noise, and we understand that the normal sounds of humanity cannot be quelled. We're just not above warning and trespassing people who break the limit of acceptable noise levels. Also, rooms can be rented out for the specific purposes of quiet study, if that's what you need.
As someone who is buying a house on soon myself, I can say that PropSmart would have been a useful resource in finding a new home. Instead of dealing with classifieds (in which you often have to call a realtor and give them the number of the listing just to learn the address), driving around neighborhoods looking for good prices, or going through a realtor (and spending days driving around looking at their listings), you can just see a quick comparison of houses in the same place, price quotes, even pictures for a lot of them. All of the contact information is easy to access, and being able to see from the satellite images the size of the backyard, closeness to major highways, and width of roads in the neighborhood is a major plus. The other mashups were also very interesting, I particularly loved MotorMapUSA, which showed me that my ideal 1957 Chevy Bel-Air is for sale right here in Orlando! Now, if I could only get together $12,000... ::sigh:: In Wikimapia I added some tags for my hometown of Panama City. I like the idea of everything being tagged, so that you can not only look from above (as you already could with Google Earth), but if you're having trouble finding, say, your house, you can look at tags from around the area and be able to tell which little dot of roof is which. The site is easy to use, and it's easy to add tags, too (although I had considerable trouble using the "polygon" option, to narrow my tagged space from a big square to a more realistic outline of the location).
I had already looked at LibraryThing in a previous week, but it's still a great way to organize your library (I actually think it seems a little more polished than Shelfari, although that's also a good resource). What Should I Read Next? is cool, but you can get the same idea from suggesters on LibraryThing, Amazon, and many others, it doesn't seem worth it to have a whole site devoted just to that. I'm actually really excited about BookMooch. It's the perfect way for me to unload some of the books that I have, but am never going to read again. I mean, I would never throw books away, and donating has some intrinsic value, but giving it to someone who actually WANTS it is so much better! And to be able to get books I want from other people without having to buy them is also great. The "points" system (basically, you have to give away at least 1 book to have enough points to get 5 sent to you) is a neat way to keep people from hoarding and never giving anything back! I definitely think that I will become a part of the collective trading back and forth. I also signed up for a LibraryElf account, because although I don't really need to get any extra email reminders, I wanted to see how it works. It seems like it would be (I'm sorry to say) a little more reliable than our own email system (or, you can even have reminders RSSed or texted to you, especially good for parents and children, since you can track multiple accounts from one website). Also, the benefits of having your holds listed out (and when they expire) are immeasurable. I wonder if it would be kosher to recommend this system to patrons?
GuruLib is probably the site that I'm most excited about seeing this week. You can catalog your whole library (like in LibraryThing or Shelfari) electronically, but with the added bonus of keeping track of books you've loaned to people, keeping a virtual version of your shelf arranged as you have it, and also being able to keep track of your music, movies, games, and software. There are also other other cool aspects, like having the website automatically track prices on books on your wishlist, so you can buy them when they get to your ideal price. It seems easier to find items to add to your shelf, because there are so many ways to do it (a scanner or webcam of the UPC, the ISBN, or even just searching by title and author). Admittedly, I'm a little disappointed that it said I couldn't add anything to my shelf for about a day after I'd created an account, but I'm willing to wait for something like this. I often surprise myself by finding something on my shelf I didn't even know I had, but now I can keep track of it all from any computer! As soon as I can, I'm going to start tagging stuff.
I also visited Del.icio.us and PopURLs for the Adventure activity. Both of these were easy to view. I signed up for a del.icio.us account (my boyfriend has one and loves it). Haven't there been times when you were away from home and wanted to check a webcomic you usually read, or just visit a cool website that you have in your "favorites" folder on your own computer? Now you can keep a virtual list of these links (where other people can see them, too) and be able to do these things from anywhere. PopURLs keeps track of popular hits from del.icio.us, Digg, and Reddit, other user-generated link websites. This way, it's easy to keep ahead of the news and trends, because these articles and links have already been noted as interesting to so many other people. There's no need to search through the front page of any of the sites individually to look for cool stuff (although each page also has it's own "highlights" or "popular" sections, this way they're all put in one place so you can search them at one time). It's like having del.icio.us, Digg, and Reddit all on your Bloglines, but without having it update every single time something new gets added, just telling you about the good stuff. Come to think of it, you can add popURLs to your Bloglines, and keep track of them that way, too!
As someone who is buying a house on soon myself, I can say that PropSmart would have been a useful resource in finding a new home. Instead of dealing with classifieds (in which you often have to call a realtor and give them the number of the listing just to learn the address), driving around neighborhoods looking for good prices, or going through a realtor (and spending days driving around looking at their listings), you can just see a quick comparison of houses in the same place, price quotes, even pictures for a lot of them. All of the contact information is easy to access, and being able to see from the satellite images the size of the backyard, closeness to major highways, and width of roads in the neighborhood is a major plus. The other mashups were also very interesting, I particularly loved MotorMapUSA, which showed me that my ideal 1957 Chevy Bel-Air is for sale right here in Orlando! Now, if I could only get together $12,000... ::sigh:: In Wikimapia I added some tags for my hometown of Panama City. I like the idea of everything being tagged, so that you can not only look from above (as you already could with Google Earth), but if you're having trouble finding, say, your house, you can look at tags from around the area and be able to tell which little dot of roof is which. The site is easy to use, and it's easy to add tags, too (although I had considerable trouble using the "polygon" option, to narrow my tagged space from a big square to a more realistic outline of the location).
I had already looked at LibraryThing in a previous week, but it's still a great way to organize your library (I actually think it seems a little more polished than Shelfari, although that's also a good resource). What Should I Read Next? is cool, but you can get the same idea from suggesters on LibraryThing, Amazon, and many others, it doesn't seem worth it to have a whole site devoted just to that. I'm actually really excited about BookMooch. It's the perfect way for me to unload some of the books that I have, but am never going to read again. I mean, I would never throw books away, and donating has some intrinsic value, but giving it to someone who actually WANTS it is so much better! And to be able to get books I want from other people without having to buy them is also great. The "points" system (basically, you have to give away at least 1 book to have enough points to get 5 sent to you) is a neat way to keep people from hoarding and never giving anything back! I definitely think that I will become a part of the collective trading back and forth. I also signed up for a LibraryElf account, because although I don't really need to get any extra email reminders, I wanted to see how it works. It seems like it would be (I'm sorry to say) a little more reliable than our own email system (or, you can even have reminders RSSed or texted to you, especially good for parents and children, since you can track multiple accounts from one website). Also, the benefits of having your holds listed out (and when they expire) are immeasurable. I wonder if it would be kosher to recommend this system to patrons?
GuruLib is probably the site that I'm most excited about seeing this week. You can catalog your whole library (like in LibraryThing or Shelfari) electronically, but with the added bonus of keeping track of books you've loaned to people, keeping a virtual version of your shelf arranged as you have it, and also being able to keep track of your music, movies, games, and software. There are also other other cool aspects, like having the website automatically track prices on books on your wishlist, so you can buy them when they get to your ideal price. It seems easier to find items to add to your shelf, because there are so many ways to do it (a scanner or webcam of the UPC, the ISBN, or even just searching by title and author). Admittedly, I'm a little disappointed that it said I couldn't add anything to my shelf for about a day after I'd created an account, but I'm willing to wait for something like this. I often surprise myself by finding something on my shelf I didn't even know I had, but now I can keep track of it all from any computer! As soon as I can, I'm going to start tagging stuff.
I also visited Del.icio.us and PopURLs for the Adventure activity. Both of these were easy to view. I signed up for a del.icio.us account (my boyfriend has one and loves it). Haven't there been times when you were away from home and wanted to check a webcomic you usually read, or just visit a cool website that you have in your "favorites" folder on your own computer? Now you can keep a virtual list of these links (where other people can see them, too) and be able to do these things from anywhere. PopURLs keeps track of popular hits from del.icio.us, Digg, and Reddit, other user-generated link websites. This way, it's easy to keep ahead of the news and trends, because these articles and links have already been noted as interesting to so many other people. There's no need to search through the front page of any of the sites individually to look for cool stuff (although each page also has it's own "highlights" or "popular" sections, this way they're all put in one place so you can search them at one time). It's like having del.icio.us, Digg, and Reddit all on your Bloglines, but without having it update every single time something new gets added, just telling you about the good stuff. Come to think of it, you can add popURLs to your Bloglines, and keep track of them that way, too!
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Of Meez and Miis
As you can see from the upper left corner of my blog, I now have a Meez. She's kind of boring at the moment, I couldn't really find any realistic animations that looked good. Also, I'm surprised at how dull my Meez looks in comparison to some of my coworkers'. There are bald ones, disco dancing ones, ones who live in exotic locales, etc, and mine just looks as close to me as I could approximate, standing in (what else?) a library.
I wish that you could be more detailed with your Meez. If I could make her look closer to my actual weight range, I would. Some people were suprised I even put glasses on my little avatar, thinking that I would take this opportunity to make it my perfect version of myself. But I like these little things, skull shoes and glasses, that make it seem more like me and less like an anonymous big-eyed caricature.
I think I prefer the Nintendo Wii avatars, the Miis. Miis can be customized a lot more, with features that can be raised, lowered, made bigger or smaller, to the point where you can make a grotesque figure (like Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars) or even a mysterious blank-faced one. Miis can be made tall, short, thin, or fat. Miis also have the advantage of being used as players in various Wii games, as well as being tradeable with other users. And, unlike Meez, Miis have some degree of AI autonomy, walking freely around your Mii plaza and interacting with each other in Sims-like ways.
I think that Meez would be better if they were much more customizable. And how cool would it be if the moods were utilized in a more perceptive way? Say, if you tagged the most recent entry in your blog with "amazed," and your Meez looked amazed? It would be more like a LiveJournal emoticon, which changes dynamically with the mood tags entered on posts. I just think it would liven up the corner of my blog if she had more personality, but I don't want her jumping up and down all the time, either. I just want a little AI to give her some interesting aspects.
I wish that you could be more detailed with your Meez. If I could make her look closer to my actual weight range, I would. Some people were suprised I even put glasses on my little avatar, thinking that I would take this opportunity to make it my perfect version of myself. But I like these little things, skull shoes and glasses, that make it seem more like me and less like an anonymous big-eyed caricature.
I think I prefer the Nintendo Wii avatars, the Miis. Miis can be customized a lot more, with features that can be raised, lowered, made bigger or smaller, to the point where you can make a grotesque figure (like Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars) or even a mysterious blank-faced one. Miis can be made tall, short, thin, or fat. Miis also have the advantage of being used as players in various Wii games, as well as being tradeable with other users. And, unlike Meez, Miis have some degree of AI autonomy, walking freely around your Mii plaza and interacting with each other in Sims-like ways.
I think that Meez would be better if they were much more customizable. And how cool would it be if the moods were utilized in a more perceptive way? Say, if you tagged the most recent entry in your blog with "amazed," and your Meez looked amazed? It would be more like a LiveJournal emoticon, which changes dynamically with the mood tags entered on posts. I just think it would liven up the corner of my blog if she had more personality, but I don't want her jumping up and down all the time, either. I just want a little AI to give her some interesting aspects.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Week 4 in Learn 2.0
I REALLY liked the video for this week, it's been mentioned on many sites and even got a recommendation in the most recent Wired magazine. As far as Web 2.0 goes, I've always been interested in finding new exciting things that are happening on the internet. I've told my friends about Yahoo Pipes and Grokker, and though I'm not sure how much I would necessarily recommend either one, they are examples of the direction that the internet is going, and I think that it's a great direction to head in. This course is a good way to be introduced to developing trends and sites, while having the added advantage of a built-in group of users also experiencing the same things and being able to talk about them.
I appreciate that OCLS is staying ahead of the curve. The Teen Myspace has a lot of loyal readers, teens who are genuinely interested in the activities that the library can provide. These teens are more likely to become library volunteers and help plan future events, as well as participating. In the future, they are more likely to recommend the library to their friends, and to use it for research and pleasure reading. Of course, it also helps that we cater so well to their reading choices, offering manga and graphic novels. As they say, you've got to hook 'em young! The OCLS YouTubes are a little more adult, aimed more towards showing patrons what we do here (Music in the Library, parade presence, art, gaming, and conventions). People who can see what the values of OCLS are and the cultural standpoint of our system will be encouraged to bring their children and themselves to experience it in person. We have so much to offer here, it's great that we're trying to get the message out. So many more people would become regular patrons if they knew just how much they could do.
SEOmoz was fascinating. I checked out award winners in the Book category and was definitely not disappointed. LibraryThing is like Shelfari, but loads faster and seems like a lot more fun. I LOVED their UnSuggester! CoverPop was also very cool; interested users create collages of covers in a certain theme (vintage pulp fiction, cookbooks, cereal boxes, etc), which you can hover over to get specific details and click on to be linked to the Amazon or Flickr page, whatever works with the subject matter. The items range from being collections of candy to recent pictures of color fields posted to Flickr, and are often even grouped artistically (into color bars or similar shapes, the one with cat toys even makes the face of Felix the Cat in the center!). I also checked out Liveplasma in the Mashups category. It seems a little difficult to understand, but useful in finding new artists or movies based on ones you already like. Out of the sites that I looked at, I still liked Coverpop the best for the sheer interest factor, but Librarything for usability.
I did the Adventure activity, and I'm glad that it was edited since yesterday! Yesterday I created 2 entries in ToEat for restaurants near the Main library, then realized that I had forgotten to tag them with OCLS. Since you can't look at entries for 24 hours while they are verified and put on the site, I made 2 new entries for 2 different restaurants, but couldn't figure out how to tag them with anything other than food categories. In the end, I simply wrote that they were "popular lunch destinations for OCLS staff" in the text box and just hoped that it would count. ToEat didn't seem very useful to me. Admittedly, being able to see restaurants on different streets and break them down by food category and whatnot was interesting, but barely any of the restaurants were reviewed, and there are snarky messages in the map view about errors viewing it in Windows. Something to the effect of "this would work fine if you were using a standards-compliant browser like Linux or Firefox..." All of my computer programming friends know that no matter which platform you prefer, it's always important to cross-test and make sure it will work for everyone. As another nitpicky aside, there is an option before posting a new restaurant to "go back and make changes" to the entry you created, but when you follow the link, none of your previous information is there. It's more of a "go back and write everything all over again." But if it were more easily viewed (all those little pictures of chefs with trays overlap and make it difficult to see which is which) and more user-friendly, it would be a great website.
I appreciate that OCLS is staying ahead of the curve. The Teen Myspace has a lot of loyal readers, teens who are genuinely interested in the activities that the library can provide. These teens are more likely to become library volunteers and help plan future events, as well as participating. In the future, they are more likely to recommend the library to their friends, and to use it for research and pleasure reading. Of course, it also helps that we cater so well to their reading choices, offering manga and graphic novels. As they say, you've got to hook 'em young! The OCLS YouTubes are a little more adult, aimed more towards showing patrons what we do here (Music in the Library, parade presence, art, gaming, and conventions). People who can see what the values of OCLS are and the cultural standpoint of our system will be encouraged to bring their children and themselves to experience it in person. We have so much to offer here, it's great that we're trying to get the message out. So many more people would become regular patrons if they knew just how much they could do.
SEOmoz was fascinating. I checked out award winners in the Book category and was definitely not disappointed. LibraryThing is like Shelfari, but loads faster and seems like a lot more fun. I LOVED their UnSuggester! CoverPop was also very cool; interested users create collages of covers in a certain theme (vintage pulp fiction, cookbooks, cereal boxes, etc), which you can hover over to get specific details and click on to be linked to the Amazon or Flickr page, whatever works with the subject matter. The items range from being collections of candy to recent pictures of color fields posted to Flickr, and are often even grouped artistically (into color bars or similar shapes, the one with cat toys even makes the face of Felix the Cat in the center!). I also checked out Liveplasma in the Mashups category. It seems a little difficult to understand, but useful in finding new artists or movies based on ones you already like. Out of the sites that I looked at, I still liked Coverpop the best for the sheer interest factor, but Librarything for usability.
I did the Adventure activity, and I'm glad that it was edited since yesterday! Yesterday I created 2 entries in ToEat for restaurants near the Main library, then realized that I had forgotten to tag them with OCLS. Since you can't look at entries for 24 hours while they are verified and put on the site, I made 2 new entries for 2 different restaurants, but couldn't figure out how to tag them with anything other than food categories. In the end, I simply wrote that they were "popular lunch destinations for OCLS staff" in the text box and just hoped that it would count. ToEat didn't seem very useful to me. Admittedly, being able to see restaurants on different streets and break them down by food category and whatnot was interesting, but barely any of the restaurants were reviewed, and there are snarky messages in the map view about errors viewing it in Windows. Something to the effect of "this would work fine if you were using a standards-compliant browser like Linux or Firefox..." All of my computer programming friends know that no matter which platform you prefer, it's always important to cross-test and make sure it will work for everyone. As another nitpicky aside, there is an option before posting a new restaurant to "go back and make changes" to the entry you created, but when you follow the link, none of your previous information is there. It's more of a "go back and write everything all over again." But if it were more easily viewed (all those little pictures of chefs with trays overlap and make it difficult to see which is which) and more user-friendly, it would be a great website.
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