Boyd Reading

Clearly the point I take away from the Boyd reading is the fact that social networks like My Space and Facebook are reflections and mirrors of society in general. The Boyd reading clearly marks out the class distinction that is involved in these two social networks, and I clearly see what she is talking about at my library, as immigrant and low income kids can be seen using My Space and the private school kids clearly gravitate towards FaceBook. However, as Boyd points out, social networks are not responsible for these class issues, they merely draw them out for the entire world to see.

NING

What I like about the Ning concept is the complete control you have over who is allowed into the social network. YOU can start your own social network, and YOU can decide who gets in. Thats appealing on some level. It is also very easy to create and ultra specific social network. The level of control seems to be the enticing aspect of a Ning.

SuperPoke!

SuperPoke is one of my favorite timewasters on Facebook. I show you how to do it right here. SuperPoke can be disturbing, stupid, and completely ridiculous, all at once. I love it!

MySpace and FaceBook

I have and currently use both of these social networking sites. I have gravitated far more to Facebook in the last year, almost to the exclusion of MySpace. Why? Well, one practical reason is that as more of my friends started exploring social networking, they seemed to naturally steer towards FaceBook. The reason for that in my experience is this: MySpace seems to be where one goes to find new friends, while FaceBook seems to be the place one goes to find and reconnect to old friends. FaceBook also, at the risk of offending some people, seems to attract a user base with a higher level of education. They can both be sticky, and there are two different reasons I think this is true: with MySpace, there can be a "meat market" feel...it often feels like people are online solely for the reason of "hooking up", and that has always been a drawback. The MySpace music section is however a very important feature, and has grown into a powerful force in the music business.

FaceBook offers the chance to relive some awkward moments from one's youth, like receiving a friend request from someone you hated 20 years ago! Or being friend's with one person from back in the day, but not another one....old resentments are more likely to rear their ugly heads on Facebook. My favorite part of FaceBook is the amazing amount of applications one can waste entire week's of time on!

Pandora via screencast

Here is my first crack at Jing..I really like how easy Jing is to use. For practical purposes, I can already see how I can use Jing to help my daughter navigate some websites when she is at her mom's house..record a quick Jing gile for her, get a url, and email it to her. She was excited by this idea! I recorded this after a week of stress and sleep deprivation from coaching her all star soccer team in a tournament this weekend and having practice every nite, so if its not the greatest demo you've ever seen, thats why!

http://www.screencast.com/t/m36jKf0M

My favorite Scils video

I love Steve Caruso's video about his iphone watch fob. It's very clever and really shows Steve's dry sense of humor. The outfit, not showing the face, it all really worked! And the fast forward digression made me laugh out loud.

My commercial

OK, this is more educational...this was my first commercial this past summer for our Prime Time Reading program, introducing families with literacy issues to library services. View it below or click here

click to play

Flickr Groups

Books and pets seem to be common themes for a lot of us in these flickr groups! Lots of outdoor pics also, and more than a few winter scenes. Implications of caffeine and sugar abuse popped up in several pictures. The differences speak to the individuality of everyone involved, some people took some really interesting point of view and perspective pictures, and others like myself took straight forward shots that I hope conveyed a good sense of my experiences. I look at these pics a few times a week, so they have definitely struck a chord!

Thats Entertainment!!

I had a gig saturday nite. God forbid I should have bring the camera with me! So all you get is me playing some harp. You can click here or just watch below!

Click to play

Educational Vs Entertainment videos

It is all in the presentation folks! Any educational video can be engaging and compelling if presented properly, and any entertainment video can bite if the producer of that video is a moron (see 75% of youtube). Kidding aside, Youtube is clearly a forum for intelligent educational videos, and there are plenty of people seeking out this kind of material. My public library is one of the few that I know of where non-fiction books (read that educational) have a higher circulation than fiction (entertainment). The thirst for knowledge and learning is there, and now that the producers of this content are using the tools that allow them to reach the masses, it should be easier to quench.

Smiles

Ok, so I'm pushing the limits of "educational video"right here......I'm educating you about me, and this little windows movie maker masterpiece explains my motivation for everything I do in my life.
It's all in there.

Twitter and the Election

Hey everybody, interesting article from msnbc about Twitter:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27455868/

VOTE. As my friend Seth Cohen used to say when he was our building rep to the college student legislature, "If you don't vote, ya can't bitch!"

Long Tail Utilization

I know I am repeating myself, but it seems to me the ILL is the best way for libraries to effectively utilize the Long Tail. Since libraries are still for the most part brick and mortar, shelf space is limited, but ILL serves to dramatically expand the reach of our collections. I think beyond this, it depends on what kinds of technologies that vendors begin using as to how further to exploit the long tail. If library DVD and audio book vendors begin providing something akin to video/audio on demand for library users, accessible through a library website with a valid library card, at a cost comparable or cheaper than libraries buying dvds direct, then we might be onto something. It seems to be that while the technology is there, the business model for providing that kind of service to libraries is not in place yet. Surely if libraries can by licenses to subscription databases, a similar service for video and audio can't be far off. A vendor such as The Teaching Company, which produces educational videos, offers audio downloads on their websites. As this practice becomes more common, they will produce less physical dvds, save the cost involved with that production, be able to record more lectures for less money, and be able to pass on those savings to libraries and make it cost effective for libraries to provide a Netflix type access to The Teaching Company catalog. Seems to me a certain future trend, how soon depends on the economics.

Little Tommy's First Pod Cast

This is a true story about Tony Randall being refused a library card.

http://www.switchpod.com/users/thscils598f08/tonyrandall2.mp3