Hmmm.

Tweeting.

Hmmm.

Have just spent what turned out to be too long trying to work out how this works.

It doesn't.

Seemingly, unless one already knows the name of who it is you want to look at, it is imposssible to find them. Entering a search term merely retrieves posts with those terms in them.

The HELP page says to look up the FIND PEOPLE LINK - but where is this?

I'm obviously stupid.

Read 'A-Z of social networking for libraries', select 5 and critique.

Ideally the activity will have more than one of the 4/5 C elements present - collaboration; conversation; community; content creation; crowd sourcing.

So,

D-Direction. What is the goal? Without a Mission Statement up-front it would be all too easy to get side-tracked, lost, overwhelmed.

B-Blog is not too bad, it allows information to pass both ways, with feed-back; could be utilised for 'slow' virtual reference; allowing a subject to be developed over time.

F-Facebook is obvious. Interactive, multi-platforms, and popular, an easy sell, familiar, desirable.

P-Pod-casting is more a one-way affair, unless it the public are able to upload their own - reviews for example, which could be aggregated by subject or title - What should my child of 10 read? to King Lear. Otherwise worhtwhile as it is accessable via Ipods and mobile phones, which are ubiquitous, and very used.

That's 4, counting never was a strong point.

Second Life

Hmmm. I can't quite see the point of this, but then I was never really into computer games - not since I was a child, anyway. The idea is probably brilliant for those (that never grew up) that are into gaming, but honestly, I'd prefer to get some vitamin D, read a book (analogue), or, shock, talk to a real person face to face.

Contrarily, this seems very anti-social.

Find 2 eg.s of RSS in action; post 350 words re. how the use of RSS can enhance a provider's ability to service its customers.

http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/rss/index.html

Looking at the RSS of the State Library of NSW makes it clear what these things are about - I really had no understanding of them - and at core they allow the library to help interested users keep pace with changes, be they new resources, or updates to existing systems, especially relevant as the SLNSW has been busy FINALLY digitising its card catalogues. By offering RSS a user may be made aware of newly digitised resources without periodically having to re-trawl the entire database to see if there is anything new in.

http://ses.gov.nsw.au/news/rss.xml

Though this isn't meant to be a critique, the other RSS I looked at was the State Emergency Service's, and was disappointed to find that as opposed to regular, locality specific updates - topically flood threats, but also for bushfires &c., which would enable people to be informed about their local conditions, best plans of action, local points of contact &c., the feeds seemed more like press releases. So, not for disseminating life important information, but a vehicle for spin.

What have I been learning?

Have been working through the modules, reading about micro-blogging, wikis, and the like, and looking at some of the sites which offer platforms for these techmologies, however the ability to explore/practice without having to establish a proper account - the ability to play, a tutorial for instance, seems to be absent. Probably on youtube? Further research needed.