Week 7: Microblogging

Well I have been helping to manage our Libraries Twitter account, but we don't really have a designated format or person. So we linked it to our Facebook page so it will update the Twitter page anytime something is posted on the Facebook Wall
Click the link to check out Hutchinson Public Library's Twitter Page.

Our follower numbers are small, which partly has to do to with our lack of consistent posting, maybe that will improve with the experience that we are all getting and the networks that we are creating.

Upon starting this session, I have been using my own twitter account that I created for another technology training that has been taking place at my library. I also created a PLURK account and have linked it to my Twitter so that I get double the experience/exposure. :)
AJSHUTCHPL Twitter
AJSHUTCHPL Plurk

I also added twitter to this blog on the side using a widget. Hopefully by having all these devices linked/networked I am hoping to better maintain and post to them.

As for the questions posed to us this week, here are my thoughts....

1) WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT USING ONE OF THESE MICROBLOGGING TOOLS?
-- Well I am not completely sold on these tool yet, I am giving it a college try to see if I can find ways to work them into my life either work related or at home with family. My family uses more of the microblogging that is associated with wall posts on FACEBOOK. Because they are able to share a variety of things and are not as limited in characters. I could see this being a benefit in a work environment by having posts about unique and/or useful websites, or activities.

2) DID YOU FIND IT EASY TO FIND PEOPLE TO FOLLOW, ESPECIALLY AFTER A LIST OF EXAMPLES WAS GIVEN?
--It was extremely easy using the lists that were provided for Twitter. This was much easier than with the delicious account adds, entering each username took so much time.
--As for PLURK, it is still pretty foreign to me and I haven't had as much time to explore its options. Up till now I'd never heard of it, so I think its following will be slower as far as people for me to interact with. I have a few that I am following but not sure who they are :).

3) WHO ARE THREE PEOPLE OR ORGANIZATIONS YOU STARTED FOLLOWING THIS WEEK AND WHY DID YOU FOLLOW THEM? HAVE YOU FOUND THEIR POSTS HELPFUL?
-- GODORT, KANSASLIBRARIES, HBRAUM, TWITRHAG are some of the followings that I have started this week.
--GODORT & KANSASLIBRARIES were started because I was interested in how they use the technology and also I figured that I could see information updates that would be helpful.
--HBRAUM was on the lists that we were given but have had have enjoyed her tweets now that I am a follower.
--TWITRHAG was chosen from the list because the name caught my eye.

4) WHAT KINDS OF USES DO YOU SEE YOU MIGHT HAVE FOR MICROBLOGGING? HAVE YOU ALREADY FOUND SOME USES FOR IT?
--I am still not sure on its uses but one that I mentioned above was tops sites or special sites you come across. Right now our Library sends out happenings that are going on at the Library. But I think it would be interesting to see special websites to be recognized and noticed on a regular basis without having to change information on a website.
As things taper off on our Technology learning with 23thingskansas & my library's 2010 Project, I am going to attempt posting daily at least interesting sites for the day. Since I handle Government Documents on a regular basis & am on their listservs I am constantly seeing good sites, that I don't always get a chance to tell people about. So I will hopefully get an opportunity to test this idea out.

Well, time to venture into the CLOUDS (Cloud Computing WEEK 8).....see you there!

Week 6: Tagging & Social Bookmarking

A few years ago I tried Delicious but wasn't impressed with its interface, but while working on this exercise I noticed that things have changed and I am eager to try it out again. I first added some links from my browser that I use often, but aren't always easy to remember. Then I created a bundle to group some of my "Work related Training" sites, but realized that the tags I had originally created needed a little more work to be able to bundle like I was wanting. I next went through and added the first 2 lists of users to my network. I wish that the number of steps was less, since you had to search for the user, then add to network and then, ok that you really wanted to add them. I wish that there was a contact list you could just add names/usernames to, instead of the multi-step process that it requires currently.

It was very interesting looking through the other user bookmarks, there were quite a few that I seen that I have marked that will be useful for questions that we get asked, as well as ones that I personally thought would be interesting to check out.

My account can be reached by clicking here.

This was a very good lesson and am hoping to keep up my account, as well as get some others to start using it more.

Now that things have quieted down some at work, I am hoping to get caught back up on my backlog of "23 THINGS KANSAS" assignments.

Wish me luck...:)

Here is a Link Roll of my bookmarks.