Thing 33: Travel 2.0

I just read the article on the Travel 2.0 Social networking. I liked what the author had to say, it is true that people who are (or aren't) traveling are wanting to have real life experiences about locations not the marketing blurbs. David Grossman made the article interesting to me. I can see the use of Travel 2.0 in libraries, especially when the winter season is upon us in MN and the patrons are wanting to see travel information. It would be easy to point to these websites, and let them know that some of them are from actual people. I do experience the question of "Have I been there...." Sadly, this day and age for my family when we travel it is a huge thing that we have had to save for a long time for. (Like others I am sure are experiecing.)
Notes from the Road is a striking website, I liked how seemed to be organized by the regions. Even the Roam is funny. I enjoyed the "roam-ing" pictures. I love the links that it goes from subject to subject, year to year. Love the photos. Very well thought out. Erik Gauger explains about the website and his themes and how he does it. Blogosphere that gives a persons opinion. I think that if you have patron who likes knowing about parts of the world, oceans would really enjoy this.
I went into the review site Boo.com, I tried to look thru it and it seemed very difficult to navigate thru. I don't see it working in a library setting. I liked the Explore Travel Journal and that would a useful journal for library patrons. I can see a linkage for people who went on trips and wanted let others know about it.
As for the Travel Mashups, I liked the WIFI hot spots website. I was able to find spots in rural areas and urban areas in MN and other spots. So I think that would be a good link also for a library to post to. As more people are becoming more mobile with their own PC's (like me) it is nice to know if we go to a location that we have a place to look up to see where there is a registered WIFI hotspot. But the down part of this is there is more and more places are going to WIFI and they are not registered online. So you have to take the good with the bad.

Have a good afternoon, Shelf Elf

Thing 32 - Google Maps & Mashups

I do like the fact you can now find maps online so that you can locate a place that you need to go to. I am a huge fan of it. But I do find Google Maps is harder to work with because it likes to anticipate what you want and most of the time it is not what I want. I find that it hard to move around in. It likes to expand or decrease greatly, when I just want to go only one time/level. That is very annoying. I find it very frustrating at for me. I have found Yahoo! maps a bit easier to work with.

I do like the fact that you can make a amp of your destination or your student can make one for their reports. That is cool. But again I am having a hard being very very patient with the jumping around.

I did a Mashup of a trip through the White Mountains. THe hardest thing is attaching it to the Blog.

Thing 31 - More : Twitter

I still have an account for Twitter but do I like it? Not really. Still. I found this thing is really too much for my time to do. I can see if it is something that again you need to keep up to date on something for work then I can see the need for this. But when is it too much? Or to often? I can see how much it would be a life saver for certain things, like being in college and there is an emergency happening and you need to contact the student body (or any school).
I like knowing about the equiette helps I think that also goes for just using cell phones too. I can see the power of it with library staff if it a huge system or in soo many different locations that it takes too much time. But what is wrong with email? or instant messaging? I like the fact that you can twitter to different things like Library Thing. But still just another thing that you have to keep track of ... again. I am in the second stage at the moment. I think that it is fine as a tool but i think that too many people use it over too much. That is mpo.

Thing 30 - More ways using RSS & delcious

I find that it is more uses for this. But do I use it? not as much. I am learning to use things but to pick and choose which ones I really like. These 2 are not really useful for me to use for my life or my work. But it is nice to know about things so when or if things change which in life it does, I would be able to use them. I organized them according to personal and to work related.

Thing 29-Google Tools

I have signed up for the Google Alerts. I did it for my personal information at this time. So it should be interesting to see if I get info on things close to my heart.
Is it useful to the library? Oh, yes, I can see the use of it in a library setting. Very helpful to let people know about the industries news or latest things. Also for local info to. The only thing would be is using the correct keywords to find the information. How narrow can you go?
Have used it? Yes I am using it. Is my library, no sure if it is beingused at this time.
Suggestions? I liked the ease of setting it up and cancelling it, also the ease that you can have it sent to your phone if there is something you are needing to keep to date on.
The Google News is interesting and very informative. Like it. I see that ELM is that way also so it would be very helpful in the library.

Google History does seem useful but I dont like the fact that they keep track of it. I guess because I have grown up with the "Big Brother" thing. but alt least Google is working on making more privacy. With the www everyones business is out there for the public to see and hear it. The videos have been very helpful in explaining things to me. I do like the fact that you can pause it so that none of the info is just available. But the other thing is that you have to be logged in for to work. Otherwise it just collects just generic info. That I do like.

As for the Search Wiki it is there. You can get it anywhere else on the www. I probably would not use this option.

Also liked the Goog411 havent used it yet but seems really interesting.

Thing 28- Customized Home pages

I did the iGoogle for my homepage. It was very easy to do, (especially since I had Google before). I found it easy to load some widgets. I kept it private. I found that it hard to sort thru things at times. Also I found that it is easy to put up the themes but hard to figure out which ones I like or want.
I did some weather and some fun stuff along with news feeds. It was interesting to do.

Thing 27 Twitter

I joined Twitter and it is ok. Not too sure if I care as much. At the time I had an old cell phone (no camera) and now I have a newer version and I can do it if I wanted. But I am finding that Facebook delivers the same but not so quick. But I guess I dont need to know thing immediately (can always use a phone if needed). Do I need to know if people are going to bathroom? Or cooking? or going to bed? frankly no. If it is used as an tool for a business, then I can see it. In librarys yeah. Larger one vs smaller probably better for a larger one because the population maybe using Twitter more than a small town. It does connect things . I really dont like the microblogging. I recently heard on tv, people talking about Twitting, and somebody asked as a general question as Do I want to be a Twit?