Social Networking and Libraries

In general I support having a library presence on MySpace and Facebook, although I don't know how much we're really drawing folks in. I haven't seen more kids come to programs because we posted a bulletin about it. Most of the comments we get on our YAAB MySpace are from authors. The polls we place online are often only answered by the kids who actively participate in our YAAB anyway. In short, I'm not convinced that we're staying hip with the kids.
I think we may need to mix things up. The idea of a catalog search function on our MySpace might get kids more interested in and comfortable with our webpage. Maybe try having staff available for MySpace IM'ing a couple hours a day for homework help. Maybe getting kids who participate in book groups to write reviews to post in a blog. A poll asking what kids have been reading, or the worst book they ever read? Actively 'friending' teens in our area? I don't know.
I agree with the Other Librarian that there may need to be a shift in thinking to make these sites really useful and engaging for library purposes. And I'm not even sure any of my ideas are quite outside the box enough. It just doesn't feel like we're using this technology to the fullest. Yet.

RSS part Bee - finding stuff that's worth your time

Well, Feedster isn't loading just now, and Topix confused me. [I eventually figured out that it is not a list of blogs, but news items.]
Syndic8, although kinda ugly, returned the most interesting results. However, there was a fair amount of sifting through junk since folks can load whatever.
Google's blog search wasn't as all-encompassing as I might have expected from them, but I suppose blogs are newer than the internet and it is in beta. They still have time to dominate. Specifically, I was disappointed that the search terms were found primarily in blog entries rather than in blog titles or descriptions. I understand how that might be difficult to accomodate.
So, I still don't love blogs and RSS, and therefor ignored Technorati until I have to check it out. So, there. Can I go now?

Ridiculous amounts of Simply too much Stuff

I've had a bloglines account for awhile now, maybe over a year. And like many new internet technologies, mine fell into disuse. Even though RSS readers save time, there is still too dang much to keep up with. For example, there are 174 new posts on the BBC World News site since I last logged in. Like I need my computer to tell me I'm not keeping up with the news. I guess I feel obligated to at least read all 174 headlines, and when I realize that's a waste of time, I avoid my bloglines like someone I drunkenly confessed my Buffy obsession to. Hmm, forget I said that...

flicking toys

Well, I didn't find any mashups I could live without, but I imagine if I did more digging I would. Or if I was less focused on neats things and more focused on useful things. Neat things such as tag-related montages, photo grouping by color, spelling words with pictures, and photos labeled interesting on a given date.
In the end I uploaded another application that works with interestingness. As I understand it, Flickriver uses a tag I select (birds in this case) to create a constantly changing set of thumbnails for my blog, website, etc. Each time my blog is loaded, a new set of interesting bird photos from flickr appear in the location of my choice (between my Blog Archive and About Me). Neat.

Soup so cute you could eat it!

One of my favorite flickr activities is browsing for ridiculous photos, of which there are many. It makes me wish I had a spy camera so when I see awesome things around town(like spectacular mullets or old ladies in leather pants) I could take stealthy photographs and share them with the world. I guess the world will have to settle for pictures of me and Grandma. I also enjoy looking through vacation shots of places I hope to live or visit. It's loads more fun than a slideshow on a Chamber of Commerce or tourist board website.