wikis

This week's assignment was also helpful because I didn't know much about wikis other than the fact that Wikipedia is one. It's nice to be able to try it out and mess with the VHS one to make the nebulous idea that lots of people can edit and add become more concrete in my head.

That said, I'm also disappointed I can't come up with anything creative or helpful to add to our wiki. It sounds like it could really help with communication around the building or just having an idea about what is going on in other departments. Yes we have the shared Outlook calendar and shared file drives, but this goes even further. I hope it catches on.

What's with all the blue and white?

Did anyone else notice that all of these networking sites have a blue and white theme going on? Even Blogger, minus the orange logo. I would like to see some color diversity.

My thought on Myspace is that Facebook is better, unless you're looking for bands and musicians. It's nice that you can hear whole songs by artists on their Myspace pages. However, I think the VHS Myspace page is nice, and I like the blogs. I know you can write notes on Facebook, but they seem better on Myspace. Also, you can't be friends with famous dead guys on Facebook, so I guess that's another plus for Myspace.

As far as actually keeping up with friends, however, I prefer Facebook.

I didn't know about Meebo, so I learned something new today. I almost tried to chat with Katherine on her blog but I was nervous and chickened out. I can see how it would be useful in a library setting, particularly if your patrons are a younger crowd. It also reminds me of college radio stations using online chat to let listeners request songs. That doesn't relate to the VHS though.

These things are supposed to make things simpler, right?

Throughout 23 Things I'm learning that I'm not nearly as web savvy as I thought. Well, I never thought I was savvy. But I thought I knew enough about blogs. Technorati is a little overwhelming for me. Here is a question I still have- when you search for tags and blogs on Technorati, are you only receiving results from blogs that have put themselves there? As in, I might get more results with Google? Or does it catch all blogs but only the cool kids who sign up get their blog names listed and have profiles and all that jazz?

Delicious I had more success with. I personally don't keep a lot of bookmarks so I hadn't felt the need to sign up, but playing around a little today I've decided it could be useful. Especially for a research project that involves lots of web searching, because not only would it save the sites for you but after you've saved several your tags will start to highlight your findings. I guess it's also nice to see what other people have tagged. (Of course that invites another opportunity for online "stalking," too.)

One finding I want to share-- in Delicious I searched for the tag "archives" and found this one guy who has a ton of archives sites saved, and from there I found a neat syndicated collection of archives blogs. It has archives blogs from all over the world so some of the posts aren't even in English, but I thought it was a neat site.