Thing #19: Other Social Networks

WEBJUNCTION

I took a look at WebJunction.  I was familiar with the name, so I'm sure I've seen their course offerings before.  It looks like a broad range of interesting topics, reasonably priced.

NING

Then I went to Ning.  I didn't join, I just searched the list of groups.

I typed in harps and found a few small harp networks that looked promising.  (Nothing in my area, alas!)

The search term perfume revealed that a lot of folks from outside the U.S. are interested in perfumery.  This makes sense, since most of the finest perfumery ingredients originate overseas. 

Then I typed in bengal cats.  Lots of cat groups popped up--and the very first one was Bengal Cats Place.  Their tagline is "Show us your bengals.  We'll show you ours."

It's a group that exchanges photos of their bengal cats!  I'll have to check this out further.  I sat mesmerized by the slideshow for several minutes.  I saw a cat that look just like Fudge Swirl!

Cooooooool.

THE LEMMINGS GATHER

Onward to Gather.  I have to say, my first impression was not impressive.

Gather bills itself as "the leading social networking and media site for adults, with some of the highest quality user-generated content on the internet."  How modest.

Apparently Gather is the place where all the NPR listeners hang out.

So I click on the link and wind up at Gather.  I click on the "People" tab so that I can catch a glimpse of these intellectual giants in whose company I've been subtly nudged to feel awed.

Guess who's the first person I see?

Princess Spanky Pants.  She wants me to "ping" her.

Wow.  Great crowd.  This is a party I really want to be at.

CAUTIONARY TALE

I call my son over to to the computer screen to instruct him on the dangers of attending parties, frequenting bars, and joining social networks.

Princess Spanky Pants and her creepy ilk are legion.  My son's eyes widen as my message of parental toughlove sinks in: go to these places and this is who you are going to meet.

He gallops screaming from the room.

ONCE MORE INTO THE BREACH

Okay.  So now my mood is really crashed.  I can't believe I'm being made to do this for work.

I return to Gather on the off-chance that my experience there so far has been an unfortunate anomaly.  No such luck.

I click on the Groups tab, revealing that Gather has groups on money, pets, food, friends, love, life, republicans [sic], freebies, children, games, and I'm not yet seeing the difference between Gather and any other social network.

It's mass inanity as far as the eye can see.

NOT GETTING THE SPIN

Gather's homepage proclaims "Real people, real lives, and real conversation make Gather special" and "Keep up with the people, conversations, and moments that matter" and "Avoid the noise of other sites."

I confess I do not see this.  The subject matter and participants all look terribly mundane, ho-hum, and unexceptional.  A lot of slick ads for SAM-e and Neutrogena.

What am I missing here?  Could it be that the emperor actually has no clothes?

WHAT OWNING CATS TEACHES US

I'm tempted to dig deeper, thinking Gather can't possibly be what it appears to be: an average, run-of-the-mill social networking site that wants to appeal to average, run-of-the-mill people who would simply prefer to think of themselves as somehow out of the ordinary.

Tempted--but then I think of what always happens when I'm cleaning out the cats' litter box and decide to dig deeper because I have this vague feeling that I haven't found it all.

The horror is, I'm usually right.  There's almost always more to it than I originally thought.

I'M OUT OF HERE

I've had enough of Gather.  Every hair on my hide is standing on end.

I return to the NEFLIN's 23 Things blog determined to proceed with my phaser set to stun.

I feel like I'm trapped in one of those original Star Trek episodes where a gelatinous blob that smells like honey could ooze from behind an alien rock formation at any moment and suck the electrolytes from an unsuspecting crewmember with its hideous tentacles.

The name of this Star Trek episode is "Thing #19."

Social networks are for extroverts with time on their hands.  I swear to the god of unicorns, I have never been that lonely, desperate, and / or bored.

THE HORROR BUILDS

Now I'm supposed to read some articles.  Grumpily, I proceed.

Reading the three-year-old Publisher's Weekly article on Gather depresses me even further.  So gather isn't a spontaneous creation at all, the serendipitous brainchild of lonely extroverts.

It's a cynical construct of National Public Radio and the U.S. publishing industry, in bed together and looking for "traction."  I'm gagging.

I actually listen to NPR fairly regularly, work in a library, read books and have on occasion been known to write them.  Call me naive, but I never until this moment quite realized I was actually part of an evil Borg conspiracy to manipulate the hearts and minds of innocent literati.

Thanks for shattering my illusions, Thing #19.  Now I've got little round sucker-marks all over my body and feel like I could drink about a case of Pedialyte.

GOING TO MY HAPPY PLACE

The article entitled Building a Social Networking Environment at the Library seemed right on target.  I agree.  Providing library patrons with multiple social networking opportunities is the way to reach out to patrons who have drifted away, gather new patrons into the fold, and retain our loyal core.

I checked out Pierce County Library's site and found it fully featured, with lots of great content--if a bit rectangular and compartmentalized.  Perhaps our eBranch manager could tactfully refer them to Big Media, the outfit that just redesigned ACLD's website?  We're curvier.

See?  I drank my Pedialyte and I calmed down.

WHAT NEXT?

Wait--now I have to join a social network?  It's the next assignment???  Augh!  Make it stop!!  Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!

Mind spinning.  World reeling. . . .  Blacking . . . out. . . .

AFTER I DECLINED TRANSPORTATION TO THE HOSPITAL FOR OBSERVATION

I joined GoodReads.  Nobody in my Department or on my Facebook friends list belongs, so I haven't added any friends yet, but will keep trying.

I did add to my bookshelf three books I highly recommend: all three volumes in Ursula K. LeGuin's Annals of the Western Shore series.  Their titles are Gifts, Voices, and Powers.

I joined several groups: Fantasy Book Group, Folklore & Fairytales, SciFi and Fantasy Book Club, I Love Young Adult Books, Children's Books, and Kid / Teen Literature to Film.

I asked for the group discussions to come to me in a weekly digest.  This is similar to the way in which I used to subscribe to a harp discussion group through the now-defunct, text-only Alachua Freenet.

I am calm.  I am breathing into a paper bag.  It will be okay.

Thing #18: Facebook and MySpace

COMMON CRAFT

Kudos once more to Lee and Sachi Lefever for a succinct and informative Common Craft Show presentation on social networking.

The more of these I see, the more I want to start communicating with others using stick figures on little scraps of paper and dry erase markers.

I very much appreciate the care and planning that has gone into these deceptively simple-seeming, ostensibly low-tech productions.

Communicating effectively is, in my book, the height of praiseworthy high tech.

EXPERT VILLAGE

The Expert Village tutorial on how to register for FaceBook was nicely done, clear, and short.  I also watched the Expert Village walkthrough of the FaceBook guided tour, which was the next video in the series.

Unfortunately, I didn't see how to proceed to the next video in the series, which was mentioned at the end of the guided tour video.  The video I wanted to watch next was on building a FaceBook profile--but I couldn't find it.

I found this lack of continuity frustrating.  Did I miss something?

These videos were obviously intended to be viewed in a logical sequence, but I couldn't locate a listing of all the videos.  Nor could I figure out how to proceed from one video to whichever one followed it.  Alas!

FACEBOOK REGISTRATION & PROFILE

Disappointed but undaunted, I just went ahead and registered for Facebook, using my work email on the advice of the first Expert Village video.  

Filling out my profile wasn't much fun, since I truly don't want people I don't know to be able to learn much about me without my knowledge.  I can't imagine who would--and yet, clearly, many people don't mind.  I sure do.

I'm downright averse to getting that friendly that quickly with people I don't even know.  It's one of the reasons I don't frequent bars.

Not interested in shallow.  Not interested in short-term.  Quality in relationships is important to me.

FACEBOOK WALL

Okay, enough tortured self-disclosure.  Moving right along, I go in quest of finding out what a Facebook wall is.

Since I couldn't locate the Expert Village video on Facebook walls, I went to Ask.com and typed in "What is a Facebook wall?"

The explanation I came across on Webopedia was the clearest.  It stated that in Facebook, the wall is a section of your profile where others can write (graffiti-like?) messages to you or leave you gifts in the form of small, icon-like images.

Okay.  Interesting.  I returned to Facebook and clicked on the Wall tab, then added a couple of messages with links to two of my favorite websites: Adventure Beach Bengals and Thormahlen Harps.

I didn't really have any photos or video that seemed suitable to share.  Hm.  I'll have to ponder that.  Maybe I should create some, like when I took photos of the cats. . . .

NEXT TASKS

Next tasks: joining groups and adding friends.  I'll try to work on this tomorrow.  Right now, it's 9:30 p.m., and I need to brush my teeth so I can read a chapter of Fire and Ice (book 2 in the Warriors saga by Erin Hunter) to Garrulous Unicorn.

This talkative colt is on spring break at the moment and will--as soon as I chase him there--be in bed productively regenerating lost brain cells.  An activity I intend to emulate.  I'll add more to this blogpost tomorrow.

MULTIPLE DETOURS

I sat down at the computer twice today hoping that I had perhaps 45 minutes to an hour to work on 23 Things.  Unfortunately, I spent most of both sessions helping others with their 23 Things questions.

No complaints.  These folks have generously helped me when I was stuck, so returning the favor is only just.  It seems people are having trouble with wikis and podcasts today.

One person I was able to help.  The other I made arrangements to work with tomorrow because neither of us could figure out over the phone what's going on with his podcast.  It was working earlier today.  I listened to it around noon and then posted a comment on his blog.

I don't know what happened between then and now.  We'll work on it tomorrow when we're both in the same room looking at the same computer.

ADDING FRIENDS & JOINING GROUPS

All I was able to accomplish this evening was asking several people if I could add them to my list of Facebook friends and joining two groups: the ALA Members Group and the Library 2.0 Interest Group.

Both procedures were simple and straightforward, but I'm afraid I was so distracted I wasn't able to absorb much.  I'll have to come back to this tomorrow and try to finish up.

FACEBOOK, DAY 3

Okay, I'm back after a night of rest and regeneration.  I successfully uploaded a picture to my profile.  Overnight, four generous people have consented to befriend me.

One of them recounted a story I had completely forgotten, about how I had saved him from raging rapids in 1986 using only my two floor harps and a length of rope.

He must have been about 12 years old at the time.

While reading his vivid narrative, it all came flooding back to me.  (I used to tote those floor harps everywhere, especially while hiking in the woods.)

Well, it's a small world.  I'd always thought this fellow looked familiar somehow, but had chalked it up (absurdly) to the passing resemblance he bears to a historic American president.

Of course I confirmed all the details.

ALERTING NEFLIN

The instructions for this Thing say to "Be sure to let [NEFLIN] know when you join [Facebook] so we can 'friend' you."  I wasn't exactly sure how to do this.

I wasn't clear if logging it on the blog would sufficient, or if I'm supposed to use another method.

So, I searched Facebook for NEFLIN and saw Stephanie Race's Facebook account.  But she recently left NEFLIN for a job with the State Library and Archives of Florida, so I didn't think I should trouble her.

I also saw "Brad Neflin," but haven't seen Brad's name attached to any of the NEFLIN's 23 Things blogposts, so I held off approaching him.

There were several Jennifer O'Neills, so I thought I'd better try something else.  (There's probably some obvious method I'm overlooking here--but I'm new to Facebook.  I'm sure I'll learn more the more I use it.)

My next strategy was leaving a message via the Meebo widget located on the NEFLIN's 23 Things blog.  I was able to type a short message and edit my name, but I didn't see a control to allow me to "send" the message.  I'm not sure if it has reached NEFLIN or not.

Finally, I opted for email.  I'll check my email and Facebook account over the next week and see if I get a response.  Keeping my fingers crossed.

WHAT NEXT?

Well, I think I've exhausted Facebook for now.  I'm not quite sure how the groups work--perhaps by joining groups, I open up a wider circle of possible friends?  That's kind of a scary thought.

I think Facebook would be much more appealing to me if I were a lot more bored than I actually am (which is not very) and had a whole lot more unscripted time on my hands.

To call me fully engaged with my life and work would be an understatement.

I think there must others like me out there somewhere in the world.  Perhaps I should start an anti-social network called Camouflage for all us quiet, inwardly directed people who just want to be left alone.

What I need a whole lot more of at this busy juncture in my life is not friends but time to myself.

Onward!

Thing #17: Podcasts

MILLER ANALOGIES FOR DUMMIES

Remember the Miller Analogies Test?  Were you ever kidnapped, held at gunpoint and forced to take it?  You know the test I mean.  It's full of weird fill-in-the-blank comparison questions like:

1.  A toaster is to a PopTart as a certain character from the Harry Potter series named __________ is to an owl pellet.

Or, in case your belief-system forbids you to read Harry Potter, here is an alternative Miller-style analogy for you:

2.  A toaster is to a PopTart as a __________ is to a certain unfortunate Biblical character named Jonah.

Did you ever get any of those analogies?  I always just found them amazingly irrelevant and stupid.

FLASHBACK

And yet, here I am, many years later with the following analogy popping into my head:

3.  A podcast is to a radio broadcast as a __________ is to a movie playing at the local Cineplex.

I guess what this means is that podcasts let the listener control when to listen (and allows him or her to listen in private) in the same way a certain other media format that's been around longer than podcasting allows a viewer to choose when to view a movie (and to view it in private).

Okay, fair enough.

(Answers to the above three analogies, by the way, can be found at the end of this blogpost.)

THE COMMON CRAFT SHOW

Lee and Sachi LeFever's Common Craft Show episode, "Podcasting in Plain English" this time, was a model of brevity and clarity.  As always.

BOOK-RELATED PODCASTS

I went to Podcast.com and listened to several podcasts.  The March 19th, 2009, podcast of All About Books had a very polished, NPR quality to it.  Charles Stephen and Otis Young discuss several new books, leading with War as They Knew It by Michael Rosenberg, about the rivalry between two legendary football coaches: Woody Hayes of Ohio State and the University of Michigan's Bo Schembechler.

Denver Public Library's had podcasts (audio only) of children's books.  I listened to It's Quacking Time by Martin Waddell, read by a narrator identified only as Jeff, and "Frog," a fractured fairy tale from Tales from the Brothers Grimm and Sisters Weird by Vivian Vande Velde, read by Emily.  These reminded me inescapably of library storytime readalouds.

I also listened to Episode 12 of a publisher podcast series entitled Sweet and Sassy Summer of Girls Fiction from HarperCollins.  Laura Kasischke reads a spooky passage from her young adult novel entitled Boy Heaven.  This was a slicker, more commercial production, with music and an announcer introducing the author.

ACLD COULD DO SOMETHING SIMILAR

I can see the Library making use of all three formats (expert review, readaloud, and author-read excerpt).  A few others spring to mind as well:  What about kids reviewing their favorite books?  Or kids doing the reading aloud?  What about a contest where kids submit their own original stories?

ADDING AN RSS FEED

The RSS feed I added to my Bloglines account was BigStoryTime.com, which is a series of 75 charming readalouds by five-year-olds.  The kids' voices are delightfully expressive.  The works being read are published picturebooks.

Although the podcast is not still in production (last episode was created in July of 2007), it is still available via RSS feed, and I'm sure it will take me a while to get through all 75 episodes.  (Wolf's Chicken Stew was wonderful!)

PODCASTING VIA Gcast

I use this song in my storytimes for preschoolers, Kindergarteners, and even early elementary aged kids if they're well-behaved and / or sleepy.  As a lullaby, it makes a great lead-in to naptime.

I sang this into GarageBand on my Mac while sitting in the kitchen.  If you listen closely, you can hear the cats sneezing and walking on the stove.

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ALL FOR NOW

Pretty cool.  Podcasts are fun.

Okay, well, I guess that's it for now.  I'm looking forward to Thing #18.

Don't forget to look for the answers to the Miller-style analogies below.

ANSWERS TO MILLER-STYLE ANALOGIES

1.  Hedwig     2.  whale (okay, big fish, if you want to be literal)     3.  DVD

If you didn't get any of these, I recommend reading more British fantasy and / or Bible stories in conjunction with vacationing at the beach once a year so you can fry your brain on cable.

Thing #16: YouTube

FUNNIEST VIDEOS

I already had a passing familiarity with YouTube, having been introduced to it by friends and colleagues.

It's one of those great-idea sites I haven't had a chance to explore as fully as I'd like to, yet.  It reminds me a lot of those Funniest Video shows available on cable television.

THE PROBLEM WITH CABLE

We don't have cable at my house.  It's not available in our area (yes, that's how far out in the woods we live) and if it were, I still wouldn't have it.

Why should I pay huge amounts of money for way too many channels I'd never have time to watch anyway?  Not doing it.

I satisfy my pitifully weak cable-urge by vacationing at the beach once a year.  The cabin has cable.  We all sit around watching Animal Planet until our brains explode.

Here's a very silly YouTube video about cats.  My opinion is that most of them are possessed by demons.  Nothing a good exorcism wouldn't cure.

HSI FOR CHEAPSKATES

One thing we do have at my house, however, is high-speed Internet.  It's cheaper than paying a mental-health counselor to help us work our frustrations with dial-up.

With HSI, YouTube is easily accessible, loads quickly, and runs without seizing up.  High-speed Internet also costs less than cable.

In some ways, YouTube satisfies an unmet need I have with regard to cable.  If I could pick the cable channels I want and only pay for those channels, I might be tempted to explore cable further.

But the cable service providers would never stand for that.

POWER AND CONTROL

However, with YouTube, I can search for the type of videos I want to watch.  Most are home-movie-style amateur productions--many of them surprisingly well done, actually.  Some are informational or instructional.  A lot are humorous, and a few are basically commercials with professional production values.

It's actually quite a nice mix, and viewing is entirely voluntary, so the viewer is in control.  I like that.

WHAT DOES THE SUPERBOWL HAVE IN COMMON WITH FRANCE?

I read somewhere, many years ago, that in France, instead of being spread out throughout the day, all the TV commercials aired during a half-hour period from 7 - 7:30 p.m.

Supposedly, it was (or is) lots of people's favorite show.  Highest ratings share of any TV show in the country.  Advertisers pulled out all the stops and paid huge sums for a minute or two of time.  As far as on-air advertising went, it was the only game in town.

I have no idea if that was, or is, really true, but it's a nice concept.  Sort of like TV commercials in the U.S. during our annual broadcast of the Superbowl.  Advertisers go all out, design great, unique commercials that people anticipate with pleasure and actually tune in voluntarily to watch.

Hm.  YouTube seems to have tapped into the concept of voluntary viewing as well.

COMMERCIALS & MUSIC VIDEOS

I took a look at the links to be found under the instructions for completing Thing #16.  Google Video looks to be a functional clone of YouTube.  That there are now over 60 similar Internet video providers just goes to show that this is a concept whose time has come.

It was fun watching some of the old TV commercials I remember from my childhood.  Kind of embarassing, too.  I can't believe we were that unsophisticated.

The video of the man caterpillar-breakdancing across the intersection was amusing, but it was followed by something even funnier--I don't know if I accidentally clicked on a link or if it just started playing spontaneously--a commercial for TripAdvisor which bills itself as a way to avoid infested hotel rooms with lamentable housekeeping and severe plumbing problems.

Nadine Velasquez in her femme fatale persona writhing around on satin sheets and warning us to beware of "dirty, dirty, dirty hotel rooms" was a stitch.

LIBRARY RELATED VIDEOS

Library Dominoes was interesting, but they should have had a much longer and more complex domino trail.  I've seen a similar video done with VHS videocases that went on and on.  It was amazing.

The WSU Library Tour was a great example of how a good soundtrack and rapid-cut editing can make even the most pedestrian subject (welcome to the library--yawn) engaging.

The OCPL Library Commercial was nicely conceived but didn't go quite far enough.  After the buff young history student leaped over the furniture into an imaginary trench to avoid enemy fire, he should have found somebody else crouching there, perhaps an attractive

literature major hiding from zombies or musketeers.

LIBRARY JOKES

I had heard about the video in which the clueless young woman attempts to order fast food in the library, but had never seen it.

The Bible verses following the actors seem tacked on, not well integrated with the first part of the video.  Perhaps the video was shot by a faith-based outfit promoting education?  I couldn't tell.

If only the video had come back to the actors at the very end for a brief, live-action zinger.  Perhaps library staff could have handed the patron a religious tract promoting wisdom and told her, "Here's the menu."  We needed something to tie together the two halves of the piece.

Conan the Librarian was another YouTube I'd had recounted to me on several occasions but never before seen.  It was a hoot.

MUSICALS AND COMEDY

Prankstgrup's High School Musical spoof entitled "Reading on a Dream" was pretty funny.

The actors' hyper-earnest portrayals of two sad and lonely people who find personal fulfillment and one another through singing and dancing hammily in front of dozens of other (rule-abiding) library goers was spot-on.

Even better was the spontaneous, embarrassed snickering of the nonmusical after the two protagonists clasp hands and run joyously from the premises.

IT versus Librarian was elegantly simple and wittily low-key.

I had seen Introducing the Book before and found it as funny the second time around as I did the first time.

The fact that the actors are speaking a language I don't (Dutch?) and I have to decipher it by the subtitles just makes it funnier somehow.

The main character is clearly a monk.  I'm wondering if the man who arrives from the helpdesk is supposed to be Gutenberg.  I love it how they play it absolutely straight.

It reminded me eerily of an old Saturday Night Live sketch with Steve Martin and Bill Murray entitled Theodoric of York, Medieval Barber.

I couldn't find it on YouTube, so I had to go to Fancast.

I hope you enjoy these three videos.  I had fun with them.  Now on to Thing #17!

Thing #15: Rollyo

A FASCINATING CONCEPT

I found the idea of limiting a search to a select list of websites a wonderful one, since I am often frustrated by the deluge of results returned by search engines such as Google or HotBot that search the entire web.

On  the Public Domain e-Books Search serachroll, I was able to bring up eBooks for Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan without difficulty.

The Rare Book Library Search serachroll was a bit more problematical.  I couldn't find any listings for either William the Dragon by Polly Donnison or The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The first is quite rare, the second not rare at all, although I assume there are rare editions.  Perhaps the book dealers whose sites compose the list just don't have any copies of these items available right now.

The Quick Quotes serachroll easily brought up Shakespeare's "We are such stuff as dreams are made on."

Again, a good idea to search multiple quotation indexes in aggregate, while excluding those same quotes scattered across random websites.

JOINING UP

I routinely run searches for obscure items (such as 44-string pedal harps) with only limited success.

I can usually increase my odds of a relevant hit by searching promising sites individually rather than googling the Web as a whole.  But it's tedious having to search each site individually.

So I was eager to sign up for a Rollyo account and try my hand at creating a custom Rollyo list.

I registered for an account and created a list entitled Harps for Sale.  On it I placed 24 sites I regularly search for listings of folk harps and pedal harps (either new or used).

I entered 24 harp sites I search either regularly or occasionally for harps or related items (strings, sheet music, CDs, etc.).

My category was Arts & Humanities.  My tags were: harps, musical instruments, pedal harps, and folk harps.  I chose to make this list public.

HARPS FOR SALE

Now when I log into Rollyo, I see Harps for Sale as one of my searchrolls.  How cool!

I typed in Lyon Healy Style 85 GP (a type of 44-string pedal harp manufactured by Lyon & Healy) and clicked on Search.  The results were highly relevant.  Much more so than when I search the Web at large using Google.  Neat!

Here's the link:  Virtual Unicorn's Harps for Sale searchroll on Rollyo.

I suggest you try the following search term: Camac Clio, Salvi Daphne, Dusty Strings FH36B, and Thormahlen Swan.  These are all popular harp models.  The first two are pedal harps, the second two, folk harps.

Searching these will give you an idea of who on my list is currently carrying which models of harp.  Now you know the sort of things I look at on the Web for fun.  Happy searching!

Thing #14: Online Productivity Tools

FOUR FOR THE PRICE OF ONE

I have to say, I'm really getting tired of multiple Things masquerading under the aegis of a single numeral.

Is 23 Things You Should Know about Web 2.0 really still 43 Things that have just been consolidated so as to appear to be fewer in number?

I'd have found the 23 Things experience a lot more straightforward if each Thing had represented a single Web 2.0 tool and participants had been asked to do just one a week for however many weeks it took.

Artificially compressing the experience has only created stress for me and many of my fellow participants.

23 Things was billed--over-optimistically, in my opinion--as compact and time-efficient.  It simply isn't.

It takes quite a bit of time to absorb even a surface understanding of these brave new tools.  If we're serious about taking all this in in a meaningful way, we should allow ourselves sufficient time to process the experience.  Speed-dating really isn't my thing.

Not much time left till deadline.  I am determined to finish 23 Things.  It was, after all, one of my New Year's resolutions.

I am also very, very tired.

Perhaps this handy countdown widget will spur me on.  I intend to refer to it often, in ever rising panic as the deadline nears.

Created by OnePlusYou

iGOOGLE

I took a look at iGoogle and chose Gainesville, News, Humor, Business, Technology, and Entertainment as my selected interests.

My background theme is called Sweet Dreams (an evening sky with a crescent moon).  My Country / Region are, of course, the U.S., with my zipcode as 32667.

It really didn't take much longer than the 30 seconds claimed, and created a very nice, compartmentalized, personalized start page. 

Features included the weather forecast for Micanopy, Gmail, NYTimes top stories, Google Finance Portfolios, ETonline Breaking News, Date & Time, CNN.com, Joke of the Day, The Wall Street Journal, Movies, YouTube, UF News, Go Comics, CNET News, and TV Guide.

It seems to have lifted all my personal information directly from my Google Account without me having to do anything.

Now every time I log into Google, I should be able to reach my personalized iGoogle startpage just by clicking the iGoogle link in the upper righthand corner of the screen.

Pretty cool.

I decided to add a few gadgets just to spiff things up.  The gadgets I chose were Google Calendar, Hangman (word game), Current Moon Phase, ToDo, Free iTumes Downloads, Google Translate, Dictionary, Spanish Word a Day, Funny Cat Photos, Movies Trailer of the Day. . . .

By this time, I'd gone through 20 pages of gadgets, and there seemed to be no end in sight, so I stopped there.

GOOGLE CALENDAR

After reading the recommended article entitled "The Web's Best Calendars," I chose Google Calendar for its drag-and-drop editing and color-coded layout.

Scrybe looked interesting because of its to-do list and ability to sync changes made offline, but I decided Google Calendar would work well enough for a start.

I filled in some projects and appointments for the next few days.  It was pretty painless.

TA DA LIST

I chose Ta Da List to be my online to-do list.  Signup was quick and easy.

I then created a list of various Cat Tasks: buy more bacon-flavored ferret treats, investigate kitty exercise wheels online, etc.

Not difficult at all.

I thought it was interesting that signup for a Ta Da List account issued me a private webpage rather than a login from a centralized page.

BACKPACK

Backpack bills itself as "An Intranet in 30 Seconds," and includes a lot of interesting features like info-sharing pages, messageboards, and to-do lists.

The feature that intrigued me most, however, was the group calendar.  I'm in charge of my department's shared calendar, comprising daily work schedules, meetings, training sessions, and presentations.

The calendar we use now is a clunky Excel document on a shared server.  It's not very elegant, easy to read, or easy to use.  I'd love to find something better with which to replace it!

Having taken video tours of both how to compose a Backpack page and how to use the Backpack Calendar, I'm not sure the calendar can handle the complexity of my department's schedule--but the basic Backpack page looks intriguing.

I decided to sign up for a free account so that I could check out the features, and that's when I realized Backpack costs between $7 and $100 per month, depending on the number of users, pages, and storage space needed.

Oh, well!  I will have to give it a pass.

CHECKING OUT THE SITES

I scanned the recommended resources, all lists of online productivity tools.  Some of the same tools pop up over and over again.

Remember the Milk (to-do lists), Bloglines (RSS feed manager), My Stickies (sticky notes webpage markup), Del.icio.us (bookmarks), Meebo (IM aggregator), Google Calendar (online scheduling), iGoogle (personalized startpage), and PBwiki are the ones I noted.

That these sites are listed by multiple recommenders likely indicates that they are both well-designed and popular.  Those I don't already use, I'll keep in mind for the future.

Despite my fatigue, I am definitely finding 23 Things an eye-opening experience.  I had no idea all this stuff was available on the web--and much of it for free.

Thing #13: Library Thing

NIGHT OF THE LIVING LIBRARIANS

All right.  I confess.  When I first read about LibraryThing in the 23 Things at NEFLIN blog, I found the concept intriguing--followed quickly by pangs of conscience.

Thoughts flitted through my mind about handing the asylum keys over to the inmates.

Allow actual readers / patrons / laypeople to catalog their own libraries?  What about Library of Congress subject headings?  Uniform titles?  Authority control?

My old cataloguing professor, may she rest in peace, returned briefly from the grave to haunt me.

COMING AROUND TO THE CONCEPT

But then I actually went to the site and read a little more, took the tour (exquisitely done), read the FAQs (informative, clear), and I abandoned all loyalty to the past.  I like LibraryThing.

There.  I've said it.  I have only myself to blame.

The death warrant will be issued within moments of my publishing this blogpost.  Hit squads from the Cataloguing Department will now ambush me in the back hallway.  My only hope lies in anonymity / disguise.

Maybe I could put on Groucho Marx glasses and pass myself off as narwhale.  One with really long flippers that terminate in cloven hooves.  But Virtual Unicorn digresses.

SOCIAL NETWORKING FOR BOOK LOVERS

"Reframing" is a favorite phrase of one of my library system's Division Directors.  It means looking at things in a new way in order to free oneself from knee-jerk (usually negative) responses.

I find that if I look on LibraryThing as a social networking site for book lovers, not a torch-bearing, pitchfork-wielding mob of iconoclasts out to burn down the sacred temple of Cataloguing and put all the holy people out of a job, I'm much more comfortable with the concept.

It's more like a book lovers' club or a book discussion group, rather than a traditional library.  (But, of course, who says libraries have any intention of remaining "traditional"?)

And it's certainly not a books-by-mail service or bookstore.  I love the quote in the FAQs: "LibraryThing cares about books, not about SELLING books."

MY NEFARIOUS PAST

I love books.  I love talking about books and reading about books and hanging out with other people who appreciate books.

That's why I've worked at my library for 22 years, worked in bookstores for 7 years before that, have been known to write a book from time to time and once, many years ago when I first went to college, was a card-carrying English major.

These days, I think they call it language arts.  But what it really means is books.

Yes, I admit it.  I'm a book lover.  I've been a book lover all my life.  I know it's habit-forming, but I don't care.  Long live the printed word!  I intend to depart this life with book in hand.

A LITTLE FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Just because I don't hold hooves on the first date--I'm not that kind of unicorn--I decided to do a tad more investigation before making a commitment to join.

BROWARD COUNTY YA LIBRARIAN

I really liked what the Broward County YA Librarian was doing with her LibraryThing account: keeping up with her library school classwork (reading lists of YA books) and providing a forum for her teen volunteers.

I can see immediate application for my department's newly created position of YA librarian.  This sounds like a great way to keep a core of interested teen library supporters in touch with one another, even when they don't have transportation to come to the library for, say, book club discussions.

FLASH-MOBS: NO TORCHES, NO PITCHFORKS

I also checked out the LibraryThing Blog, where each month's Early Reviewer books are posted.  That feature holds a lot of interest for me.  Reading prepublication review copies and writing reviews looks like tons of fun!

I also read with fascination about flash-mob cataloguing parties, where a group of volunteer descend upon an organization's small, unorganized library.  Using wireless laptops and CueCat barcode scanners, they catalog the collection using LibraryThing.

This reminds me of the inventory companies that used to come once a year to the bookstore where I worked to inventory the stock after hours between the time we closed the doors in the evening and opened them on the morning of the following day.

The difference here, of course, is that the flash-mob cataloguers are paid only in free pizza and good fellowship.  Sounds like another dynamite project for teen volunteers!

SIGNING UP

By this time, I was sold, so I decided to sign up for a free account.  I found the price-break (first 200 books free, $15 per year thereafter or $25 for a lifetime membership) entirely reasonable.

Signing up was quick and easy.  I edited my profile to include an image and geographic location.

Next step was to enter some books.  I decided to go with some recent reads.  The process was simple.  LibraryThing takes care of the grunt work of supplying the bibliographic info so I was able to concentrate on short, punchy reviews.

WIDGETS THAT WEREN'T

I decided to add two widgets to my blog: a standard blog widget, which shows random books from my LibraryThing library and a search widget, which enables readers to search my library directly from the blog.

Alas, nothing I did could get them to show up.  The code pasted in fine, but Preview never revealed the widgets.

I scared myself silly at least twice when, having pasted in the code, all the other text of my blogpost seemingly disappeared.

Luckily, the first time Blogger had autosaved just before I did the paste.  After that, I saved manually before every paste attempt--but still to no avail.

Alas, I must content myself with pasting in a link to VirtualUnicorn's LibraryThing profile and VirtualUnicorn's LibraryThing library page.

Sigh.  This is not as fancy as I would have liked it to have been, but I need to get on to Thing #14.

FEATURES OF INTEREST

Just as a last word, I thought I'd quickly run over those features I found of greatest interest about LibraryThing.

I was not terribly interested in any of the group features right at the moment.  I think I'd like to watch (old-style listserves used to call it "lurking") for a while before joining.

The Early Reviewer program did look interesting to me, although I see there is a lot of competition for the review copies: 5 to 30 times more requests that there are books to go around.

I did, however, put my name down for The Glassblower of Murano by Marina Fiorato, The New 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth by Sophie Javna Earthworks Group, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire b C.M. Mayo, The Survival Handbook by Collin Towell, The Moon & the Sun by Vonda McIntyre, Mom's Guide to Growing Your Family Green by Terra Wellington, and The Manual of Deception by Jedediah Berry.

I'll just have to wait and see.

The Members Book Giveaway Program also looks interesting.  I intend to investigate further at a later time.

I also took a look at LibraryThing local, listing my area as the 50-mile radius around Gainesville, Florida.  I was astonished to find nothing listed.  So I added Comics for Everyone, a featured ACLD event to take place on March 19th.

ENOUGH

Good heavens, look at the time.  It's 2:30 in the afternoon.  All for now.  I haven't even had breakfast.

Thing #12: Wikis

WIKIS I ALREADY USE

I feel more confident about wikis than I have about any of the other Web 2.0 tools we've studied so far in 23 Things because I've recently created a wiki and I belong to two more.

The wiki I administer (take care of housekeeping for) is The ACLD Storytime Wiki, created for use by our library district's Youth Services Planning Group.  It's all about programming for children and teens.

The other two wikis I belong to are the Sunshine State Library Leadership Institute's Alumni Wiki (a closed wiki for SSLLI participants and their mentors, alumni, and instructors) and The Youth Services @ ACLD Wiki (created for the YS Department to keep track of group projects).

All three are PBwikis.

WHY I CHOSE PBwiki

Before I set up the ACLD Storytime Wiki, I used WikiMatrix to compare features of the various wiki engines available.  It was quite comprehensive and easy to use.

I ultimately chose PBwiki because the basic service is free and has plenty of room.  It can also be upgraded for a modest cost, is entirely WYSIWYG and requires no knowledge of coding.  Best of all, it supports multimedia content such as clipart, photos, and videoclips with sound.

These features struck me as perfect for creating a powerful but very user-friendly wiki dedicated to youth programming.

SAINT JOSEPH COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM WIKI

The Subject Guides portion of the SJCPL website looked quite straightforward.  It reminded me of ACLD's staff bookmarks and Great Links public bookmarks.  The layout resembles Wikipedia's.

I took a peek at the homepage, which isn't part of the wiki, and noticed a few points of interest: Encore catalog searcing, IM reference service, audiobooks on iPod, a GameBlog, and a dedicated teen page.  ACLD doesn't offer any of these services--yet.

The entire website is very, very spare.  A little too spare for my taste.  A purely white background just isn't engaging to my eye.  I'd recommend some sort of (subtle) background image to offset the plain-and-simple text, thus lending interest to the page.

BOOK LOVERS WIKI

Princeton Public Library's Book Lovers Wiki was created for their 2007 summer reading program and apparently featured prizes for those who contributed content in the form of book reviews.

The wiki comprises about 200 reviews in all, and the wiki notes that the wiki has been discontinued (it remains accessible solely as an archive) because library patrons are now able to enter their reviews directly into PPL's online catalog.

The wiki is pleasingly crafted in pale shades of green, and each review contains both an image of the book's jacket and rating in the form of stars.  Reviewers may be identified by name or choose to remain anonymous.

I like the design flair that went into this functional / minimalist yet aesthetic wiki.

LIBRARY SUCCESS

Meredith Farkas's "Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki" is another that resembles the look and feel of Wikipedia.  It looks well organized and comprehensive, a sort of central clearinghouse for all sorts of useful information about running a library.

In my opinion, the Alachua County Library District could learn a thing or two from this wiki about how to organize information employees need to access easily and often in order to do their jobs.

Right now, our forms, policies and procedures are chaotically scattered over several servers.  Employees often spend more time searching for a form than they do filling it out.  It's remarkably inefficient.

It's rumored that all these forms, etc., are about to be moved from their disparate servers to our staff-only intranet.  If that's the case, I hope whoever is in charge of the move will organize the information as thoughtfully as Ms. Farkas has her best practices wiki.

LIBRARY STAFF WIKI

The Albany County Public Library's staff wiki is obviously a PBwiki.  It has that distinctive look.

Having a centralized, easily accessible place to store communal information (such as library procedures) has long been a dream of mine.  Apparently others consider such a place a worthy enterprise as well.

I feel mildly cheered.  At least I'm not the only one on the planet who thinks a half-way decently organized procedures manual a goal worth prioritizing.

Now if only  such a thing could become a reality at ACLD.

BLOGGING LIBRARIES WIKI

Blogging Libraries Wiki, like The Library Success Wiki, is powered by MediaWiki.  It looks a lot like the SJCPL Subject Guides Wiki, which is to say, it follows the Wikipedia model of being bare-bones, spare, and texty rather than visually arresting.

Though it contains no images other than a very simple logo, it's a nice idea: create a wiki to collect links to library blogs.  Librarians will find this a useful tool, even if the workmanlike design fails to excite much emotional response.  (Fun to look at this wiki is not.)

Though the lack of images is most likely a constraint of the wiki's service level--probably basic and therefore free--I hope the wiki's creators will eventually opt to upgrade to a level of service that allows greater use of images, preferably photos.

ADDING TO MY WIKIS

During the last couple of weeks, I've added pages to all three of the wikis to which I belong.

As a class assignment, I uploaded my class project's "Charge" (formal statement of purpose and delineation of roles and responsibilities for those involved) and Gantt chart (timeline for the project) to the SSLLI Alumni Wiki.

(I wish I could show them to you, but it's a closed wiki.)

I created a quick-and-dirty booklist entitled "Some Good Teen Reads" to the booklists area of the YS @ ACLD Wiki.  Because it's an open wiki, this page is available for all to see.

Finally, I created a couple of new folders (Information and Notes), added 60 new users to the wiki, performed various edits to existing pages, and fashioned 27 new pages for the wiki.

Here are a couple of my favorites: "FAQ: Reasons to Contribute" and "Fingerplay: Ten Little Candles."

BUSY BUSY

Virtual Unicorn has been a busy beast.  Just one of many reasons I am so far behind in doing my 23 Things!

But that is why the Powers that Be created weekends, and I am busily using this one to get caught up.

Thing #11: Social Media

SOCIAL MEDIA IN PLAIN ENGLISH

Another excellent explanatory video on a Web 2.0 topic by the LeFevers at The Common Craft Show.  I want to rush right out and copy them!

The simplicity of their (ostesibly) low-tech approach is just what I need to understand the subject matter.  The length is just right, and the props (mostly hand-drawn paper cutouts) never get in the way of the message.

Next time I need to do an instructional video or training session, I intend to channel The Common Craft Show.

DIGG

I couldn't help myself.  The first thing I did when I got to the Digg homepage was watch the new Star Trek movie teaser trailer.  They've certainly pulled out all the stops on the special effects.  Intriguing.

I also viewed Dmitry Orlov's 5-minute videotaped remarks on "Superpower Soup": the ingredients he believes are necessary to cause a superpower--such as the U.S.S.R. or the U.S.--to collapse socially and economically.  Scary.

I then read a short article entitled "Ecstasy Treatment Draws Rave Reviews for Vet Treatment" by Mark Rutherford dealing with a new use for the rave drug ecstasy: treating military personnel suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.  The drug apparentl "inhibit[s] the subjective fear response to an emotional threat" which is the cause of PTSD.  Interesting.

The tour was succinct and clear.  I wanted to join right away but restrained myself so that I could go on to Reddit.

REDDIT

Here I read "Obama to Lift Ban on Embryonic Stem Cell Research" and "How to Sccessfully Compete with Open Source Software."

The first was terse and informational (with a complaint against The Wall Street Journal's assertion that embryonic stem cell research is "opposed by religious groups" (as though all religious groups oppose it).

The second was too long to read in its entirety, but I skimmed it.  It made some valid points about how commercial software can compete with open-source software through better marketing, design, and user support.

The Reddit Intro was super simple, cute, and non-threatening.  (By threatening, I mean "makes me wonder if I click this link, will I be sucked into an inescapable vortex of endless frustration and wasted time?"  Reddit'd intro didn't.)

NEWSVINE

Newsvine looked much more like a mainstream news site than either Digg or Reddit, although the introduction makes it clear that there are no editors and that content is controlled by those users who vote.

The idea of creating a Newsvine column entirely out of "seeded" (linked from elsewhere) articles was an interesting thought.  Sort of like a scrapbook, into which one pasts "clippings" (links) of interesting news articles one has come across.

After looking at the intro, I went to the homepage and selected "Democrats Blast Limbaugh for Comment on Kennedy" to read because I figured it would contain a lot of reader comments, which it did.  Many vilified Limbaugh for his recent remarks.  Others insulted the commenters.

I did not find reading the exchange particularly useful.  Sadly, others' commentary only rarely interests me.  Most of it's so ephemeral / inarticulate / forgettable.  Who cares?

Just about the only time I pay attention to commentary is when consumers are rating their experience with a product or a company.

Was the item as described?  Did it arrive on time?  Was it of good quality?  Worth the cost?  Did the company resolve any problems?  Would the reviewer buy from this seller again?  Answers to questions like these interest me.

I don't know that I'll start paying any more attention to commentary on news articles as a result of looking into Social Networking, but obviously loads of people love it, choosing to spend their time composing it and reading it.

Clearly I must be antisocial.

MIXX

Mixx more closely resembled Digg and Reddit, being less slick and polished-looking than Newsvine.  The tour was simple enough.

On the homepage, I read an article entitled "Does Daylight Saving Time Conserve Energy?"  I didn't feel strongly enough to vote or leave a comment.

The article entitled "School Lunch Nutrition Standards Haven't Been Updated in 30 Years" moved me to want to do both--but of course, one has to register for a Mixx account in order to do so.

I therefore held off, determined to get through each Thing as expeditiously as possible.  Picking up the pace is what I'll have to do, if I'm ever to get caught up on 23 Things!

CHOOSING AN ARTICLE

For my article to recommend, I went to the New York Times website and navigated to the section on technology.  The article I chose was "When Everyone's a Friend, Is Anything Private?" by Randall Stross.

It discussed how Facebook's liberal default privacy settings encourage the indiscriminate sharing of personal information to any stranger who asks for it.

If you respond in the affirmative--as many Facebook users do--anyone who asks to be your Facebook friend can gain access to all sorts of information about you.

This is the exact same information you'd feel creepy about disclosing to someone you didn't know who just walked up to you out of nowhere and started quizzing you about yourself.

MY PERSONAL REACTION

I don't get it.  Why would anyone make private information available to strangers?

Being deeply private--any surprise to learn that I'm an introvert?--I don't really want to know that much about strangers, and I certainly don't want to share much of anything personal with anyone I haven't known for quite a while.

Whatever happened to the idea of building trust over time?

Perhaps this is why the thought of establishing a Facebook account fills me with all the pleasant anticipation of juggling loaded firearms.

SHARING THE ARTICLE

When I clicked on the share link, I saw that I needed to register for one of the social networking accounts, so I chose Digg.

Registration took mere moments.  The article had already been recommended by a couple of other people, but I was able to "Digg" it and leave a comment.

The process was actually quite pain-free.

ONWARD

Good enough.  Now on to Thing #12!

Thing #10: Tagging and Delicious

BEHOLD MY DELICIOUS NETWORK BADGE 

I am now officially delicious!

AN ENJOYABLE EXPERIENCE

I very much enjoyed Thing #10.  Tagging's fun, and I think Delicious is going to be very, very useful.

I'd done a little bit of tagging before now.  It's a great idea and no big deal.

I do get frustrated when the total length of tags for an item is constrained to a certain length (such as 200 characters).  I ran into that when retro-tagging all my blogposts.

And of course I'd heard about Delicious.  (Actually, I'm used to seeing it referred to by its pre-Yahoo spelling: "del.icio.us") but hadn't gotten around to checking it out till now.  I'm so glad I did!  

WHY I NEVER USED BOOKMARKS

Before now, I've never used the bookmark / favorites feature of any of my browsers.  There are three I use all the time and several others I use occasionally.  The reason for my reluctance to use bookmarks was simple: they weren't portable.

Since I move from computer to computer all day long--at work, I have the computer at my desk and five different computers on the public service desks; I also have a computer at home--it didn't help me at all that I couldn't take my bookmarks with me.

So I just memorized the URLs of the sites I visited frequently (or Googled them if I couldn't remember) and ignored bookmarks / favorites.

Now it looks like Delicious has fixed my problem.  I should be able to access my bookmarks list from any Internet-connected computer anywhere.

BACKGROUND READING

Once again, I found Lee Lefever's instructional video crystal clear, charming, and laudably succinct.

Brandon Connelly's "Several Habits of Wildly Successful del.icio.us Users" was informative.

So, too, was "7 Things You Should Know about . . . Social Bookmarking."

I also enjoyed skimming through the list of libraries in the melange blog on libraries that bookmark using Delicious.

SIGNING UP FOR DELICIOUS

Signing up for a Delicious account was a breeze.  The instructions for adding the bookmarklets were ultrasimple.  I added bookmarklets to five of my browsers.

Afterwards, I flitted around to 8 or 10 of my favorite harp sites and bookmarked them.  You can see them at http://delicious.com/virtualunicorn if you like.

Now I don't have to remember the URLs for those sites anymore or hunt for them, I can just find them via my Delicious account.  I like that!

My last delicious act for the day will be to add a Delicious network badge to my blog.  If this works, I'll insert it at the top of my blog just to give the beginning of the blogpost some visual interest.  Here goes.

Thing #9: Sharing Slides, Photos & Databases

| Get your Presentation Pack

SUCCESS!

I'm happy to report successfully uploading a PowerPoint presentation to Slideshare, then pasting it into my blog above.

I went about creating this blogpost a little differently than I have with past posts, though.  So I feel a word of explanation is in order here.

A WORD OR EXPLANATION

I decided to create this blog entry while exploring the slideshow, photo montage, and online database tools described in Thing #9, rather than waiting until I had finished the exploration.

I wanted to see if this would streamline the process.  (I'm not entirely sure it did.)  Anyway, it was an experiment.

Accordingly, I first blogged about the "Web 2.0 Tools in Your Classroom" slideshow, Zoho Show and Slideshare software, Flicks by Picture Trail, NEFLIN's Flickr photostream, and Lazybase below.

After I completed my exploration, I signed up for a Slideshare account and uploaded one of the PowerPoint presentations my department created a couple of months back for training colleagues outside of the Alachua County Library District for this year's upcoming Summer Reading Program.

I ultimately chose to upload the shorter, simpler PowerPoint of the two I was involved in.  This presentation that didn't use any of PowerPoint's fancy animation.  I chose this one because I thought it would probably display more clearly on the blog and be a better bet for a neophyte like me.

How did all of this come about?  Let's step back a little in time.  To discover what I was thinking as I explored the slideshow, photo montage, and database tools (prior to the successful upload of the above PowerPoint), please read on.

FLASHBACK: WEB 2.0 TOOLS IN YOUR CLASSROOM

I enjoyed this little (59-slide) slide show, although the default advance speed was too quick to allow me to adequately scan and / or read all the content on some of the more complex slides.  I went through a second time using manual, slide by slide advance.

I love the idea of social networking as an educational tool.  The quote, "Everybody and Anybody can collaborate, influence, connect, create, publish, share" holds a great deal of appeal for me.

The slide entitled "But Why?" on the benefits to connecting people via Web 2.0 (tapping into collective intelligence via collaboration, transparent delivery and instant gratification, a non-hierarchical / democratic information feed, etc.) was another one that resonated for me.

Blogging as a way for students both to better imprint what they have learned as well as pool what they have learned in a communal repository of knowledge struck another chord.

The slide picturing a scale weighing the main features of actively searching the Web for information on websites (older method) versus the newer, passive method of online information gathering via RSS feeds aptly summarized the contrast between methods.

I thought the point that by allowing users to subscribe to others' bookmarks, del.icio.us "Allows us to connect with the web resources of the very best minds in our field" was well taken.

Because I'm smack in the middle of a wiki project myself, I viewed the slides on wikis with particular attention.

I found myself longing for music and / or narration as I advanced through the slideshow.  Surely Slideshare and Zoho Show must enable an audio track to be added?  Let's take a look.

ZOHO SHOW

The link to Zoho Show in the Neflin's 23 Things blog didn't quite work, so I had to go to the Zoho homepage, but that worked well enough.  I took the tour, checked out the demo video, and viewed one of the public presentations (an inspirational, poster-moment style slideshow entitled "Finding Joy.")

Zoho Show appears to be gunning hard to rival PowerPoint.  All the controls look very similar.  I like the fact that Zoho Show can be embedded in one's website or blog and is entirely free.

Here's what occurred to me while I was checking out Zoho Show: I had fun throwing together a couple of PowerPoint training presentations several months back, but was stymied when I tried to email the presentations to a colleague from another library system who requested them.

I finally had to snail-mail her the PowerPoints on a thumb drive.  Had I known about Zoho Show, I could have used that instead and let her access the presentations via the web.

As far as I can tell, Zoho Show doesn't have an audio component yet, although I see that support for animations is in the works.  That would be wonderful.

Also, one of my PowerPoint training presentations used a lot of zippy animations to liven it up.  Without the animated transitions, the presentation would have been a lot flatter and less fun.

Okay.  Time to check out Zoho Show's rival Slideshare.

SLIDESHARE

Aha!  Slideshare says right up front that you can "Add audio to make a webinar."  Cool.

And the slideshow "tour" indicates that you can upload PowerPoint, OpenOffice, or PDF presentations to Slideshare in order to share them with others over the Web.  Perhaps I'll be able to upload my PowerPoints to my blog???

"Create SlideCasts . . . Sync audio with your slides. . . ."  Virtual Unicorn is starting to salivate.

I see Slideshare's potential to publicize events and allow participation / voting in contests as immediately useful to the Library District and to my department (which hosts and presents a lot of programs) in particular.

These features could be especially useful in our push to offer more and better programs for teens.

Like Zoho Show, Slideshare, too, is free.

FLICKS & LAZYBASE

I have to say, Flicks by Picture Trail looked intriguing!  I see a great deal of potential there for commemorating Library events via an animated photo montage instead of just a bunch of separate, lifeless stills.

I checked out Big Huge Labs a couple of Things back when I used its Motivator tool to create a poster.  The Mosaic Maker tool doesn't excite me much.

I did take a moment to flit to NEFLIN's Flickr account to take a look at a couple of short photo sets: the igloo built out of plastic milk jugs (right here in our very own Alachua County Library District!) and the New River Staff Development photos.

I recommend rotating all the photos into an upright position before making them part of a slideshow or photo montage.  Seeing images that are sideways is a little jarring.

Lazybase looks interesting, if painfully simplistic.  Still, it's a way to get a simple database embedded in a website, accessible to anyone with web access, no database software required.

I might look into that one for future reference, since building databases is something of a hobby of mine.  I find them appealing because they put a large volume on  information at one's fingertips, uniformly formatted, comparable, and searchable.