Saturday, June 26, 2010

The End

Much better experience than last time around - not as intensive & more relevant sites visited.
Very frustrating being blocked from sites by MCC. Eventually had to complete most of the training at home due to lack of time & available computers. Was impressed by Zamzar & Good reads, will probably use these. Nice to take a look at the other popular social networking sites, but won't be using them myself. Overall, good refresher on Web 2.0.

Facebook

Visited my facebook page for the first time since I created it last Web 2.0! Hope those who wanted to be my friend were not too disappointed I didn't get back to them!

I know it is a very popular social networking site & is great in some situations e.g. keeping in touch when travelling, but - I am not a fan. It is hard to navigate around, there is too much happening - and who gets time to read all the stuff that arrives? Even with only a handful of friends. Can't imagine what it must be like with hundreds of friends as some people have. Full time - kind of what the college kids were saying in the Youtube clip.

Don't think facebook needs promoting to our customers - those that need it, have it. And I think the Manukau Libraries website is a better vehicle for our activities etc - not lost in the other junk.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Week 5 : Music files and mp3s

Well - what a disappointment that was - signed up to Amazon.com only to find that only those lucky enough to live in the good old US of A were allowed to download mp3 from this site.


So I then went & took a look at Free Albums Galore - this would be a great site for those keen on classical & alternative music (strange combination). Not me.

Finally, I signed up to mp3.com & tried to download a song - but - nothing happened. This site is great for finding info about artists & their albums, it directs you to where you can purchase the tunes apparently - but I could not get it to work.

Think I will stick to iTunes - simple, can buy a gift card, no need to put credit card info on-line. But it does lack some of the more unusual artists I would like to download (which I did find on the above sites but could not download - grrrr!)

It would appear that most of the "free"music out there is not the popular commercial stuff, rather tunes that small unknown bands have uploaded to get exposure. You get what you pay for.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Goodreads

Kind of like Library Thing isn't it? This appears to be a website for the serious readers - not for those who are happy to read a book & enjoy it, but for those who want to talk about it & share opinions. A Book Club on-line really.

Would recommend it to those customers who live remotely or are unable to attend gatherings but who would enjoy this kind of thing - and on a global scale. Not something for our regular customers though.

Also would be good for those reviewing books to see what other people thought. And for library staff who are developing Next Reads and such.

Friday, June 4, 2010

Twitter

Have avoided getting dragged in to Twitter up until now. And probably won't use it once Web 2.0 is over. Definitely won't be signing up with my personal e-mail. Was easy enough to join, but can see that one could spend a lot of time just browsing. Found it really annoying that I could not access it through my login, I must have quite a list of illegal attempted accesses against my login name by now!

Who really wants to know about what people are doing right this minute?

Can see the usefulness for advertising events & such as Manukau Libraries do. But I would prefer to send a text or ring my circle of friends for the more personal stuff. And not sure I am happy about being out there in the public domain, even though I set up my privacy settings. Just how private is it really?