Thing 40 - Mashup the Web

My hour's up so I gotta go, I'll finish this later but here's my mashup

http://www.polyvore.com/how_to_go_digging_for/set?id=8509226

edit: Ok, back to finish this one up.

I had fun messing around with some of these, even though a bunch of them didn't work. I don't have last.fm here at work, but I have it at home and these additions to that sound pretty friggin sweet, especially the one that syncs up with pandora and scrobbles your songs. I have a pandora station set up to play JUST a certain kind of music, so having that scrobble would be double-sweet. I'm gonna look it up at home.

That silly one with clam digging was kind of a cool idea, but it was mostly womens' clothing sets. I might have played around a bit with men's clothing and whatever, but I don't know what I woulda done with it. ha ha

Basically though, it was a good way to see how different websites can work together. I don't know anything about coding and mixing websites or anything, but I like the idea.

Thing 39 - "Digital Scrapbooking"

I went a little nuts on this one, too. I didn't really have that many pictures on my facebook or a good theme. Plus I am trying to get these done in a timely manner so I can actually finish before May 20. The flood is to blame for this.

Thing 38 - Screencasting

I couldn't download onto this computer, so even though skitch looked really cool and I'm sure the people who developed Jing are really nice, I had to go with screentoaster. I made a real boring tutorial about how to open non plug-and-play drivers in Windows. In case you really wanted to do that.

Free online screencasting tool

So this is my avant-garde photo set. I hope that you like it. And that I did this correctly.

Thing 36 - Comic Relief

I guess I had some good fun with this one. I can't really understand how most of this is useful to library patrons, considering they're all kind of gimmicky. But if someone needs to name a gnome I guess I can help them out with that!

I also like the name generator that was supposed to come up with new English-sounding names based on naming trends over time. In addition to RODOUGLAMOSHANIBALDONA, SHAUSTEVER and LUCIENDOMIGUST, I got more elegant suggestions like SAC, STEW and ELTONSWOODER. Truly we have arrived in the future.

I used the medieval tapestry generator to make a comic about a king who is very upset about dogs being in his palace. I tried to send it to Megan but it didn't even work. So that was a bust. You can watch this movie: http://www.xtranormal.com/watch?e=20090429175358698 which is supposed to make sound but this computer has no speakers so I have no idea if the portuguese accents I threw in there even worked.

Thing 35 - Books

Lots of cool stuff in this one. I recently cataloged all my books using library thing, so I got that aspect of the Thing down before I ever got started. It was fun but without a bunch of other people I know using the site, it seems to have kind of limited application. I have it on my facebook now for people to look at if they want to, but so far I can't think of what else to do with it. I kinda like having it just for its own sake, anyway.

Reading books on your phone seems like it'd be really bothersome. I admit I have a really old phone, so reading anything on there would be double unpleasant, but even with a fairly new phone you'd think the text would be pretty small and the screen hard to read. The kindle supposedly fixes these problems by being completely designed for reading, so I'd be pretty interested to try it out. It's big enough for sure, but I'd have to see the screen before I decided whether I thought it was a good idea. I guess the backlight in the system is different than it is in, say, a gameboy, so you're not going to get the same eye strain. I'd like to try it. If anyone wants to buy one for me, I accept.

The swap sites were really interesting, too. Unlike traditional swap clubs, these go all over the whole country! So you could get whatever you wanted. Including books, I guess. This is why the internet was invented. You can get information and stuff from everywhere. I want to try this, too. I think I should sign up, I could get rid of all the stuff I don't want and get new stuff for it! I can not see a downside here.

Additionally, the site that encourages you to leave a book lying out somewhere and then putting a message up was cool. I would have loved this when I was young. I loved secrets.

Thing 34: Online Answer sites

It's been over a month. I would like to reiterate at this point that the phrase "Web 2.0" is stupid, overused and basically meaningless. Labeling a bunch of other stuff as "2.0" because it now involves the internet is also stupid and pointless.

I gotta say, I think people have been yelling about the death of the library for a pretty long time. I think it's people who just want to have their name in the newspaper for saying something shocking. I work in a pretty modest public library; we're not on the cutting edge of super technological urban expanse, but we don't have the dredges of society in here, either (depending on the day). And we certainly don't have thousands upon thousands of people coming in every day like some libraries. Yet even with this modest example of a library system, we don't feel anywhere close to extinction.

Think about it: all libraries suddenly entirely ceasing to exist. World leaders are going to come together and decide that one of the cornerstones of society as we know it should just end? All mayors are going to sign the orders one after the other til all library buildings become McDonald's? No one is going to be able to read anything they didn't buy, no one will be able to use a computer unless they own it, no one can ask anyone for something they don't know. Yeah ok, and then after that Michael Jordan will come to my house and tell me to stack rocks on his head until he dies.

People need to stop freaking out. LIBRARIANS need to stop freaking out. Just because the internet does potentially give people the ability to search for information DOES NOT MEAN that every single person there is alive will have the resources to access this, the ability to understand and utilize it properly, or the time and effort to maximize their reference capabilities and decide to therefore bypass all library services forever. I realize we don't always get as much respect as, say, firemen or nurses or whatever but I think saying we're going to be the last of the library workers because of computers is pretty gullible.

What percent of internet users primarily look up videos of people getting hit in the junk? A lot? I think we're good, then.

Thing 33: Travel 2.0

Ok, so I think I'm starting to get this "2.0" label attached to everything. It's not just that people have new ways to send links to each other, but that websites are redesigned to allow more content from users. I guess I'm kind of surprised that this is such a big deal, since this is not new technology or even new applications of it, just that more websites are doing it? Or at least that more websites that non-nerds pay attention to are doing it, so magazines are writing stories about it.

In that sense I guess Travel 2.0 is a good name, although I think that's only if you count ticket-buying sites like expedia.com as "Travel 1.0" websites. It seems to me that the kinds of reviews, hints and picture-sharing these travel websites are all about have been around since BBS days, but that now they're redesigned to get more exposure. I don't have a problem with this or anything, I just think it's necessary to be accurate about this.

I'm not planning on taking a vacation any time soon, so I couldn't use these sites precisely the way they were intended, but I get the theory. It's nice to have overviews of what people like, with ratings, but I'm not sure how extremely helpful this would be. Of course the Hilton hotel in San Francisco is 5 star, I probably didn't need a website to tell me that, you know? And of course I'm going to see The Louvre if I'm in France. The real hidden treasure of these websites should be to identify the little hole-in-the-wall, out of the way places that aren't necessarily well known, and there is an element of that in all the mire. But once again I am frustrated with the site layout and navigation, which seems counterproductive to sorting things out in this (or another) way. I realize that if you have a huge amount of people adding reviews for things you'll get a lot of content about only the most popular, universal things but there should be a way to deal with this. Maybe there could be a "Critics choice" kinda thing? Where stuff that has been highly rated but only a few times is suggested. Something like that, maybe.

Maybe in Web 3.0 everyone will stop running around in circles patting themselves on the back for their clever application of existing technology, and do some damn troubleshooting!

Thing 32: Google Map-O-Saurus

It's been a long time since I did one of these. I basically lost track of where I was on everything so I'm just gonna call it good on the previous entries and move on. To GOOGLE MAPS!

Google kinda creeps me out some. I mean maps are cool and all but it freaked me out being able to walk around in the street view of Downtown Fargo and it was JUST LIKE BEIN' THERE. Except sometimes it switches from day to night real rapidly because they took the pictures at different times. But anyway, still crazy, or maybe creepy.

So I made a pretty basic map of how to get from my apartment to the library:
Check it out

It was very easy to do. I could see this being pretty useful. I'm thinking of some kind of citywide event, where there are different exhibits or demonstrations all over town, and the website has a link to google maps with all the points bulleted. Or, obviously, just having a link on the library website to show where we're located. I'm wondering now if there's a browser add-on somewhere that lets you click on any address in a browser window and have it look it up on google maps? They have one of that kind of thing for phone numbers and skype. Although it may be a little more difficult to distinguish an address. In any case, it shouldn't be too hard to make the address on the Moorhead LARL website a link to a google map showing its location.

I'd like to see a community-wide map of the city, where everyone can label their house to add information if they want to. Or you can label the exact spot where you think you lost your gloves. Then others can check the spot where THEY found some gloves and see if anyone labeled it? Or you could label like "This is where I saw the gorgeous redhead filling up her car's gas tank last Tuesday". And then if SHE'S looking for you too, she could totally see that and look you up somehow. Community billboard sounds awesome!

Thing 31: MORE TWITTER!

Oh how I do love Twitter. Getting to play with it for an hour and get paid for it is a sweet, sweet reward.

I think I'm starting to evolve to the next level of twitter. If this was JUST me and people I already knew I would still probably feel this rush of excitement, but I think there's even more to it than that. I'm starting to understand the appeal behind building a network, like so many of these twitter sites talk about. I could potentially MEET NEW PEOPLE through twitter. I could have contacts all over the country from this website. Interestingly, the presence of celebrities on twitter facilitates this somewhat - a bunch of people are attracted to the famous person, but in so doing become aware of each other and slowly build these other followers into their own network.

I adedd Mr. Tweet, who will recommend users to me that I should follow. I added a bunch more big power users. I checked my twitter ranking - turns out I have more "influence" than about half the community. Most of those are probably dead or one-time-use accounts, but still, I got some clout. I pledge to build this up.