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.

Thing 30 and the Temple of Doom

Well. I have my delicious and my RSS feed all set up. To be honest I'm kind of underwhelmed by it. First of all I apparently misunderstood the mechanism of RSS feeds this whole time. Apparently you can't just put in any old website you want and get updated as to when it has new content. The website has to have a specific RSS site feed you subscribe to. So basically a lot of really big websites are cool, but a lot of the smaller or independently operated ones I like don't have this option.

Beyond that, I guess I don't spend so much time looking at websites that I don't have time to check them all. I have a bookmarks list in my browser like I always have, and it's not too strenuous to go through and check stuff out when I need to. The one thing I'd like to have an RSS feed for is all the web comics I read, so that I could see when updates happened instead of checking them all individually, but the ones I like didn't all have RSS feeds available, so that's kinda out the window. Beyond that I don't really need to have alerts for every update on cnn.com, for example. I can just go there when I want to read the news.

Considering my lack of utility for these RSS feeds, I don't see how I'm going to use a lot of the featured tools. I definitely don't want to forward all the updates to my e-mail; my inbox gets cluttered up enough as it is. I kind of like the one that will forward updates to my twitter, if only because it gives me another excuse to use twitter. And the one that gives you personal reminders would be GREAT if I were more organized. Which I'm not, but maybe this will help.

I don't know if this one's gonna make the cut for long term use, either. I'll have to see. In the mean time I am going to move on to other Things and give this one a proper wrap up some time in the future.

Thing 30: Raiders of the Lost Ark

(Note: this will be a 3 part entry, hence the Indiana Jones titles, which was also a trilogy. I may add a fourth joke entry to complement that joke of a 4th movie, but do not hold your breath).

So, as this Thing requires that you have Delicious and/or RSS feeds to make it work, I spent my time today setting this up. I put a few bookmarks into delicious and I'm trying to figure out this "popular" section, although it doesn't actually seem to give you THE most popular followed websites, just some ones the webmaster apparently thought were cool.

This seems to be a problem with a lot of these "Web 2.0" sites. They get so caught up in how you can connect everything to everything else that they make it hard to do basic things by "Web 1.0" standards. And I grew up in web 1.0, so I demand the old stuff, dammit. I don't think it would be that hard to have a way to sort the popular followed websites so I could see what everyone else thinks is cool, but apparently you can only see what is new or what specific people think is best? Also, having your tagged items page called "Inbox" is REALLY confusing, since EVERYWHERE ELSE on the ENTIRE INTERNET uses this name for messages you've received. Who decided this?

Anyway, I will finish fleshing it out and using the RSS at home, then Part 2 will be initial observations on the Thing 30 tools.

PS new profile image, someone else made it so the eye color is wrong but I don't know where she did it and I think it's neat so it stays.

Things 28 & 29: google wrap up

I gotta say I didn't enjoy this as much as I have been some of the other Things (like Twitter!). I found iGoogle to be the same as it was last time I used it, which is to say it would've been useful if I didn't have all the stuff it offered me already in other areas. It's nice to have everything right there for you, but if I think about wanting movie times or wanting to see what the weather is I can just go to a website for that purpose, instead of changing my homepage from the one I've had for a long time (a comic I like). A lot of the other applications had pretty limited or novelty use, so I just couldn't get myself into it. I could see this being a lot more helpful for people who don't necessarily know a lot of websites with content they might want, or are uncomfortable using search engines. Then they could have everything right where they need it instead of having to search. For me, though, it just wasn't that great.

Google tools, then suffered from the same kind of problem. They're useful little gadgets that can work if you just want basic information, but none of it is necessarily stellar to me as far as calendars, schedulers and etc. I still like some of the "beta" programs, though.

Thing 29 Part 1: Google Tools

Since I only started up the iGoogle experiment yesterday and I had more Things time today, I'm moving on to the next one and will post a thing 28 follow up later.

I'm having a lot of fun with the Google Labs section of the tools, where they let you try out a bunch of programs or tools that they're developing but haven't necessarily released for ful public consumption yet. Some of these have been around for a while, but might keep their place in the "Labs" section because they aren't as practical as the tools on the main page. For example, there's one called Google Trends which lets you look at which search terms have been the most popular over the past day or so. It's really cool to see how many searches have been done on something, and there's a little sidebar linking to relevant to news sites with relevant content explaining why something is suddenly popular -for example, one of the top searches was on "Ryan Adams", and when I clicked there were a bunch of links to his and Mandy Moore's announcement that they're engaged. I hadn't heard about this yet, but apparently a lot of people have. This could be a really useful tool to measure what MOST people think is noteworthy or what they want to know more about. I think Google is going to give a pretty accurate cross section of America's population.

Other than that, some of the other features I used were a bit dull. I experimented with SearchWiki, which lets you organize your google search results based on websites you like or dislike, and saves this information for when you search for the same term again. I couldn't really see any great use for this one. I don't know why I'd be searching for the same information over and over again, and if I find a website I like I'll more than likely just save it to my favorites. I guess if you have a computer you only use for specific jobs you could potentially use this to keep relevant stuff on top? But I'd rather just use del.icio.us or something if I really needed that.

I already have gmail, so I don't feel exactly right saying that's a new tool I tried, but I do like it and consider it easy to use, so it has that going for it.

My main goal this time, then, is going to be to continue to root around in the google tools until I find something I feel I can use in my everyday life.

Thing 28: iGoogle

This one isn't nearly as much of a mystery to me, as I'm pretty familiar with customized home pages from the past. I actually used an iGoogle in the past but didn't care for it, but as long as we're required to do this for the program I may as well throw myself into it. So here we go!

First, I cut out a lot off the gimmicky gadgets I put on there a couple years ago. They get old prrrrretty fast and then they just take up a lot of room looking dumb. So comics and Pac-Man went away, along with the 7 or so new sources I had on there because, let's be honest, I'm not gonna read all that. Sorry.

I kept weather, movie times, gmail box and the wikipedia link, and I added the dictionary and free iTunes downloads. All of this will hopefully cut down on a little bit of running around online (for example, I usually just type dictionary.com every time I want to look something up, same with movies). I'm not sure how the service is, because I don't necessarily know where the widgets come from. So I'll see how I like the results.

So, goals for next time:
1) I will change my google.com bookmark at home to igoogle.com and try it out.
2) I will make an effort to add an outside widget to the homepage (I couldn't find where to add html, and my allotted time was running out).

A little simpler this time because I know what I'm doing, it's just to test drive this and see if I like it more pared-down.