De.li.cious is so..delicious. :)

I finally updated my de.li.cious account. I had a ton of bookmarks saved on my laptop's Internet browser, and instead of having to input each URL individually, I was able to create an HTML file from my browser and upload this file into de.li.cious. That was a big time saver! In less than a minute, de.li.cious tagged my bookmarks (I asked it to do this for me) and showed me how many other people have this bookmark in their collection. If I want to, I can view the bookmark collections of those other folks (if they keep their collections public).

Now that I am collecting bookmarks on research strategies and research methods, I will have to add those (they are on my computer at work), and would like to see who else is collecting bookmarks on those topics.

wis.dm

I Googled "social networking sites" last night, and discovered wis.dm, a social networking site where people can ask questions and have them answered. Although there is no chat feature available through this site, the questions that people ask on this website lead to some interesting discussions. It is a highly addictive website!

Thing 27: Twitter

Twitter is described as a "social networking and micro-blogging service". Micro-blogging is right--I set up my Twitter account today, and discovered that "tweets" are limited to 140 characters! In fact, you can watch the number 140 in the upper right hand corner of your "tweet" quickly decrease as you chirp along. Otherwise, Twitter is similar to Facebook.

One of my friends has a Twitter connection to his cell phone, so that he can tweet frequently about what is happening in his life without having to use his computer and without having to actually talk to people. This particular friend is living in Israel right now, doing military service, and of course we are all concerned about him and want to make sure that he is alive. To read his tweets is a comfort. I receive his tweets as an RSS feed on my personal LiveJournal account.

Another one of my friends uses Twitter to take notes for longer pieces of writing (more detailed blog posts or presentations). He used Twitter to follow the presidential campaign and elections, and he also uses it to tweet about court cases in the news.

I can see myself using Twitter more for quick journalistic purposes, and less for social purposes...I have Facebook for that...in any case, I will be tweeting on Twitter tonight while I watch the Oscars. (My Twitter name, BTW, is voxpopulare in case you would like to follow my tweets.)

Thing 26: Ning!

A "ning" is an online platform where people can create their own social networks. I suppose it is a hybrid term to mean "networking ring", although "ning" also means "Peace" in Chinese. The Palo Alto company probably cashed in on this fact to woo liberal, New Agey Gen Xers to their site.

If it were not for 23 More Things on a Stick, I would have never achieved the state of "ning". The structure and features of the site are similar to Facebook; I like the ning's features better because they are larger and easier to read. So far I have uploaded a gadget to my ning page, commented on someone else's ning, added two fellow librarians to my ning, and joined one of the forums. I will not use the ning for blogging at this point...I currently have my Blogger account, as well as a LiveJournal account for personal blogging, and I don't have much time to keep a third blog. Ning, like Facebook, will most likely be used for short correspondence. Unlike Facebook, however, I might use Ning for professional networking rather than personal.

Outside of 23 More Things on a Stick, I can see myself creating a specialized ning network for my film festival work, in order to communicate with people on my film review committee as well as potential filmmakers and other festival organizers.