Wrap It Up, I'll Take It

Well, here I sit with five minutes left in my day, and a headache the size of a casaba melon. Allow me to take a few moments to reflect on these exercises. While I tend to think of myself as not being too tech savvy, I found that many of these exercises encompassed a lot of what I knew. It was surprising to see how well informed I am on a number of these technologies. That said, I felt like I learned a few things here and there, as should be reflected in my posts. I don't know if I'll incorporate a lot of this in my day to day life or work, but it is nice to see how some of these applications might be incorporated some day. I imagine a lot of this will pass away from the web or come out in different versions. I suppose as the technology changes we will be able to add some to what we do. It is an exciting time. The information age is in full swing, and we are in the middle of it. I suspect we will keep treading water and keep from going under as we adapt the new technologies.

Alt-Blog

Yuck! Yeah, not a fan. I can't see how I would use these. In fact, as I'm prone to say, I spent little time on these sites because I found them to be so lousy. I have plenty of ways to communicate with people, and I imagine the library has plenty of ways to disseminate information as well. This seems like a poor way of doing it. Needless to say, I'm not recommending it for others.

Video Killed the Television Star

I found this ad on Viddler.com, which seemed appropriate. It is a PSA to entice children to read. There is no reason we can't add components of this to places on our website. We say to people, read, read, read, and then we do little in ways of motivating them. Advertising is effective. I know I like to buy things. Children are even more susceptible.

YouTube is my favorite of these sites. The size makes it more useful and somehow it has always met my needs. The ability to have vast amounts of information makes a site better, especially if they do a decent job of organizing it. As I looked at Metacafe, I found the layout to be decent. I did not like the ads that they place on the video as it ran. I found it annoying. I like video online because I don't have to watch ads, so this ruins the experience for me. I wasn't particularly wild about bliptv either.

Podcasts for Podpeople

This is another exciting area in my book, especially for those that like listening to their information. At home, I use ITunes to get at information. I find these tend to be more professionally put together. I subscribe to a few, yet I don't listen to them all that often. I think it is more a matter of my habits than with the product, which is pretty great.

Of the other sites listed, Yahoo! seems to be the worst. It isn't organized well and is a little messy. It would hurt to have some categorization for them. Podcast Alley and Podcast.net are similar in my mind, though Podcast Alley comes out on top for me. I simply like the functionality of it better. Also, it has ratings for the podcasts, which is helpful in finding new and interesting things to listen to.

Sweet Music

I like Pandora quite a lot. In fact, I've already blogged about it on another blog. I use it occasionally however. I like using it as a way to listen to bands that I already like.

Mango is by far the coolest of these sites. I love the idea of providing language skills for free. I can see this being a useful site for people learning a second language. The problem becomes one of access for people learning online. I think many people learning English in our community would be surprised to learn that they could use this in our libraries.

The Internet Archive has a way to go, unless of course you are down with the Dead. I'm not. Over 4000 videos of Dead concerts? Really? I don't know if every piece of information needs to be preserved. Kudos to them though.

Finally, yes, CD's are dead. Sorry folks.

Google Docs

Google Docs, should I say it, rocks. It eliminates the need for Microsoft Word for most people. It doesn't have quite as many functions, though I don't think I would notice. I think it's a harbinger of things to come on the Internet. We have to remember that the web is in its infancy. The amount of invention and the rate of invention for items on the web will only increase as more people engage in it and as it becomes a larger part of our economy. Like any emerging industries, there will be booms and busts, but I think it is fair to say that it will continue to evolve. YouTube wasn't even on the radar five years ago, and now it is ubiquitous. Since more and more people will be using web applications for work and for fun, the library absolutely needs to have a strong presence in this area.

Strong Opinions

As requested, I have "strong" opinions about the sites we've been asked to review during this segment.

The Blog Readability Test: Meh! Typically, not seen as a strong opinion, which is why I included the exclamation point. This is a parlor game as a website, and not terribly interesting at that. Furthermore, the algorithm for how they determine readability is absent. Since they don't tell me how it is being done, I can't trust it. I suspect it has everything to do with certain vocabulary words and nothing to do with anything else. In a sense, this is worthless. You are better off checking this type of thing using Word, which gives you readability and grade level information and shows you how it is determined.

Sketchcast: I will never use this site. It is an amusement, and since I don't draw I don't find it very amusing.

Scrabulous: I love this game and this site. Unfortunately, you better get to this section of Facebook soon as HASBRO, the makers of Scrabble, have filed suit. It seems to me they have a point, and unless there is some amazing settlement, we may not have Scrabulous to play much longer. I've played a total of two games, so I'll likely get over it. You don't miss what you never really had.

Wordshoot: I would have played this game so much as a kid when I was learning to type. This is one of those games that you feel good about playing and good about winning. I'm strongly in favor of it.

YahooAnswers: I abhor this site. I don't want to get my answers from such random people. It is the equivalent of yelling your question in a stadium and hoping someone has a decent answer. There's a reason a lot of the answers aren't very good and it's because there is very little incentive for answering them well. None. Lousy site.