Web 2.0 in My Life

Note: This was orginally posted in response to a class discussion about how/why use Web 2.0.

I confess, I Twitter, blog, read over 440 blogs a day, and I’m on Facebook and MySpace. Why? Um…I hang out with a young crowd?  I’m not sure.  Now, I don’t expect this to change any minds, but I thought I’d give a *bit* of insight into how I use this technology.

I started on Twitter a few months ago when a friend showed me the TweetDeck app. With TweetDeck, I can update and see updates on both my Facebook and Twitter, so I don’t have to go to Facebook to read my friends’ updates. I do have my Twitter settings on private so that I have to approve everyone who “follows” me. My followers on Twitter now are mostly my younger (early 20’s) and tech-savvy friends. At first, I thought Twitter was odd and useless. Now I use it as a cross between a mass-text message and as a way to share funny/interesting things that happen to me (i.e. seeing a guy wearing a scrunchie. I thought this was rather odd!).

I started my blog when I was moving from Seattle to Pittsburgh last year.  At that point, I had friends in 5 countries and 15 States, so emailing them all what I was doing (or not doing) was becoming a pain. Who wants a mass email when you *know* it’s a mass email when it’s on a blog? To that end, my blog is now followed by readers in 7 countries and 30 States! Friends of friends started reading, I suppose.  I write about my cats, my thoughts about librarianship, and my travels.  I don’t write about my inner thoughts; that’s what a journal’s for.

Facebook and MySpace were no-brainers for me. I’ve lived overseas, and acquired a lot of folks I wanted to stay in contact with. MySpace was just taking off when I came back State-Side, so I joined. This was a great way for us to stay connected. Facebook was more popular among my law school friends, so I joined to stay in contact with them.  Now, I rarely update on MySpace, but do update on Facebook at least once a week.

Now to reading 440+ blogs a day.  I really couldn’t do that without an RSS reader (I use Google Reader).  I read a wide variety of blogs organized into folders: Job postings, news (national and local), health information, housewife (recipes, money savers, cleaning tips), crafts (quilting, knitting, general crafts), Pittsburgh (my friend’s blogs and blogs about Pittsburgh), Interesting (videos, Mental Floss Blog, funny stuff, it’s a miscellaneous folder), Library (library blogs and news), Legal (legal blogs and news), Newsy (Consumerist, feminist blogs, semi-news type blogs), Music (blogs for the bands I like), Quotes and Grammar (Pictures, including Cake Wrecks, misused grammar and misspellings), Fuzzies (animal pictures and blogs), and Pix (picture blogs).  My news feeds include the NY Times and Guardian UK, so this is the main way I get my news.  I can get through my blog reading in less than 2 hours a day – about the amount of time I spent reading the newspaper before and now I get a wider variety of information.

West Virginia Road Trip

For the Fourth of July Weekend, I decided I needed to get out of town.  So I rented a car, printed some directions and was off to traverse the state routes of West Virginia because, well, why not?

I left Friday night, and drove the interstate to Morgantown, then drove the state routes to Elkins.  I stayed at the Graceland Inn at Davis and Elkins College.  The Inn was right out of Jeeves and Wooster!

Graceland Inn

And here’s the view from my room – the valley that is Elkins.

View of Elkins

There was a classic car show in the park across from campus, but I forgot to take pictures!  I drove around looking for dinner and was so stunned by this sign -

Humbertos

I ate Mexican food in West Virginia.  As P told me today, “There’s something very wrong with that sentence – ate Mexican food in West Virginia.”  I agree, but I was stunned by seeing a ‘bertos sign!

I drove around Elkins some more, and as I was getting chilly and didn’t have a coat with me, I stopped at the Goodwill and picke dup an awesome jacket for $4!  Then I headed back to the hotel and watched some TV.  I watched What Not to Wear, Deadliest Catch, Forensic Files, a Michael Jackson special (I think it was Dateline), and CSI Miami.  I fell asleep at some point, and woke at 3 am to turn off the TV.

In the morning, 4th of July, I drove south from Elkins to Mt. Hope (outside Beckley).  I stopped at a convenience store for a breakfast of a pepperoni roll and coffee.  I continued on to Mt. Hope and found a cute little antique store – Aide’s (I kid you not!).  I found the cutest little plastic picnic set (only $5! and it matches my melmac collection!) -

Picnic Set

And I found a journal from the early 1930’s that a woman used to record her travels around PA, WV, and NY.

Travel Journal

Travel Journal

Then I went to largest single span bridge in the Western Hemisphere at the New River Gorge National Park.  Of course, I forgot to take pictures.  I swear, the only reason I took pictures on my cross-country drive was because E was taking pictures too!

Then I checked into my hotel and went to Kroger where I picked up my 4th of July feast.

Hotel Picnic

Actually, I ate some of it for dinner and had plenty to eat on the road the next day.  Of course, I watched more TV – Dogs 101, Forensic Files, CSI Las Vegas, CNN, a debate on C-SPAN (I know, I’m a total dork!), part of a spooky movie on HBO, part of a movie on Lifetime, and Animal Hospital or some such on the Animal Planet.

I woke up Sunday to rain!  The rain cleared after an hour or so, and I took the state routes up to Wheeling.  I took the interstate to Washington, PA, and then took the 40 east to the 51 north to Pittsburgh.  10 hours of driving on Sunday, and worth every minute of it!

There’s nothing like a good road trip to clear my head and make me focused.

Updating is Hard

I’m overwhelmed right now – work, work, work (that’s 3 jobs), school, applying for jobs, conferences.  I just haven’t got the time right now to blog.  I have so much I want to write about here, but no time to get the thoughts out in an organized manner.  I’m taking the afternoon off and reading for fun, just to keep my brain from exploding.  Maybe I’ll post something more exciting tomorrow or Monday.  Or maybe not.

Iran Election and Social Media

It’s been an amazing week.  As you may know, I was at a conference earlier this week and I’ll post more on that Sunday or Monday.  Today, I’m compelled to talk about the aftermath of the Iranian Election and Social Media.

Let’s start with the definition of Social Media.  Social Media is the creation of news and information by technology users.  The applications I’ll be talking about here are YouTube, Twitter,  and Blogs.

Likewise, let’s look at the facts, as we currently know them, about the Iranian Election.  The BBC has a run down of who the key players are.  The BBC also presents a Q&A of what happened with the election.  As I was posting this, this is the first time I have read about the election from traditional media.  This may seem odd, but I get most of my information from a mix of social and traditional media.  In this instance, social media has been presenting me enough information that I have not felt the need until now to look at traditional media for answers.

So if we put social media together with the Iranian Election we get unfiltered news and views from the populous regarding what happened.  How does this all work?  It’s about sharing information, and links to that information, to inform more people to get the word out on what is happening.  The New York Times today discussed how useful social media is to getting information out to the people.  YouTube is filled with raw footage of what’s going on inside Iran.  Twitter is going crazy with the “IranElection” hashtag (a hashtag is a way of labelling the twitter post to make it searchable and show a trend).  In fact, the Iranian government even created Twitter feeds to counter the information put out by the populous.  Even Facebook and Google are getting in on the action, by rolling out Persian-language versions and translators.  Other technology is helping to get the word out – texting, picture sharing sites, blogs, and old-fashioned (in the technology sense) phone calls.

What is most interesting to me is the personal views about what’s going on in Iran right now.  these personal views bring home what is happening and how it impacts people I know.  My sister’s friend blogged about what she’s feeling; a news blog I read, Slog, posted photos and information texted out of Tehran.  Another blog, from the New York Times, has been updating regularly about what’s going on in Iran.  My sister’s friend has also been using Twitter to spread information.  A link she shared on Twitter today has a list of 10 videos of the aftermath of the election in Iran.  The 7th video brought tears to my eyes because of the beautiful poetry spoken (and subtitled) over the night scene in Tehran.

It’s important to note that social media is not necessarily creating the protests, but is used to advertise, inform, and show the protests.  In some instances, there is no context for the information; in other cases, there is sufficient context to follow what is going on with out the need to view other sources.  It’s also important to note that the information sent via social media doesn’t have an editor or fact-checker.  In this sense, it’s not nearly as reliable as traditional media.  However, since the Iranian government has blocked traditional media from sending reports, it’s the best we have for now.  That said, social media is not necessarily telling lies; it would be pretty hard to fake some of the videos.  The traditional media has picked up on the pictures of the unrest.  And the alternative media is also trying to get a grip on what’s happening.

Is this the future of news?  In some ways I say yes.  When the traditional media is effectively banned from reporting, it up to the people, where ever they are, to report what’s going on around them.  However, I don’t see this replacing traditional media altogether as we need vetted, reliable information as well as the unfiltered information.  I see traditional media using more and more social media, and I believe this is the way traditional media will survive.

A Night Out

Tonight, I volunteered for Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania at Pride.  I helped hand out condoms and information for STD testing.  Afterwards, the friends I was volunteering with wanted to go out to dinner, so we went to Yokoso.  It was so much fun!  The chef cooks right at the table, lighting things on fire, and chopping up the food and throwing it on the plate!  It was awesome!

I leave for the first of 2 conferences tomorrow.  I probably won’t be blogging until I get back at the end of the week.  I’ll let you know how my first professional conference goes!

From the Fur-Babies

Ohai, iz Lily Jane Buttons, Lillerbutts to mai mahm.

I’z typez wifout thumbs.  Iz typez gud.  I likes sit in win-doe.  Here pikshur.  

My brudder, Figo, iz thumbcat and like baffi himself.  Mahm took pikshur of hims during baffitime (baffitime on hiz term).  

Uh-oh, gotta go, mahm come, don’t dunno posts on teh interwebs!

Ducks, Life, and Such

So I’m writing this post during the hockey game (sacrilege, I know) but I’ve just been so busy lately for no apparent reason.  Work, school, Book Kart Drill Team…it all adds up to time I’ve spent neglecting my blog.  That, and well, there’s really nothing exciting to share.  I haven’t had much of  a social life, unless you count feeding ducks a couple weeks ago. 

 

Odd Ducks

Geese and Odd Ducks

There are these not really mallard ducks.  They’re odd ducks.  Very cute though.  We can’t wait to see their chicks.  If you know what kind of ducks they are, please do tell.  We think the mallard-like one looks like an American Saxony,  and the whiter one looks like a Buff.  Both look like the drakes!  Or it looks like a black call drake and snowy (white) call hen (scroll down this page).   Any one else care to weigh in?

Yep, that’s the extent of my social life right now….

bloging

I am here finding out all about blogging.  This is the first time I ever posted a blog!  Ya Hoo!

I’m a blog virgin

I’m being coerced into blogging…by a library studies student…help

I am blogging!

Well, they said it would never happen, but I’m really doing it.  But only because Jamie made me.