Twitter

I have never looked at Twitter before now, but I hear about it a lot. Mostly this is on news shows or places that want to promote themselves, where they add, "or follow us on Twitter, at ..."
In a way it's another media being used heavily for promotion.
It is an idea that is made for mobile devices. Short comments, easily read on small screens and easily typed on small keypads.
They seem to have smart rules about use of names, spam, etc., I wonder if anyone has got around that yet. I was impressed that it is so simple that it can be used on very simple devices, without fast internet access.
It really is getting harder to lead a simple life...away from all the information that can come your way whether you're looking for it or not! I'm not sure how people have time to use all of this.

Library Thing

I am on GoodReads so was interested in looking at Library Thing to see how the two sites compare. They both do the same basic thing, provide a space for collecting lists of books, checking reviews and sharing lists with others. I found Library Thing easy to get around in, but very similar to GoodReads. I liked the recommendations of other titles immediately following the book entry in Library Thing,and I like that they both use the 5 star rating system. I'm familiar with GoodReads and have my lists there so that is where I will stay. Also, Crowfoot has an account and has a number of lists that I refer to. One of the things I appreciate about this type of site is the ease of keeping lists of what I have read and also books my son has enjoyed. It helps me when I have a customer who is looking for a book I know, but can't recall the name of. A great Readers Advisory tool.

Online Productivity Tools

This takes a bit of time to check out!
I managed to upload a document and learned about not converting to Google Docs format as that means page breaks get lost. This seems like it would have potential to keep my own documents in a format I could use from any computer connected to the web. I'm not sure this will take the place of other products ie Microsoft yet but as more people use them and they get better at "fitting" each other they will start to become the norm. When that happens, look out Microsoft! The value of Microsoft now is they are the norm and therefore compatible with most peoples software, and computer literate people likely know the software. (Microsoft has done a good job of marketing!)

I tried the calendar a year or so ago but found it cumbersome because I do not have a computer in my purse. It was nice to see my calendar from home or work, but my husband could not get in the habit of adding to it so it was just an extra job to maintain. The paper one in my purse, handy at the Drs. office, on the phone or at work just works better for me.

Flickr and YouTube

OMG I am so far behind on this!

I found both Flickr and YouTube user friendly, however I have not uploaded content to either of them. I can get around the sites, search, and if you read the screen you can follow what to do. The things you can make with Flickr intrigues me - cards especially. I have used YouTube more, as many videos from individual consumer reviews, to how to instructions are in YouTube formats. BTW my son really liked the Did You Know 4.0 video, commenting, "It was very informative and not boring!" Personally the information went way to fast for my brain. I have had to watch it 4 times now!

The world is sure changing..."what was the size of a building" when I was a kid will be "the size of a blood cell" when I'm old.

RSS

This was a brand new one for me. I found it a challenge at first to create the account and did not want to have yet another account and password. So my son suggested because I have a Gmail account (now two!) that I use Google Reader to subscribe to RSS feeds. I tried CBC News and Global News. Just today there are 20 headlines with the two subscriptions! I can't imagine having the time to review these daily! It will be interesting to see how it goes over several weeks.

Using Google Reader I made another discovery. Signed on with the same Gmail account I have on my blog, the posts from those blogs I am "following" show up like the RSS feeds!

Ah hah! Now I know how Allison is keeping up with all of us!

The future of hardcopy news seems more at risk than ever!

The Google World!

I think Google is a very successful product. There seems to always be something new that Google can do - in our "quick and dirty" world it is a great fit. Calculator, postal code locator, conversions, spelling, in addition to narrowing down a good search through Scholar - it is working on becoming indispensable! I have a gmail account (the one that I use for the suspect sites and potential spam sources) and I use Google Maps, and Google Earth especially to check out places for holidays. We found we could see the hotel we were planning on staying at in Paris a few years ago. The street view feature is interesting for finding a potential address as well.

I like Google because it is a fast, easy way to navigate in this very big internet world. I recommend it to people for this exact reason. It is also a way to access all the products Google offers (kind of like a virtual big box store).

Facebook

I've had a Facebook account for about a year now. I started it as a way to keep in touch with my nieces and nephews who post holiday pictures and talk about what's happening in their lives here. The 18-30 yr olds use it a lot; I'd not be up on their lives at all without this. It reminds me of when e-mail started to become more common and it became an easy way I kept in touch with one of my brothers who travelled a lot with his work.

My page is not under my current surname because everyone with the name wants to be your friend and it gets annoying!

On the positive, I am finding it's a way for grassroots groups to get organized and distribute information quickly, though there is a lot of sifting one has to do to get to real information sometimes.

On the negative, it can be an incredible time waster!