Technorati...nope, not a fan

Sorry, but I do not understand how or why I should be using Technorati. For this section of our Discover 2.0 project we were supposed to watch the video/take the tour & play around with the Percolating & Popular features. Problem is, I can't figure out how to navigate their site without going back to the FVRL Discover 2.0 blog and clicking the links. In other words, I haven't figured out how to go anywhere directly & on purpose. Plus, it's kind of boring. Maybe that's the frustration talking.

I did eventually sort of figure out how to do the Advanced Search to search for "Learning 2.0" in the tags & in the posts. (Got different results with some overlap.) Never figured out how to search the blog directory. Couldn't even find the directory except as it was linked from the blog post that's linked from the FVRL blog. Not useful to me! I did watch that video embedded in the 2006 blog post (the one linked from the FVRL blog). Tiny screen, zooming around doing...I don't even remember what. And it seems like they've changed their interface since the time they made the video, because it looks totally different to me. Or else I was in the wrong spot? I don't know. I seriously doubt I'll be using this in the future. Not unless someone comes up with a better explanation for why or how I should.

Did I just miss something? Something obvious or useful that my brain is too tired to see right now?

More funny Library Week videos!

These just crack me up, so I have to share the latest ones. Enjoy!!










Now don't these just make your day a little brighter? :)

Dealing with Del.icio.us

This whole Del.icio.us thing makes sense to me...in theory. Sounds great! Love the tagging concept. In reality, however, it's more confusing and difficult to navigate. I tend to ignore it because I can never remember the IS desk password to even see our account tags. And this week when I've been playing around on our account, finding all kinds of great things, I've only barely managed to navigate anywhere on purpose. It seems like I find most things via serendipity, especially since I only just realized you can scroll down forever & ever to view all the listed tags. But so much of the site depends on the tagger & the searcher thinking of the same word(s) to describe the same thing. And I discovered by accident that depending on when a particular link got added (tagged) and where the tagger's brain was that day, not all similar links are grouped under the same tag(s). For example, it took several tries of floundering around within the One Minute Critic link to find all of the videos I'd done--a known quantity--so how can you ever be certain you've found all related items in the event that you don't know how many exist?

And why can you not search within an account's tags? You can search the Del.icio.us site as a whole, or the whole web, but not the account. What's up with that?

Bottom line: I think Del.icio.us has great potential, but it's nowhere near as useful yet as I would wish it to be for making my daily (work) life easier. Maybe spending more time getting accustomed to it would help. Or maybe it would just frustrate me more. Only one way to find out, I suppose! So onward to the next step in this 2.0 process....

Playing around on Facebook & Meebo

Ooooh, telling us to sign up with Facebook (or MySpace) is a dangerous thing! I've become addicted, especially since I rediscovered several long-lost friends from childhood & college. I learned how to upload some photos, post on people's walls, send messages.... I'm still trying to figure out the deal with all these applications you can add. And what is the point of this "poking" thing? Very strange.

Today on Meebo I figured out how to change my buddy icon. Not very personalized yet, but at least it's not the photo of some man I don't recognize. (My first attempt was sort of an accident.) Now I need to start remembering to change my status message when I leave my desk or whatnot. But I like the Firefox Meebo add-on Sara told me about that keeps my buddy list in a side pane within Firefox so I can still get things done online and keep an eye on who's logged in all at the same time. (Thankfully, most of my friends seem to be offline most of the time, thereby reducing the temptation to chat instead of work.)

One thing I find REALLY annoying is how often Facebook is too busy to load. What's up with that? They need to add more servers or something. Drives me crazy when I can't navigate the site or post something and have to keep trying & trying until suddenly it goes through or the page decides it's now in the mood to load. Argh. Still...I keep trying. Addiction is a powerful motivator. Or perhaps Facebook is really some sociology professor's grand experiment? With young adults instead of mice, and computers instead of pushing bars to get the food pellets? Something to think about....

Hilarious videos!! (for National Library Week)