Week 10, Assignment #20 Twitter

This is one the assignments that I was really looking forward to. I'm glad to have finally reached it. The two parts to it, and I did both, were to do some Searching and/or to set up a Twitter account.

A. Twitter Search- I found several UMass entities on Twitter, and I could see how useful it could be for posting updates about events and things going on all over campus. The #1 UMass thing seemed to be an alum joining an NFL team (Dolphins). As far as "trending topics" go, it seemed like that was mostly music and quizes. I didn't know people did quizzes through Twitter. "Nifty Queries" boasted a "Cool filter: links" and the first thing I got was a porn thing. No thanks! When I did advanced searching I was unable to find what I was looking for. I think the abbreviations used on Twitter make it a little tricky to find what you are looking for sometimes.

B. Getting brave, I moved on to creating my own account. Finding a UserName was harder than I thought. Several of the names I tried were already taken. I guess that's a testament to how popular Twitter has become, or maybe it says something about my choice of names. Anyway, I finally found one that worked, and got myself set up. I imported some people to follow, and quickly had a list of a couple of dozen feeds- a mix of entertainment, news, friends, library related stuff (Found the Learning Commons FINALLY!) etc. Also very quickly I noticed I had a follower. I checked it out, and it turned out to be some sort of porn-bot thing I had to block. As I continued to poke around, checking out to see what things my friends were following, I noticed I had another follower. Sure enough, another porn-bot. Sigh. Maybe I should make myself hidden so I don't get these, or take out my real name in my profile or something. I definitely need to do something to filter out these annoyances.

On another note, I read the Wiki article, and noticed the section about privacy on Twitter. On Wikipedia it says that Twitter "collects personally identifiable information". I'm not sure I like that.

Practically speaking, Twitter is more useful than I expected. Although I do not need to tweet about the coffee I'm drinking, I see that Twitter is used by CNN, Barak Obama, the NRA, and lots of other organizations. Etsy is on there too! Politics, news, retailers, and others are using Twitter to advertise. I think Digg is kind of cool. So for this, Twitter could be useful. Getting news and updates quickly. That was a feature I had not expected to find.

Now I'm off to tweak my twitter to get rid of the porn-bots!

Week 7, Assignment #13 Learn about Wikis

" What did you find interesting? Would you use a wiki for information? What are the benefits and drawbacks to finding information this way? What do you like or dislike about using a Wiki? What types of applications within libraries might work well with a wiki?"

Looking through the Wikis that were suggested, I found some of them wouldn't load. Of the ones that did, several were entertaining. I was surprised by how much information Nancy Pearl's site had. BookLoversWiki was fun too, although not as complex as Pearl's. I've seen Library Success before, and who hasn't seen Wikipedia?? The Bull Run Library was interesting. I noticed it wasn't an official library thing though. It had some dead links in it too. Wikihow and WikiMusic seemed to be lacking a lot. I put in searches and got no results sometimes. I think the people who do the SimpsonsWiki have too much time on their hands. Of course the same could be said about the people who do the Star Wars Wiki too- http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

or the Star Trek Wiki- http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Portal:Main

I have looked up information on Wikipedia numerous times. It can be helpful for a quick reference. We also have been setting up a Wiki in the library to help share information between staff about how we do things. Sort of an online manual for our jobs. This seems to be something that the Wiki is very useful for. A centralized place to keep instructions on how to do our jobs, or where to keep lists of vendors, and other things.

As many have said before me, there are 3 things that people want- Fast, cheap, and good. You can never have all 3. Usually you have to pick 2. Wikis are fast and cheap, but not necessarily good. It has been proven many times that because Wikipedia is fairly open, misinformation can be broadcast through it, and people can be misinformed. However, if someone is looking for a free/cheap way to share information quickly with a large group of people, then Wikis are very good. I think the way we are using it- as a manual etc- is a great way for libraries and other organizations to utilize Wikis.