Week 6, Thing 14 - Explore Technorati

There's a huge difference in search results on Technorati when you search "Learning 2.0" in blog posts (I got 34,554) compared with searching the same term in tags or blog directory. The results when searching by tags or blog directory are more relevant to the search term, which makes sense. The 'search in blog posts' (in this instance) renders way too many results since it's just producing results by keywords.

As a blogger, the advantage of tagging is that your blog posts are more likely to be found by people searching for blog entries on your subject. However, one of the disadvantages is that there is no controlled vocabulary. It gives a blogger greater flexibilty to tag their posts with natural language keywords, but it can be tricky to figure out what terms to search as a blog searcher.

Looking through the popular blogs list on Technorati, I did find some interesting stuff. I was familiar with Boing Boing, but I wasn't familiar with Techcrunch or 43 Folders. Techcrunch is a blog "dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies." 43 Folders is "Merlin Mann’s site about personal productivity, life hacks, and simple ways to make your life a little better." I think Techcrunch and 43 Folders are great for keeping up with innovative technologies. I've added them both to my bloglines subscriptions.

Week 6, Thing 13 - del.icio.us

My thoughts after exploring del.icio.us...

The good - it's a great way to store/retrieve your bookmarks and to pick up new favorites by tag or popularity. Also, it's quick and easy to add sites to your favorites list with the del.icio.us buttons.

The not so good - in my opinion, it's a kind overboard with text. For a library's purposes, sharing links with a classification scheme, like this provides a cleaner and neater presentation. It would be useful to have 'subject specialty' accounts. I started to put together a del.icio.us account centered around one of my hobbies: arts and crafts, particularly those made with recycled materials. Here is my del.icio.us account so far. It's got a ways to go!


(Feeling the need to insert a picture ... here's one of my old discarded keyboard crafts)

Week 5, Thing 12 - Rollyo searchbox

I set up my Rollyo search tool to search a handful of San Jose sites so that it could be useful to look up local information and resources. I'm still tinkering with it and adding sites, and I'm trying to find an example of how it can make searches quicker. Hmmmm.

Select...San Jose InformationSearch The Web

EDIT: Testing a great idea for a search box by Classic Librarian:

Select...storytimeSearch The Web

Week 5, Thing 11 - Web 2.0 awards list

I explored most of the sites in the 'honorable mention' category for books on the SEOmoz's Web 2.0 Awards list. Librarything is awesome, but I've peeked ahead enough in the 23 things list to know we'll be exploring that later.

My new favorite site (courtesy of Seomoz's award list) is Coverpop. In the words of Coverpop's creator Jim Bumgardner, Coverpop is "is an interactive mosaic, made of tiny images." The mosaics are all put together with a theme, so it gives you a launching point to start a search for items of a similar type. These mosaics include covers of books, dvds, and even links to popular Youtube videos. Here are a few of my favorites (which would have a lot of use in a library setting!):

333 Non-fiction bestsellers - updated weekly - You can 'browse the shelves' of the most popular book covers all in one glance. If you find a title that catches your eye, you can mouse over to get author and title, or click on it and to get more information from amazon.com.

333 Fiction bestsellers - updated weekly - (same idea, with fiction book covers)

1001 Documentaries on dvd - Mouse over the DVD covers to see more information, click for amazon. The dvds on the left side of the mosaic are older and the ones on the right side are newer releases.

And just for fun... 500 gifts for geeks. I've spotted some things on that mosaic that I really need! ;)

Basically, Coverpop is a fun site for exploring for all kinds of new things through mosaics of thumbnail images.

Week 5, Thing 10 - Online image generator

Hetemeel.com has some funny images to work with, including Einstein. Here's mine:

Week 4, Thing 9 - Library related blogs and feeds

I spent a brief while exploring the suggested RSS search tools. Syndic8 is interesting because it highlights the 5 recently added, the 5 most popular feeds, and the most viewed feeds. It also highlights random syndicated feeds.

The one that was most useful is Topix because I found I could get local news stories most relevant to the Santa Teresa area in my bloglines feeds. Other library related RSS feeds I found include Librarians' Internet Index (New This Week), and Library Link of the Day.

Week 4, Thing 8 - Bloglines Newsreader

I subscribed to several blogs and news feeds on Bloglines, here's my public account:
http://www.bloglines.com/public/leftoverwhimsy

I think this is really great! I hadn't used Bloglines previously. It's a very quick and easy way to keep up with several blogs and news sites.