Blog post: Twitter for Librarians: The Ultimate Guide

A Twitter-buddy John Whiteside found this. The blogger, Christina Laun, includes information on:

• What is Twitter?
• Ways To Use Twitter
• Guides
• Studies and Articles
• Tools and Add-ons
• Libraries Using Twitter

This is much more organized that my ramblings on Twitter and hopefully will give librarians -- and others -- ideas of how to use it. Of course, in order to know if it will work for you, you'll have to jump in and try it (REALLY try it, not just a two-second look-see).

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Technorati tag: Twitter

Article: Big Changes Coming to Profile Pages on Facebook

Quoting...

The biggest change: user profiles on the service will evolve from a single, flat and often cluttered page into four tabbed sub-pages dubbed feed, info, photos and applications.

And...

The changes come as Facebook aims to simplify its user pages, which have become as cluttered with applications, photos and information as pages on MySpace — long criticized by visual purists as being a bit too visually chaotic.

For more, read the full article. My take is that this will indeed help with the clutter, which can be the biggest annoyance of Facebook. Will it help Facebook become more popular? Its growth is slowing, which could just be a sign that it has reached its natural saturation.

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Technorati tag: Facebook

Survey reports that hiring managers are turning to online social sites

An article in the May 16, 2008 Central New York Business Journal reports that many hiring managers are turning to online social networkings in order to find new employees. The survey, done by ICR, an independent market research firm, reported that:

...62 percent would turn to professional networking sites such as LinkedIn, and 35 percent would refer to social networking sites, like Facebook or MySpace.

Colleen Accetta, branch manager for Robert Half Finance & Accounting, said:

It can't replace the personal touch, obviously. It can't replace the traditional hiring process but it certainly opens the field for you to include employee referrals, working with specialized recruiting firms, just casting a wider net, I believe.

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Technorati tags: Social Networking Tools, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn

Meme: Passion Quilt

This meme has been circulating around the Internet. The (almost) Bald Trainer did a general tagging of people, and I decided to participate.

I truly believe that kids of all ages need to exercise their imaginations. When you imagine, you wonder what and why, as well as where and how. You imagine how it could be as well as how it once was. Your imagination leads to you ask questions and seek out answers. It pulls you into new directions and helps you grow.

3 Simple Meme Rules:

• Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
• Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry. (Known origin of the meme is here.)
• Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter/Pownce.

Tag! You Are It: Although this meme has been circulating among librarians, I'm including a couple non-libraries in my "tag" because I think they will have an interesting perspective.

• David Fulton
• Mitch Mitchell
• Kelvin Ringold
• Polly Farrington
• SLA IT Division bloggers

If you are curious, feel free to read other responses to the meme.

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Technorati tags:Meme, Passion Quilt

When is a deal not a deal

Seth Godin wrote:

"May I help you?"

... is almost a useless thing to say.

I spent a lot of time on a chat session this afternoon trying to cancel a service. (A lot of time means more than few minutes.) It is a service whose value disappeared months ago and I'm finally trying to cancel. Except the customer service person, who wants to be helpful, won't cancel it. Instead the person give me a deal for the next two months. But the deal is not a deal, because I no longer value the service and really don't want the deal. (How many different ways can I say "cancel"?)

As I sat typing on the keyboard, I wondered if this company's business model is changing and it is struggling with how to survive. Faxing used to be very important. Then being able to fax from your computer became cool. Now we send document through email. The fax is no longer relevant.

It is likely that some of the tools we're using today will no longer be relevant tomorrow. If your the owner of a company behind one of those tools, keep an eye on your market, change as it changes, and find ways to remain relevant (even if that means changing to a new product).

BTW Seth Godin will be the closing keynote at a conference I'm attending in June. I have followed his writing for a long time. I read his book, Unleashing the Ideavirus on my PDA. All of us who are bloggers at the conference will be very interested to hear from this blogger/author extraordinaire. (Hey, there is a bloggers get-together Tuesday evening, if you want to come!)

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Technorati tag:Customer service

Who is following whom?

Online social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, for example, want you to see who you are connected to, and sometimes who they are connected to. This is your circle of influence or the circle from which you might find needed resources (even job openings).

TwitterWheel is the latest tool to visually show connections between people. Below is my TwitterWheel. These are all the people I'm following (on May 6, 2008) and then shows if they are following anyone else on the wheel.



I can hear you say, "this is cute and a waste." Perhaps. What I see, when I look at some of the detail, are people who should be introduced to each other. These are people who are not following each other, but should be. I also see newsfeeds that I am following that I should tell others about. I see more connections that need to be made, so the circle of influence is stronger.

Thanks to Maurice for showing me this tool.

Note: May 7, 9 a.m., TwitterWheel seems to be broken. Bad timing. I do hope it is fixed soon.

May 9, 2008, 11:30 a.m., WOW...TwitterWheel is GONE! What happened? Was it just a flash in the pan?

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Technorati tags: Connecting, Twitter

What online social networking tools are you using? Answers from a group of consultants

I asked a group of consultants which online social networking tools they were using, and here are their answers. How many are you familiar with?

• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Xing
• Ryze
• Plaxo
• Connects (5/27/2008: likely this is Konnects)
  
• Second Life
• Yahoo Groups
• Forums (generic)
• E-mail

I am unsure what "Connects" is and a web search doesn't quickly surface a likely candidate. So if you are using Connects, please tell us the URL! Thanks!

Notice that no one mentioned Google Groups or Twitter. I know that some members are using Twitter, but they weren't there that day. And perhaps some are using Google Groups, but don't realize it. Of course, the question they might ask themselves is what tools should they be using!

Updated 5/27/3008

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Technorati tag: Connecting