Article: Vatican warns mobile phones are bad for the soul

Yup...mobile phones and the Internet = bad. Although Pope Benedict is using social tools, etc., to spread his message. So is he sending a mixed message?

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Technorati tag: Social Networking Tools

#hashtags in Twitter

You may have seen people used the # in front of a word in Twitter and wondered what it meant. Called hashtags, these are a way of indexing a conversation in Twitter, so it can become more visible. Hashtags have been used for conferences as well as newsmaking events. The concept was created by hashtags.org. Documentation for the feature is on their blog. To use hashtags, you should follow the twitter person hashtag, then hashtag will be able to find the tweets more effectively. To search hashtags, go to hashtags.org.

Hashtags tend to be very topical. For example, one of the important hashtags for today (Nov. 28, 2008) is #mumbai, which has been providing status and news of the critical situation there. Noting the importance of social media, one person twittered, "Just that social media reporting got us better, fast & accurate info than mainstream."

If you have not used hashtags, you should get familiar with them, so you can use them when necessary. Recognized them as a useful tool, but also recognize that they may not always help you communicate important information quickly. As I look at hashtags.org, I see that the feed is way behind perhaps due to the volume of hashtags being used, so the news it provides is not always up-to-the-minute.

Related post: Using hashtags in Twitter

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Technorati tag: Twitter

Google kills Lively (I hardly knew thee)

Actually, I never even tried Google's virtual world, Lively. I find my time for virtual worlds to be limited and I really didn't have the gumption to dive into Lively...especially when it didn't get rave reviews. According to one article, Lively got a lot of use when it first launched, but the usage flat-lined. Google has announced that it will re-deploy people who were working on Lively to other projects.

To read more abut the demise of Lively, go to:

• Google shutting down virtual world 'Lively'
  
• Google Kills Lively
  
• Lively no more

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Technorati tags: Google, Virtual Worlds

Podcast: Nora Young interviewing Don Tapscott on the "Net Generation"

Earlier this month, Nora Young of CBC Radio interviewed Don Tapscott (24 min.). Tapscott is the the author of several books, including most recently Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is changing your world. In the interview, he outlines several norms for digital natives (or Net Gen as he calls them), including their desire:

• To customize everything.
• For choice.
• To scrutinize things.
  
• For innovation.
  
• For speed in everything.
  
• To have fun with the products and services that they use.
  

This is a group that is used to interacting with each other online, exchanging information, and collaborating. While some may see their use of social networking tools as "just" fun, they are actually using the tools for fun and for work.

At the 7:45 minute mark, Tapscott tells a story about a college student (Joe), who is excelling in school and has received a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University, but doesn't read books. Yes, he references books and taps into a lot of information, but how he accesses and uses information is different that what many of us are used to. Wow, a very powerful story!

With digital natives (or Net Gens) accessing information differently -- and with the norms that they hold dear -- how do we deliver content to them? What changes do we need to make to our web sites? Our databases? Our other delivery systems? These are questions that we all need to be asking of ourselves and our organizations.

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Technorati tag: Social Networking Tools

Stupid library tricks!

I once had a student who wanted to get a tattoo with the Dewey Decimal Number for "straight male librarian." If nothing else, it got other librarians wondering what the Dewey number would be and if a Dewey Decimal Number tattoo would be cool.

While this isn't a tattoo, someone has created a web site that assigns you a personal Dewey Decimal Number. This is not scientific or even based on reality. It's just fun. The site provides three alternative. Here are two of mine.

Jill Hurst-Wahl's Dewey Decimal Section:

583 Dicotyledons

Jill Hurst-Wahl = 0922818903182 = 092+281+890+318+2 = 1583


Class:
500 Science


Contains:
Math, astronomy, prehistoric life, plants and animals.



What it says about you:
You are fascinated by the world around you, and see it as a puzzle worth exploring. You try to understand how things work and how you can make them better. You might be a nerd.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

I've edited this one below to eliminate my birth date.

Jill Hurst-Wahl's Dewey Decimal Section:

019 Dictionary catalogs

Jill Hurst-Wahl's birthday: xx/xx/xxxx = xx+xxxx = 2019


Class:
000 Computer Science, Information & General Works


Contains:
Encyclopedias, magazines, journals and books with quotations.



What it says about you:
You are very informative and up to date. You're working on living in the here and now, not the past. You go through a lot of changes. When you make a decision you can be very sure of yourself, maybe even stubborn, but your friends appreciate your honesty and resolve.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

Yes, these might be considered work-avoidance, but then...how often does anyone think about the Dewey Decimal System?

Blog post: 10 Mistakes That Could Be Killing Your Blog

Leo Babauta explains 10 things he thinks are killing our blogs and I'd like to add a few more.

• Not including photos or graphics. They capture people's eyes and can be useful illustrations. With the photo on the right, I'm making you think...what do pens have to do with blogging? mmm...writing?
  
• Being negative all the time. Whining has a place, but likely not in every blog post (or in the majority of a blog's posts). Pull positive people towards you by being positive.
• Writing for other bloggers. Sometimes we fall into the trap of writing for other bloggers and using language that they understand. If that's your audience, then it's fine, but I suspect that you want other people to be reading and enjoying your blog too.
• Not promoting our blogs. We're web 2.0 people, so use web 2.0 tools to promote your blog.

Can you think of other ways that people are killing their blogs?

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Technorati tag: Blogging

Meet the Bloggers

Today I'm joining David Rothman and Ken Fujiuchi during a session at the New York Library Association annual conference to talk about blogging. Below are my slides for the session.

Meet the Bloggers: Who Me?

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: blogging nyla2008)

Addendum 11/9/2008: David Rothman's slides

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Technorati tags: Blogging,NYLA2008, nyla08