There's a social network for librarians

Not to be left out of the social web revolution, librarians have begun their own social networking site using the powers of Ning, a website that goes beyond giving users a single web page by granting them an entire network. Jenny Levine started the ALA Ning site a couple months ago. It encourages mingling of ALA members through blogs, photo sharing, instant messaging, and email.

Several other library-related Ning sites exist. They are all part of the world-wide movement to find people with similar interests, start dialogues, and collaborate in new ways.

Susan and I hope you have enjoyed this Social Web class today and we'd like to hear what you though of it. We'd also encourage you to share some of your experiences exploring the social web. Please click comment (below) and tell us. At the very least, we'd like you to include your first name, the website you decided to create (Catster, Dogster, Flickr, LibraryThing, or Multiply) and your user name on that site. That way your classmates can stop by and see what you've done (or are doing). And we'd also encourage you to visit them.

Explore! Participate! It's your Internet now.

-Steve

Setting up a crowd

Facebook, a social networking site popular with college students and teachers, has the ability to create events and immediately invite all your friends. This makes organizing parties, get-togethers, and protests easier than ever. It also permits advertisement for lectures and concerts.

Many social sites have meet-ups. Flickr meets are common and many librarians on ALA's Ning site plan on meeting at the conference next month. It's all just another type of social networking using the new Web 2.0 tools.

We hope you have enjoyed this class and continue to explore the broader social web. It is an unending exploration. Be sure to click "Comment" below and tell us your first name, the social site you chose to start with, and your name on that site (or your page's URL). Then come back over the next couple weeks, add to your page and explore your classmate's pages. Tell us about a few of your experiences here, too.

Enjoy! Participate!

More and more people want to interact

It's a cultural trend. People want to chat, raise their voice, and register their vote. Often the issue is seemingly meaningless or the vote is nonscientific. That doesn't matter. Increasingly people expect the ability to respond -- to talk back -- rather than simply be entertained.

No greater evidence of this phenomenon exists than the television show American Idol, where more than 40 million votes are cast by phone each week, and more than 100 million calls are logged on the final show each season.

American Idol, of course, uses telephone voting as its official voting method, but its website has more casual opinion surveys week to week. These surveys mean nothing in the grand scheme of things, but again, people want to interact rather than just watch.

This is just one example of the Social Web. Explore it yourself and tell us what you find. You can interact with this blog by clicking "comment" below. Leave us your first name, your social site, and your user name on that site. Come back later and see your classmates's sites & explore them!