Del.icio.us

I can see that the ability to access bookmarks anywhere is a useful tool, but I was more interested in tagging to open up routes to unknown sites. It's not perfect without controlled vocabulary, but is near enough to gather a good armful of useful leads. A search for the tag 'Lake District' brought back an interesting selection, but it would be neater if Delicious gathered together identical sites rather than listing them separately.

Gratifyingly, a shot in the dark with 'St. Hugh's' as a tag brought back the biography of one of the first women to read mathematics in the university.

Picnik

A free photoediting suite which seems to do pretty much everything Joe Public would want to do with everyday images. The link between Picnik and Flickr does provide a seamless way of editing images, and then saving them back to an image repository. I thought it wasn't clear how to add colour to an image. Clicking on the tab 'Colours' takes you to a page where the Help button explains that to add a colour cast 'check out the tint tool in our effects section'. The effects section is actually a tab indent under the 'Create' tab. I know, I know, I should get out more ...

I have added Picassa to my Google bar, and it will be interesting to see how the two programs compare.

Working with Flickr

Well, this was completely new ground for me but Flickr seems easy to use with text and images spaced out well on the home page. I had some images of the grounds on my PC which were easy to load, and then tried to import pictures from my Truprint account. Although Truprint does have the option to export to a social network Flickr isn't one of them - I can however export to my Blogger account. I experimented with sending the shots to my email address and that worked fine.

This feels like a fairly steep learning curve, but I'm enjoying it, and its interesting how the exercises throw up other discoveries along the way. If it is possible to say this online in a mumbled, hard-to-make out tone of voice I have discovered that I don't need to have three or four windows open simultaneously, but can just open a new tab for each site on the one window. Ahem.

More RSS feeds

It has been fun looking around to find some interesting blogs and sites to subscribe to - David Byrne and the London Review of books will make interesting reading, and I have added a couple of fellow 23 participants to my list. Surprised to find that Brian Eno doesn't appear to have a feed. Given his interest in these things I suspect I just can't find it.

I used to work for 1000heads, a PR firm with a detailed knowledge of the significance of social media for marketing and promotion. Often we were able to tell businesses of something going wrong in their organisations before they were aware themselves, through staff contributions on public websites and blogs.

Interesting to see that some sites only offer subscription to RSS feeds that go to Internet Explorer, but a quick cut and paste solved that ...

Google reader and RSS feeds

I had already set up a Google Reader page with feeds from Phil Bradley, iLibrarian, and (oddly, because I can't remember why!) Guardian theatre. Resurrecting the page reminded me that it is very easy to get too carried away and be overwhelmed by the number of feed articles coming in. Far better to concentrate on a few that you are actually going to read. Phil Bradley's blog is always good value.

The reader page looks a lot better when a particular feed is selected for display, but I don't like the miniscule 'Manage subscriptions' button bottom left. Why so small?

Looking at other blogs

Perusing the Vere Harmsworth Library site gives an excellent display of the versatility of blogs - the ability to gather together useful links to other sites and catalogues. I particularly liked the random display of book covers - colourful as well as informative - and the cloud display of tags. And RSS feeds are a great way of keeping readers informed of what is going on in the library, helping them to feel involved and part of a library community. Great stuff!

Looking at other blogs it's interesting to see how many went on the Web 2.0 study day in 2008, and are welcoming the chance to reacquaint themselves with the Web 2.0 tools.

I agree with 'College Library jottings' that the Blogger interface isn't very intuitive - having to select 'Customise' in order to get to the tagged menu and edit posts.

It's amazing to see the range of applications that are now available to add to the igoogle home page - hours of delving into the store! And I'm pleased to have learnt how to make screen captures and insert them into a blog entry

Starting afresh

I was last involved with Web 2 technologies via the first day conference held to introduce these emerging means of communication to the Oxford community. I'm a little rusty, but it soon comes back, and it will be interesting to consider their application in a College context. I'm hoping to learn more about the range and potential of Web 2 technologies, and be able to incorporate them more into my daily work routines