Social Networks, MySpace and Friends

OK - I can now say I have used myspace.com. I created an account and created an identity, totally un-like my normal every-day life. I posed as the opposite sex, and made myself younger. I noticed that after I created the account, the ads seems to be targeted to my character's demographics - young, professional, male. It's sort of scary that marketers are gathering info from the profile, and customizing the ads, and the content seen on the website.

After searching the Myspace website and using its dating and networking features, I am concerned about teens and other non-techie users of the internet are not being taught correct usage of technology to maintain a level of security and privacy on the web. The use of social networks to lure naive users of the web to release personal information to strangers or to the entire web should be a red flag. The increased use of the internet and the wealth of databases, and other services that ask for user information, should trigger an increase in the education of young users and others about online safety and precautions.

Another drawback to the different accounts, and different personaes, is trying to keep all the passwords and user ids straight. I had to request for a reminder emails from a couple of services, since I forgot my user id and passwords to a couple of email accounts and services.

That said, the concept of a social network is intriguing. One of the concerns about increased use of the internet is the isolation of its users from society. But like in anything else, moderation is the key. A little bit of online life, and a little bit of real life, and its a nice balance of the virtual and the real.

I can see how the social network services such as myspace, facebook, and such would be good to keep in touch with friends, co-workers, family, in a far-flung network, but still maintain a feeling of a village.

RSS Feeds and Bloglines

This week the assignment was to play with RSS Feeds and create an account with the service called Bloglines. This service allows the creation of a custom newsreader: a little bit of old tech and new tech since I remember the concept of newsgroups in the 80's.

I added feeds from BBC, the NYTimes, a couple of library related ones per the assignment. I found it easier to subscribe to a feed from a well-known source or site such as BBC News, The NYTimes. The tools to search for blogs to meet a topic requirement can be confusing and time-consuming...I used some of the suggestions, since I figured the sources were OK, and it will be a fairly active blog with daily if not weekly entries. One thing -- there is a LOT of blogs out there. Syndic8 was a nice tool to see how recent the blog was update. Since I have started my blog for the KCLS 27 Things - I have found out how difficult it is to write an entry and to make it interesting. I make my entries about once a week -- usually on weekends.

Flickr -- what a concept!

I am learning new web technologies as part of a program with my library system. One of the assigments is to play and explore with the Flickr website. This is a webhosting service with a photo sharing segment connecting communities online grouped around common interests. Lots of photos, lots of tags, lots of stuff. Tags are keywords used to label a photo, so other people can quickly search through the vast volume of photos.

Part of this assigment with Flickr is to explore the site and blog about something I found interesting. Well...I decided to blog about Tim Gunn and Project Runaway. This is a show on BravoTV, going on this fourth (4th) year -- hopefully, but no news yet. Tim Gunn, formerly of the Parsons School of Design in New York City, has been hired by Liz Claibourne Industries to be its Chief Creative Officer....Project Runaway will not be the same without the sauve, urbane, articulate, modest, and insightful Tim Gunn. I hope BravoTV does everything it can to keep him connected to the show.

Tim Gunn's catch phrase is "Make it work."

This photo is from sgt fun's collection at http://www.flickr.com/photos/sgtfun/tags/timgunn/

The second portion of the assignment is to play with mashups; and I like the Spell with Flickr and Montager. Mashups are services that use one feature or webapp with another. Spell with Flickr is fun - spell out words using pictures of letters, and Montager creates a mosaic out of pictures it finds on the web. Here is the montage I made using "Tim Gunn" - it can be slow to create the mosiac, but its great to have one place where you can look at all the pictures in one location.

http://www.deviousgelatin.com/montager/image.php?image=406200814

Where I work

Yes - I am a Librarian, and I work for a public library in the Northwest. Here is a link to my library's homepage.

http://www.kcls.org

Check it out - there's a lot of stuff on the homepage and most of it does not require a library barcode to access. Lots of local information and readers advisory stuff.

Blog Newbie

Ok - now that I have set up an account for blogging, and picked out my colors, comes the hard part. What do I blog about?

This first posting is about the ease of setting up an account. A few years ago, a person had to know HTML and XML and other stuff to create the look of the website or the webpage. Now, with a few mouse clicks and some keystrokes, voila! a Blog is born. Easy as pie.