Okay, now here is something I am familiar with. Online productivity tools are largely touted as the end of many software giants, such as Microsoft, model of offering services from one’s desktop. This new model focusses on creating programs or tools that accessed from one’s Internet browser. This means no buying or downloading onto one’s own computer. Nope, access your account or file online and begin working. Of course, this means that you have to have access to a computer with the Internet accessible from it.

There are actually companies that offer a range of online productivity tools for businesses to use without having to purchase or download specific software. I believe the client pays a nominal sum to have this other company store their data or files and to upgrade and improve the services of that productivity tool. No more paying for IT support on staff, yikes!

Anyhoo, the big behemoth that all eyes are on happens to be Google. With their acquisition of Writely and renaming their online productivity service Google Docs they gave Microsoft a rude awakening of what the future might hold. Too bad Microsoft spent so much to get Vista out. Then again most likely, with the fact that online productivity tools being accessible online, the future will likely be a mix of desktop centered and online accessible tools and applications. Nevertheless, the desktop module will definitely not be the only way of looking at things anymore.

With such services available one doesn’t need to worry about upgrades, your computer crashing and losing it, having to store it on some device to transport it and even better, with many of these services you can even share your documents with others such as a group project, research team or a business team. One can upload a document and invite others to work on it. I used Google Docs and Writeboard in school to allow another individual to edit and further develop a story I developed and created a poem, where in true Web 2.0 fashion others could be invited in to make their own contributions to the poem. There are a number of other online productivity tools out there, check out this list I found online.

As I pointed out to a friend, what is great about this for libraries, especially if you get patrons like we do, is that when someone comes in to work on something they don’t have to worry about whether they brought a flash drive or whatever that library allows for storing docs, no, they can simply save it online and access it later if they need to. Further, figure about did they save it in the right file format or type to be opened on our computers just access and open it online and they are ready to go. They can work on it later, invite others, e-mail or even print it out all by simply going online and accessing their saved document.

Well that is it for now.

Okay, this was an easy one, although it took me a while to get a chance to do this. Once I got to the wiki I couldn’t help wanting to go through and correct the glaring errors others had in their entries, okay not that every entry had mistakes the majority of the entries were just fine. In any case I sat down and went through “helping out” the wiki, making it look better. You could definitely get a sense of community for everyone had a different way of writing about things. Thus, I know that there is a good chance that someone won’t like my changes or may even come along and “correct” my entry. That is the power of the crowd at work, things have the inherent potential to change.

As for adding an entry, something I should be familiar with doing since I have set up a blog in school before, well, it actually took me a few minutes to figure out what to do. Naturally once figured out, you realize, “oh, is that all? how simple!” After scrolling through the entries to see what 23 Things wasn’t listed, I then found myself with a good group of options and to think I was afraid I would be late to the party and would have to simply add to an entry already worked on. So, what to go with? In the end I wound up creating an entry for Image Generators and proceeded to write my lame explanation of what they are. Feel free to check out my entry if you want and edit it to your heart’s content.

Okay, wikis… What can I say…  Probably, the most famous is Wikipedia. Talk about a wiki that took off! Wikipedia has become so synonomous with the word wiki that often times if you mention the word wiki people think you are talking about Wikipedia. That is good for Wikipedia, but doesn’t get people necessarily behind the word wiki and what it is.

So, in case you are wondering what is a wiki?

Well, put simply a wiki is a web site or workflows program that allows anyone to add or edit a page, at least theoretically. It is possible for most wiki programs to change the settings, so that it is restricted to only certain users being able to make changes to the wiki. The overall spirit of web 2.0 though encourages keeping wikis open to any user being able to make changes to the wiki and Wikepedia does a remarkable job of doing just that. Naturally the thought that pops in most people’s mind is wont that mean a great deal of inaccurate information, vandalism or nonsense occuring? Truthfully, this does occur, although not as often as you would think, nevertheless the creators of Wikipedia and other wikis believe that by harnessing the collective effort of everyone, errors and vanadalism is most likely to be corrected rather quickly. You have to admire their optimism and flexibility in allowing some inaccuracy to produce a great deal of good.

Most of the examples I found of wikis being used in libraries included useful subject guides, FAQs or other useful resources. Some of the cooler ideas I saw were allowing the local community to add useful resources, a business resource guide with an Instant Messaging Meebo widget, so people could ask questions and links within the catalog. Wikis could, also, be used internally to ease workflow. I know of a couple local libraries doing that and in the process they have created a valuable resource for staff to use and alter to best fit the needs of that library.

For more on wikis in libraries check out the great resource, Five Weeks to a Social Library.

All right that is all for now! Ciao!

Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 as much of the buzz on the Internet will show, these are the memes, the new trends, what everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon about. What is all this about? Is it a new trend? Has it been around for awhile? Is it just a new name for an old thing? Is all the hype really worth it?

Yeah, well I guess the answer to all these questions is that it depends on who you are speaking with. There are a few critics that say anything from this is nothing new to web 2.0 is the death of modern culture (check out Andrew Keen’s new book, The Cult of the Amateur to get a perspective from this view).

Most in the technology circles, say that this is a way of explaining a variety of tools and philosophy that pushes for users having input. The idea of brining anyone in to have a say or to give one power to affect change on a website. Many of the most common tools include blogs, RSS feeds, social networking sites, open APIs, websites developed using AJAX and, of course, wikis. Actually to read through the literature about Web 2.0 you realize there are a number of core beliefs that run through it. Some of these beliefs include leveraging the resources of “the crowd” or essentially asking for the help of everyone, (crowd sourcing),  platforms based off of web browsers rather than reliant on programs downloaded to one’s desktop, openness (such as open APIs, Google Maps being a good example, open source programs, such as Apache, and honesty, which is a big trend in corporate philosophy right now and has spawned a couple of movements, such as The Cluetrain Manifesto), the importance of the longtail, the importance and huge availibility of data and the whole idea of tools allowing all users to add value to it. Supposedly, the entrepreneur Tim O’Reilly is credited with first coining the term. In any case he wrote a great article explaining the ideas behind web 2.0 and why they differ from how the internet use to predominately function.

It would seem that Library 2.0 would simply be extending the ideas from web 2.0 to that of the library setting, but the article I read seemed to state otherwise and that there was no clear consensus of what Library 2.0 is. He also seemed to imply that too many librarians are latching on to the “library meme” and that this isn’t necesarrily a good idea. He makes a good point about libraries being about more than just places of information, but instead being places that provide a rich set of resources providing for the local community, such as Reading Programs, children’s centers, community rooms, art, music or lecture presentations; services that provide a richer community experience. Nevertheless, Library 2.0 if designed to follow some of the philosophy of web 2.0 could mean another way of adding value to the services offered to the library’s community. When you consider many libraries have to fight for funding, than offering a richer user experience and providing more ways in which the user can be a part of and benefit from the library doesn’t seem to be a bad idea.

Okay, I finally found time to put in a few words about Technoratti. Essentially, it seems to me, to be a place where bloggers can post themselves, so that one could search through blogs for say a particular subject. You could do a search for something you are interested and see what the community of bloggers listed in Technoratti are saying about that subject. At least in theory that is how it seems to go. You can also find videos and images that have been placed in their directory.

Personally I found it difficult to wade through all the stuff to find what I was really looking for. I felt like I was at a thrift store or a place like TJMax or Marshalls wading through all kinds of stuff on the racks to find the few items of true magic.

For bloggers it is great because by adding a widget to your blog, you can show up in the Technoratti database. This could increase traffic to your blog and potentially increase the number of people reading your posts.

Other cool elements of Technoratti appear more in the back end as a bunch of cool stuff for developers. The API available from Technoratti means you could make some cool mashups if you have the skills and interests to do so. Don’t know if I’d ever have that ability, but shouldn’t sell myself short, who knows what I could do in the future.

The added bonus I think though is the fact that they list a dog as a member of their staff. How cool is that! Although, his job title isn’t probably highly sought after, I mean who wants to look through garbage…

Well, that is about all I got in me today.

Okay, I am getting a bit nervous… I am barely halfway done and only a month to go. I know I could speed through, but I kind of want to get a good feel for each one of these tasks and all, not that I’m likely to write a thoroughly informative post like can be found over at TechCrunch, you know?

So, like other friends have said social bookmarking has great potential. One nice thing is simply moving your “favorites” off the desktop and in to a browser. This is much more convenient allowing your favorite links to be accessible from any computer that has access to the internet. Many social bookmarking sites allow you to create folders, categories or attach keywords to aid in finding a particular bookmark you have saved.

One thing I was surprised to discover is that there are so many social bookmarking sites out there. As far as which one is the best or good features different sites have, I would have no idea at this point. I guess one would need to play around and discover for themselves which they like best.

As the name implies there is more to social bookmarking sites than simply having your favorite bookmarked sites available as you roam from computer to computer. These sites have a variety of functions allowing one to share their bookmarks with others, possibly make comments or rank them. Sharing your bookmarks might be useful to share with a club, a research group or coworkers. Ways of providing next level tools or other information for others in your particular group by having links to various sites. The ability to rank your bookmarks could be another way of letting your “group” know which bookmarks might be most useful for the group. Thus, social bookmarking sites could be a great way of creating resources that can help particular groups in accomplishing set tasks.

For checking out social bookmarking I signed up with del.icio.us. I found it very easy to set up and use. I used my favorite browser, Opera, and del.icio.us had a handy feature where I could simply drop the del.icio.us icon into the browser and afterwards every time I visit a site I was interested in adding to my del.icio.us account it is a cinch to add simply by clicking on the del.icio.us icon in the browser. I know it probably doesn’t make what I am saying until you actually sit down and try it. Since, I didn’t try setting up del.icio.us using another browser I don’t know how easy it might be, but can only assume it should be as easy.

Anyhoo, that is all I got to say for now. I have to start rolling on the rest of these 23 Things…