Partly as a result of being asked by my CEO to encourage interaction between our members and partly for my own personal interest, I've been looking into the wealth of new sites that have been popping up hither and thither all in the name of social networking.
There's 'digg', 'del.ico.us' and the increasingly popular 'twitter' championed by none other than Stephen Fry and Kermode/Mayo. It's all intriguing stuff, although I'm not taken with all of them, many seeming to offer the same experience as the 'veteran' Myspace and Facebook websites.
One element of this new Web 2.0 world that does interest me though (purely as continued professional development for my career in information of course), is the use of web feeds to automatically update users of new material appearing on the web.
Visit any major news website nowadays, say the BBC or Guardian sites, and you'll see a small, square, orange logo, often with the letters 'RSS' next to it (commonly understood to stand for Really Simple Syndication). Even this very blog - 'Jocky's Corner' - has it (see the bottom of the left hand menu bar) which allows people to 'subscribe' to the content.
Needless to say, I've gone for this hammer and tongs, signing up to my favourite columnists and bloggers, NME album reviews, BBC Radio 1 videos etc etc. Now when I open my browser at home, I have a list of bookmarks automatically updated with the content I'm interested in. As soon as Charlie Brooker posts a new blog, it appears waiting for me to click and devour. For a library and information worker like me, this is exciting stuff.
Of course it doesn't stop on the social front, Visual Learning Environments (VLE's) are becoming increasingly popular in academic environments allowing students to access learning resources remotely and online, interacting with their counterparts on forum, blogs and wiki's all in the name of education. Add to that the likes of 'Linked In', a professional tool for business people allowing them to network with colleagues, clients and join groups of like-minded people in their field, and you do wonder where it will all end.
Titter ye not....just 'twitter' instead!
There's 'digg', 'del.ico.us' and the increasingly popular 'twitter' championed by none other than Stephen Fry and Kermode/Mayo. It's all intriguing stuff, although I'm not taken with all of them, many seeming to offer the same experience as the 'veteran' Myspace and Facebook websites.
One element of this new Web 2.0 world that does interest me though (purely as continued professional development for my career in information of course), is the use of web feeds to automatically update users of new material appearing on the web.
Visit any major news website nowadays, say the BBC or Guardian sites, and you'll see a small, square, orange logo, often with the letters 'RSS' next to it (commonly understood to stand for Really Simple Syndication). Even this very blog - 'Jocky's Corner' - has it (see the bottom of the left hand menu bar) which allows people to 'subscribe' to the content.
Needless to say, I've gone for this hammer and tongs, signing up to my favourite columnists and bloggers, NME album reviews, BBC Radio 1 videos etc etc. Now when I open my browser at home, I have a list of bookmarks automatically updated with the content I'm interested in. As soon as Charlie Brooker posts a new blog, it appears waiting for me to click and devour. For a library and information worker like me, this is exciting stuff.
Of course it doesn't stop on the social front, Visual Learning Environments (VLE's) are becoming increasingly popular in academic environments allowing students to access learning resources remotely and online, interacting with their counterparts on forum, blogs and wiki's all in the name of education. Add to that the likes of 'Linked In', a professional tool for business people allowing them to network with colleagues, clients and join groups of like-minded people in their field, and you do wonder where it will all end.
Titter ye not....just 'twitter' instead!
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