# 14 - Technorati

I found some articles through Ebscohost on how to use blogs effectively for marketing. Within this context Technorati makes much more sense. The authors of one particular article (see source below) discuss the sense of trust that exists in the blogosphere and encourage the use of Technorati ranking as a way of increasing the amount of visitors to your blog because the as number of sites associated with your blog increases so does your perceived authority. As they admit : "the validity of these assumptions isn't important for our discussion, simply the reality of the perception". I'm not sure where that leaves us as professional information providers given that our role is to use and refer people to authoritative information sources. While I can appreciate the creation of this tool, I would not personally use something that specifically trawls through blogs.
Dawson, Tasra & Dawson, Ron. EventDV; Oct2007, Vol. 20 Issue 10, p26-32, 5p

# 13 - Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us brought out the stalker in me. I found the most interesting part of this exercise was looking into the sites saved by people who had similar interests, or who had saved some of the same sites as myself. I'm finding that if I can't immediately see a practical purpose for using a web 2.0 tool then I struggle to get excited about it. This one took awhile to grow on me for that reason. After I registered I spent a few days (on and off) playing with Del.icio.us and have started to compile a list of sites. Sites that I use frequently I tend to memorise or are ones that I have bookmarked at home (for banking, booking events or plane tickets etc) and as a result the list that I created for this exercise contains items that I find quirky or interesting rather than ones that I would want to/need to access regularly. I can see why this tool would be useful if you spent a lot of your time online - browsing and otherwise fiddle-faddling around, however, I am not inclined to do this. I think it would also be fantastic for compiling a list of online resources for a research project or work-related professional development, although I chose not to use it this way myself. I found some amazing, creative blogs and sites with beautiful collections of art work by book illustrators and so I slowly began to enjoy exploring this tool as I came to terms with spending my time in a way that I normally wouldn't.

# 12 - Rollyo

Hey, I like it! At first I couldn't quite see what was so special about this but the penny dropped as I worked through the exercise. Instead of doing a world wide web search I am able to search a limited set of quality websites and thereby remove from my results list all of the rubbishy hits that I don't want to waste time with. Cool. I created a search roll called beasts birds and bugs. It includes a selection of websites developed by amateur collectors, conservation organisations, scientific research bodies and government departments. These sites deal with a range of animal-related information from pet care and animal welfare to specific guides for identifying insects. The University of Southern Queensland has developed a particularly good guide for spider identification: http://www.usq.edu.au/spider/index.htm

Little "Charlotte" here decided to have her babies in our shed. I think this species of Huntsman is 'holconia immanis' - they have a distinctive stripe on the abdomen.

# 11 - LibraryThing

This is a tool that I can actually see myself using to keep track of my personal collection and to find recommended reading. For the purpose of this exercise I wasn't too rigorous in finding the right edition for each of the books I added to my catalogue so it isn't completely accurate. I have good intentions of going back when I have more time to add the rest of my collections- we'll see if it happens. Here's the link http://www.librarything.com/catalog/thing11

# 10 - Image Generators

There were so many things to play with I found it hard to settle on one for this task. I looked at about six or seven before deciding to express myself through the medium of Alphabet Soup. If you feel like playing with your food, you can find this generator at the following link: http://www.redkid.net/generator/soup/sign.php

# 9 - Finding Feeds

Well, I went straight to the bloglines search tool to add my feeds and I will confess that I didn't take the time to check out the other options. I used both methods for adding the feeds: using blogline's search tool and from the feed icon directly from the websites I was interested in. I'm not sure that I was getting this second method quite right but they're all there and functioning so maybe it was just simpler than I expected. I tried the "extra stuff to explore" suggestion and subsrcribed through EBSCO to a journal called "Learning & Motivation". I'll let you know if it's effective...finding the old interest flagging somewhat...

# 8 - RSS & Newsfeeds

This one held me up a bit. It isn't particularly difficult but I found that it wasn't particularly exciting either. I created a Bloglines account and added eight feeds ranging from the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip to ABC's Gardening Australia (hopefully I'll find some inspiration here to get a vegetable garden started [ABC not goComics]). I made my subscriptions public and if you're having a really quiet day and you're feeling curious, you can find them here: http://www.bloglines.com/public/myweegreenblog I can see how this could be good for environmental scanning activities and professional development but personally I would be more inclined to use my favourites list than become too familiar with this. Maybe I'm missing something...?

# 7 - Blog about Technology

Geez... I feel old when I think about all the technological gadgets out there that I don't know how to use. I think when you use technology for practical purposes rather than for recreation you really get left behind. You need to play with things and approach them with curiosity rather than cynicism (or suspicion) and I'm not sure that I do that. I was a late starter and I have a feeling I will be scrambling to catch up for some time yet. My use of computers is fairly limited: internet banking, bookings, movie times, email, msn messenger and sometimes I might read online papers or my horoscope. My immediate objectives are to upgrade from the old floppy disc to a memory stick and to get myself a digital camera. I'm not yet convinced that I would make good use of facebook or any of the other popular tools for social networking, however, I intend to expand my flickr collection and this has partly inspired my desire for a new camera.

# 6 - More Flickr Fun

So, I played around with some Flickr tools such as Color Pickr and Montagr. They are kind of fun but the mashup I found really intriguing (maybe disturbing) was showcased in the Mash Up Awards. "Rotten Neighbor" at http://www.rottenneighbor.com/ is a U.S based mashup that allows you to locate and identify bad neighbours! I had trouble zooming in to see the level of detail given on the map so I'm not sure if actual individual's addresses are posted here, but some contributors have gone so far as to specify which apartment their detested neighbours live in. Very dodgy. Some pretty grubby language used too. The maps can be pegged with pop-ups branding their neighbours as 'pervert guy' or 'scum-bag polluters' (and these are a couple of the gentler titles given) with a description of their bad habits. Entertaining but sort of creepy.