Saturday, October 10, 2009

EXERCISE 21: Facebook

What I like: it is a great way to locate people or be located through the search facility as well as being international. Events calendar plus video loading are great tools. Having friends comments pop up is always interesting. I have a number of teenagers on my site so learning their lingo is a lesson in itself!. The ichat plus the ability to enter a discussion via making comments and accessing comments/contributions from others is interesting and utilised well in group discussions opening up to the bigger community. Its a fast way to share information with like minded people especially if there is a specific aim. It is valuable being exposed to a variety of opinions and/or being referred to a site by someone who has already visited. Excellent as no age/race/religious/time limitation which provides opportunites to exchange information and ideas between a lot of groups that otherwise might not share.

Sometimes too many messages. The quizzes’ do concern me due to the information being gathered by other parties, I don’t choose to participate in this.

EXERCISE 22: Library use of social networking.

We are in an age of rapid technology evolution bringing change in communication methodologies. Wireless, radio, telegrams, landlines, tvs, mobiles, computers, video conferencing, skype are part of the evolution of progressive changes. Often it is young people and forward thinking businesses that predominantly embrace the new technologies bearing in mind everything has pro’s and con’s e.g.. privacy issues. The aim is to consider the goal, which in this case is perhaps reaching the younger generation with a communication method they commonly use and understand and strongly relate to. Using these social networking sites can bring to their attention to what libraries can offer, how they navigate the site, opportunity to connect to other links, utilise what is offered, proffer suggestions and contribute. A profile on Facebook or MySpace needs to consider the user and the libraries aims. Using social networking provides an opportunity in reaching and being of use to younger clientele.