I'd Rather Have Bird Flu

I read an interesting fact about podcasts today: The New Oxford American Dictionary chose “podcast” as its 2005 Word of the Year over persistent vegetative state and bird flu among others. I found this interesting because earlier in the day I forced myself to listen to an hour long podcast which almost put me into a persistent vegetative state.

I have never been a fan of radio and podcasts seem to offer everything that radio does without the music or ads. In other words, it is just endless DJ-like prattle! Honestly, I’d prefer a nasty dose of bird flu to another podcast that long and boring.

I do like when a transcript of a podcast is available. That way I can skip to the piece I want and ignore the rest. Wouldn’t it be great if people could just write their thoughts down for the consumption of others and those written thoughts could be screened through some sort of vetting and editorial process to insure they were worth public consumption in the first place? That way not just anybody could be published prattling on endlessly without a care whether what they have to say matters to anyone else ... just like I did right there!

Here is just a few podcasts that use to be unrecorded nerds talking:

http://galacticaquorum.com/ (Battlestar Galactica)

http://www.marvelnoise.com/ (Marvel Comics)

http://specficmedia.com/podcast/btw/ (Game of Thrones)

You'll have to forgive this particular nerd if he skips them all and just continues talking a large pile of smack at his local comic book shop.

[Citation Needed]

Let's not lie about this dear readers: WE ALL WIKI!!!

It is a sad fact that it is just too easy to wiki for what you want and half the time what you want isn't so vitally important that some misinformation will lead to the end of your world.

• The discography of Wednesday 13?
• Episodes in Star Wars: The Clone Wars series 5?
• Platypuses? Platypi? The hell with pluralising them, Platypus?!?
• Vanessa Doofensmirtz?
• Omega flight? 

These are the utterly pointless queries I have thrown at wiki this week. And yes dear reader, the humble platypus does sweat milk. In fact, I challenge you all to wiki the humble platypus and see if there are any discrepancies in the entry. I challenge you to do this for one reason: every fact about the platypus seems like a discrepancy!

(Even I as a wiki user am doubtful that they wear hats in real life)

Cleverness at 140 Characters or Less

The meta nightmares that blogging about blogging would cause me are not worth the effort so today I am going to concentrate on micro-blogging. Too much struck me today to get to everything so I am informally announcing this as my (pause for dramatic effect) ... BIG ASS 3! Not to rob my faithful audience of next to nobody (page views don't lie) but the BIG ASS 3 status of this topic means that the glimmering gold of it all will be in another assessment with another pithy micro-blog related title like Tweet Tweet or @SometingOrOther or #SomethingOrOther (the cleverness will come in time).

Some thoughts on the readings:

• I never considered internal micro-blogging. To me it was always a way to reach out of the library walls.
• I was a teacher and I had no idea that the NSW Department of Education and Communities had this available (not that I would have actively participated). This is not the first time I've been left out of the loop but it is hard to hear that you didn't even know that the loop existed.
• Does each interoffice tweet have to have a cover sheet to keep up with the pointless bureaucracy of office work?

(Love the Lumbergh!)

So, since all the best will be saved for later, written with some academic skill and supported by more than my own insane ramblings, what do today's readers get? The answer is questions.

Think about this:

• What if you are the 1 in 20 in a company of 20? Will it all just fade away when you realise that you are the only one actively engaged?
• How do you as a lone beautiful unique snowflake cause (what I have labelled and trademarked) "The Social Media Snowball Effect" that sees everyone either wrapped up with you growing the ball that careens ever forward crushing all resistance in your path?
• And finally, why are all my metaphors so violent?

I intend to find some literature to answer the first two questions before my next post but the third I will leave up to you dear reader though it will likely have something to do with heavy metal and violent video games.

Kate Monster Is Vindicated!

Adult Themes (and some Juvenile ones too!)

Finally, according to the video "The Social Media Revolution 2012-13" something has overtaken porn as the number one activity on the web. Kate monster has finally been vindicated but at what cost? The internet is not for porn anymore but is it any less pointless? People are tweeting things barely worth mentioning in small talk situations, checking in at shopping centres and posting pictures of their dinner on Flika and Instagram. The Titan that was porn has been toppled by the Olympians of banality. I'll even admit myself that outside of my uni work my ten minutes spent on the internet is to find out what's happening in the world of PS3 gaming! We have this powerful tool and we use it for the most part for nothing of real importance.

Rant over. What I really took from the module is how powerful social media has become. How do we leverage that power for libraries and not just leave the powerful tool to gather dust in the box? How do we reach them where they are in a way that will have some impact? Why would they want to friend us? Why would they want to read our blog? And how can a library justify putting picture of food and librarians doing duck-face on Flicka and Instagram? 

The video left me with more questions than answers which I hope will be answered as I progress through the modules. One thing I am certain of: the porn industry is figuring out a way to leverage social media to their advantage.

Web 2.Oh That Hype!

Let’s face it: the 2.0 in Web 2.0 means nothing. It is just O’Reilly Media hype and people far more web savvy than me think so too such as the inventor of ‘Web 1.0’

“Web 1.0 was all about connecting people. It was an interactive space, and I think Web 2.0 is of course a piece of jargon, nobody even knows what it means. If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along. [...] The idea of the Web as interaction between people is really what the Web is. That was what it was designed to be as a collaborative space where people can interact.”

(Berners-Lee cited in Black, 2007, p. 3)

All that has happened is the natural evolution of the web has occurred. John Dvorak of PC Magazine states, (as cited in Black 2007), “The tools that allow people to do things for themselves are simply getting more efficient. The Web 2.0 products, such as podcasts and blogs, are all built on technology from the early 1990’s.” (p. 4).

The ultimate problem I have with the idea of Web 2.0 is that its start date and first product are far from what would have been the first real revolution of the web that turned it from a niche communication device for nerds to the tool for everyone. If an honest appraisal was made by O’Reilly Media, we would be at Web 5.0 or beyond by now. Also, has there been any acknowledgement of when we shall hit the 3.0 or what that may look like. The semantic web is looking to steal that moniker for itself (Smart 2010) but will O’Reilly acknowledge that and throw conferences its way?

In my estimation the term Web 2.0 is hype and the technologies are the ones identified as O’Reilly Media as successful. Their success and imposed shared elements such as web as platform, harnessing collective intelligence, data is the next Intel inside, end of the software release cycle (perpetual beta), lightweight programming models, software above the level of a single device and rich user experiences (O’Reilly, 2005) are why O’Reilly has deemed to label them Web 2.0. I believe that as more successful products emerge so too will O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 definition to incorporate them. However, if you are like me and define it as hype, remember, “those who object to the term, for whatever reason, should be careful not to dismiss the trends and messages along with the label.” (Miller, 2006, p. 1).

Works Cited

Black, E. L. (2007). Library 2.0 and beyond: Innovative technologies and tomorrow's user. (N. Courtney, Ed.) Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited.

Miller, P. (2006). Library 2.0: The challenge of disruptive innovation. Talis. Retrieved from http://www.capita-libraries.co.uk/resources/documents/447_Library_2_prf1.pdf

O'Reilly, T. (2005, September 30th). What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software. Retrieved from O'Reilly: http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html

Smart, J. (2010, May). How the television will be revolutionized: The future of the iPad, internet TV, and Web 3.0. Retrieved from http://accelerating.org: http://accelerating.org/downloads/SmartJ-2010-HowTVwillbeRevolutionized.pdf

(B)logging On

First entry, Star Date not really sure as we still use the Gregorian calendar. I have been tasked with creating an OLJ (Online Learning Journal for the uninformed) for INF506.

The first entry requirements to answer the questions:

(a) define what social networking is (in your own words);
(b) list what social networking technologies and sites you already use (for personal, work and study purposes); and
(c) describe what you expect to learn from completing INF506.

The short answers to these:

(a) something other people do;

(b) none or as close to none as has been possible (girlfriend forced capitulation is my secret shame); and

(c) enough to pass the course (kidding or am I?).

Doubtful that these will give me the passing grade required, I shall expand with much more wordy answers:

(a) Social Networking (SN) is the use of Web 2.0 technologies through various sites to reach out and communicate across the web in different ways and for different purposes.

For example (and to be read sarcastically), someone using YouTube is going for their Warhol promised 15 minutes of fame with the video of them singing bad folk ballads on their poorly tuned and poorly played acoustic guitar for the whole world to see while someone using facebook just desperately needs their “friends” to know that they loved the latest Batman movie (woot, woot! optional).

(b) I once had a facebook account (a shame to this day). I got this account to appease a girlfriend so she could put us in a relationship on it. I used it as often as most people use the gym membership they buy after making a New Year’s resolution to start exercising and eat healthier. YouTube is something I’ve used a bit in the past but always out of boredom and I always move on when I have something better to do.

That is my entire experience in the SN world to date which leads us to why someone like me would take a course like this.

(c) I want to see the uses for these in my future profession to reach out to patrons (customers, clients, whatever the current terminology may be for those that make use of libraries is).