Thing #14: Technorati and How Tags Work

Technorati is another one of those places where I could end up spending hours just surfing around. Anyone else out there sometimes feel voyeuristic?

First, let me give a little summary of what Technorati is in my own words to be sure I have it right. It's a search engine to find a particular topic in the millions of blogs in the blogosphere. You can search for blogs, blog posts, or simply by tags. Unlike Del.icio.us, where users/readers create the tags (post-publishing), bloggers/publishers create the tags in Technorati (pre-publishing). It's a way to find what the "unwashed masses" are talking about, what they think is news. It's a way to keep up with your favorite blogs (but don't I already have Google Reader for that?) or to see what everyone else's favorite is?

How can this be useful to me? Well, I do like to keep up with current events, and as a long-ago anthropology student, I'm interested in culture and pop culture, so I'm fascinated by what everyone is blogging about. I guess that's why I can get lost for hours poking around, moving from link to link. More specifically, though, I can search the topics that interest me and see what other "real people" think rather than "elitist" news, review, and publishing sources. AND, with the nature of blogging, I can actually converse with the writers! It's almost as if, rather than being consumers of news and information prepared by small numbers of people, the masses are actually the news MAKERS and information CREATORS now. I think that's very cool.

Can I see a use for this in the classroom? Not so much, at the moment, but then I haven't given it full thought, I'll admit. It WOULD be great to show students that "real people" write everyday, that there IS a purpose for being able to express oneself. No, we're not ALL going to be Judy Blumes, Stephen Kings, or Stephenie Meyers. But we ARE all writers in some form or fashion. Also, I can see myself using it to find appropriate topic-related blogs for students to follow. Say, birds again. Surely there are some bird-watchers and bird-lovers out there who have blogs about, well...birds. I could turn students on to those. Real-life learning through real-life interests.

As for tagging, I think it's great. I see benefits to both Del.icio.us type tagging and Technorati type tagging. I think bloggers should be able to categorize their own work with tags, but I think it's important for users/readers to be able to create their own meaningful tags, too. Now that I've explored tagging, I'll be doing much more of it!

And you may notice, dear reader, that I have added an "Add this to my Technorati favorites" button in the upper righthand corner of this blog. :-)

Thing #12: Creating Community Through Commenting

I enjoyed reading the articles about commenting. I've commented on blogs before but never really thought about WHY I was commenting. It just seemed natural, as if it were "conversation." I guess I'm a basically nice person because it's never occurred to me to be less than courteous when commenting on others' posts. Most of my commenting has been to encourage others or to share my similar experiences with the blogger. Doug Johnson at Blue Skunk says, "Don't be a troll." I'd never heard the term before, but I don't know why not. Now that I think about it, I've seen trolls in my travels through the blogosphere.

The two things that stuck out to me as I read about "commenting conventions" is that 1) comments should contribute something to the discourse, and 2) they should be courteous. I panicked a bit when considering the first one because I've left the "You go, girl!" kind of comments that don't add anything new. I think it was Cool Cat Teacher who advised staying away from those. After I reconsidered, I felt a little better, though, because I came to the conclusion that CCT didn't mean that we can't leave simple words of encouragement. She meant that we shouldn't just leave it at that. We should be specific. Just as in teaching when we give students feedback. "Good job!" is not that helpful. It needs to be followed up with "You recognized every pattern correctly on your first try!" or something like that. When I was helping students develop their writing, I would say things like, "You've captured the moment here perfectly with your vivid verbs and the sentence structure you've chosen," (and I'd name that structure). It WAS a good job, and I admired the way they'd crafted their work, but I had to tell them specifically what made it work. It's the same if I leave a "You go, girl!" I need to point out exactly why I agree or feel the encouragement is deserved. As for the second thing that struck me, courtesy...well, even when we disagree, we can do it constructively. I hope that with this group of people, I don't have to explain that one much.

I have a question about time. What time frame is considered "still okay" when commenting on a blog post? For example, let's say I happen upon Blog XYZ and see a post that was made two weeks ago that I'd like to respond to. Is it too late? What's the "expiration date" on these things? Or maybe it doesn't have to do with time but how many posts have been made since then. What if there are 2 or 3 newer posts? Does it mean I shouldn't comment on the older post because it's lost currency? Help!

Thing #9: Useful Library-Related Blogs and News Feeds

Hahaha! You can tell I hadn't looked at Thing 9 when I posted about Thing 8, but what a great lead-in!

Well! I certainly found some "odd" blogs out there as I tried out the different blog and feed "finders." It makes the post at Cool Cat Teacher about choosing your circle of wise ones highly pertinent. Be sure to know what it is you're lookikng for in a blog, too!

I found bloglines and google blogs to be the most useful for me, perhaps because they both shot me directly to an uncluttered search page, whereas Topix and Technorati's home pages were filled with busy text and images. I felt as though I had to wade through all of that to find what I needed/wanted: the search function. It was a bit intimidating. Also, I think I have a form of ADD or something similiar (plain ole lack of focus, hmmm?)because if I end up at a page that showcases blogs or news sites, I'll get super side-tracked and forget what I was there for in the first place. I'm a marketer's dream. Hehe...

I also discovered that bloglines and google seemed better for finding blogs while Topix (I think...I'm a bit addlepated at this point) was better for finding individual blog entries that are relevant to your search.

I couldn't help but search for feeds related to my personal interests as well as my professonial ones, so I checked out some crochet blogs and even discovered The Crochet Dude! I don't mean to be sexist at all, but it IS unusual to find a man so dedicated to crochet and crafts that he'd have a blog.

I also searched my own name at these sites, and eek! Amazing what they brought up in the search results. I created several blogs as part of grad school classes, and posts from each of them, as well as this one, popped up. As you can tell from this blog, I'm not shy about putting my real name out there, especially since all my blogs have been a part of my professional realm, but bloggers who're more secretive, beware!

23 Things: Just short of two dozen...

23 Things. I love it. Not 24. Not a round 20. That would be way too "formal," "structured," "ordered." It's a high enough number to feel a sense of accomplishment, but not so high as to seem unattainable.

What IS (or should it be ARE) 23 Things? Simply and in my words, it's a way for me and other people to explore and play with 23 different Web tools/applications that the average 10 year-old to twenty-something probably uses daily but that I've been cluelessly in the "duh" mode about. Okay, yeah...I've used some of them, but by no means have I attained "goddess" status in any of them.

23 Things, specifically, was created by Spring Branch ISD Library Information Services (A.K.A. the trio of "Head Honchos" of the SBISD libraries, led by Texas Librarian of the Year (TLA), the fabulous Dr. B.) for librarians and other SBISD employees, and even non-district folks, to get out of the larval "duh" stage when it comes to Web 2.0 and Library 2.0. They modified and adapted it from other sources like Stephen Abram's article, "43 Things I (or You) might want to do this year" (Information Outlook - February 2006) and the website 43 Things. You can find out lots more about it at Library2Play and this blog entry.