Thing #41 -- Mashup your Life

I joined FriendFeed (as DeborahWK--same as Twitter) several Things ago, and subscribed to the feeds of several people I know. I mostly monitor it the same way I monitor my other web 2.0 sites, by a gadget on my iGoogle home page. Which makes me wondor sometimes if FriendFeed isn't therefore rather redundant--what's the point of having a feed to update me with information I can see in my other gadgets on the same page? One major drawback, as far as I'm concerned, is the fact that FriendFeed can't pull in my status updates from Facebook. Therefore, people who follow me (admittedly not very many at this point) are missing a large part of my online life. After searching through several online forums I discovered this is a common problem for Facebook/FriendFeed users. Even so, I'll continue to use it for the time being, primarily for professional networking/development. Most of my personal online interaction still happens through Facebook.

My library began using Digsby for our IM reference service in the middle of the past semester. We have a Facebook account and one of the librarians received a chat reference query while she was logged in. It made us realize that since Trillian (our IM software at the time) couldn't monitor our Facebook account, we were potentially missing out on assisting users. Digsby solved that problem for us, aggregating all the chat services we use in one place. Another advantage to Digsby is it allows us to create chat widgets to place on pages of our web site where students might be looking for help.

Thing #31 -- More Twitter

Keeping up with news and finding things out quickly is what I've ended up using Twitter the most for. It was via the #cil2009 hashtag on Twitter that I discovered the Computers in Libraries day 2 keynote was being streamed live and was able to watch it. Tweets from MPR were how I found out about several developments in the Coleman-Franken recount trial shortly after they happened. And a chance viewing of trending topics is how I discovered that Skype (finally!) was releasing a native app for the iPhone/iPod Touch the following day.

I use a variety of Twitter methods. I don't use the Twitter web site very often--it's slow to load and doesn't always draw the screen formatted properly. I tried both TwitterFon and Twitterrific on my iPod Touch, and preferred TwitterFon. It's the main way I read tweets, but I don't post that way very often, preferring a full keyboard to the mini on-screen one. I also installed TwitterGadget on my iGoogle page, which I use primarily for sending my tweets. These 2 applications meet my needs, so I haven't explored a desktop Twitter client. The only one I considered was TweetDeck, primarily for it's ability to update my Facebook status with my tweets and vice versa. (I discovered this feature from a friend I follow, who mentioned it in a tweet.)

To be honest, I use Twitter more than I thought I would. I'm probably somewhere between the Dumping and Conversing stages. Since I don't have many followers, I often feel my tweets are just a one-sided conversation into the ether, but I have had a few actual conversations. And most of what I follow I do for news or entertainment--I haven't felt the need to reply to anything I've read. Perhaps more interaction will come if I stick with it.

Thing #20 -- Facebook / MySpace

I joined Facebook in the fall, mostly out of curiousity. I had heard a lot about it and wanted to see for myself. After I created my account I discovered my siblings in other states are also on it and it's now one of the ways we keep in touch. I'm currently on a couple of groups related to my library. For this thing I looked briefly at some of the suggested Facebook groups, but didn't join any. I plan to take a closer look at them later (when I'm not hurrying to finish the rest of the Things) and will probably join at least one.

I chose Facebook because it appeared to offer more security than MySpace--you have more control over who can see information about you. The layout in Facebook seems cleaner to me and the ads aren't as obtrusive.