CPL 2.0

Armed with a bit of knowledge about what Twitter is all about, share your thoughts on this fast growing online phenomenon.

Surprisingly, Twitter’s growth has mainly come from adults and it seems to be a fun thing and experience, working online while sharing nano-thoughts with a group of like-minded people. Twitter is good for broadcasting nano ideas and/or questions and answers to the outside world or for marketing a product/service. Many people have started using Twitter for professional purposes, e.g., keeping connected with industry contacts and following news. Most of the content on Twitter is public and as it is a one-to-many network, it works better than a social network which is basically tuned for communication among friends. But there are many who think that it is weird and see no need to let everyone know what they have been doing every second of their life.

CPL 2.0

Was the site user-friendly? Did you find it difficult to navigate ?

I did not find the site exactly user-friendly or intuitive. It takes a while getting used to it and eventually using it efficiently. But otherwise, it seems to be a good resource to keep record and track of your collection, go through reviews and reading recommendations on something you love to read.

CPL 2.0

Do you see free online tools like these eventually replacing expensive software like MS Office?

As the reach of internet and availability of free online tools become widespread, it is very likely that these online tools will attract a lot of customers/audience that use MS Office or similar software. But there will still be a substantial number of people, having concerns regarding online privacy issues, who would still be using software like MS Office.

CPL 2.0

• Comment on the quality, entertainment value, or usefulness of the content on these sites.

Account holders can upload and post both photographs and videos on these websites. Therefore, one would find an amazing collection of photos and videos on myriads of topics. Since this material is in public domain, entertainment value cannot be overstressed but quality and usefulness are open to debate and are pretty subjective.

CPL 2.0

I could easily and successfully set up my RSS feeds (http://alis.alberta.ca/ and others). It indeed makes getting the required information, under one roof, more convenient and focused.

CPL 2.0

You Tube

In the internet age, YouTube is the world leader in online video, and the premier destination to watch, post and share original videos through a Web experience. YouTube allows people to easily upload and share video clips across the internet through blogs, email, websites, and mobile devices. I enjoy watching DIY videos and it is one of the best places to see videos of songs from old Hindi films.

One thing I dislike about You Tube is that sometimes it becomes a platform for users to the place offensive, inappropriate and controversial content. But I would certainly recommend this product to friends and colleagues.

CPL 2.0: Review of Google Docs

Google offers an exciting free web-based product called Google Docs , which is equivalent to an Office suite. It supports universal formats like HTML, PDF, RTF, Text, and Word and if you have an internet connection you can upload, store and organize almost any type of file on your computer. You can also search for document files you've uploaded or that have been shared with you and you'll be able to view many common document file types with the Google Docs viewer. The upshot is that Docs allows real time online collaboration by multiple users. Files as large as up to 250 MB can be uploaded to Docs and you get 1 GB of free storage for files you don't convert into one of the Docs formats i.e., Google documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Additional storage is cheap to buy for only $0.25 per GB per year.

CPL 2.0

• For you, is Facebook useful or a time-waster?

For me, Facebook is a very useful social media. It helps me in getting and remaining in touch with my friends, relatives, colleagues and others very convenient and also makes sharing news, information and photos a breeze. I believe in neutrality of tool/technology and therefore in case of Facebook, it is up to the user as to how s/he makes use of it, in terms of time and efforts.

CPL 2.0

How easy or difficult was it to find articles that needed editing? Were the errors you found factual or grammar / spelling?

Well, it was easy to find article that could do with some editing. Mostly it required updation of information and facts and minor grammatical manipulations.

CPL 2.0

In my view, storing, tagging and sharing web content through a social media like Delicious offers several advantages:

• It allows internet users to identify, filter and retrieve relevant and crucial information, all at one place and therefore, offers a substantial saving of time and effort.
• It allows users and providers to track the usage of their favorite and/or similar tags, their popularity and history etc.
• We can find and add people with common interests to our network.

There are of course some drawbacks associated with using a tag-based system like Delicious.

• Lack of standardized set of keywords and the structure of such tags is one such disadvantage.
• It might also be a problem for users to either find or indicate hierarchical relationships between tags.
  

CPL 2.0

In the ever changing and expanding world of information gathering, disseminating and sharing, it is imperative for libraries to participate in and promote the new media mix to remain relevant. I am sure that CPL 2.0 will enable me to explore and expand my knowledge toolbox and eliminate fear of some social networking technologies like RSS and twitter and blogging etc.