Thing 13: Social bookmarking with del.icio.us.

I've been playing around with del.icio.us a bit. I use it mainly to keep track of bookmarks on different computers, for things I read on a regular basis. I can definitely see the potential of this tool for research assistance by allowing you to combine specific tags to keep track of new content. The key feature of social bookmarking is not just the easy sharing of bookmarks with different users or different computers; it's the network-aspect of it, where you can join a trusted community of people with similar interests and get relevant sites suggested to you by that community.

It just takes a bit of time, though, to add all of these tags. And of course the more tags you can add the more meaningful your actual experience using this service. I think it also helps to bundle up tags into groups for some form of hierarchical structure. You can even organize these links even using the DDC as a framework, as with the example of San Mateo Public Library's del.icio.us page. Librarians are also more used to the concept of using a controlled vocabulary because that's what works for our catalogs. Perhaps with more librarians using tags, tags can become more hierarchical, and standardized.

One thing about all of these 2.0 things is that they slow down pages quite a bit! Please be patient as my tags display; the tags still need a lot of edits and additions but here is the cloud:

Thing 12: Roll my own search engine!

I decided to create a custom search engine for information on traveling to Tanzania, using only sites from my friend who lives there now and runs a successful safari company. It was a pretty easy process using Rollyo, although when I tried to add a differently styled search interface, I kept getting errors from Blogger. I finally switched to the plain style and it worked just fine.

So, if you have any questions about visiting Tanzania, try out the search engine below, and leave me a comment if you have any questions!

Select Search Engine...My Visiting TanzaniaSearch The Web

Powered by Rollyo

Thing 11: Explore Web 2.0 Award winners.

One of the most useful sites for living in this area, Craigslist makes it ridiculously easy to post classified ads on the web. Although some of the forums and post categories can be quite odd, if you're looking for a place to live or someone to buy your old bike, this site is the first place you should check out. I think it's an effective site because it has a strict policy against commercialization, the community tends to effectively police itself and maintains a high level of trust. Also, it has a huge potential to be monetized -= but so far hasn't. Posts are free except for job postings in certain markets - which makes sense when trying to scan for quality postings. As this post succinctly summarizes:

[Craigslist] focused on service, were patient and, most of all, not greedy. They gained users’ trust and built a huge brand over a decade. In fact, they’re one of the only brands on the Internet. (from http://gesterling.wordpress.com/2006/12/19/why-craigslist-makes-analysts-crazy/)

Craigslist is a perfect example of how a strong sense of community matters on the Web, how it can work to create a culture of trust, and how good sites must help foster a sense of community to develop a long-term brand.

Another excellent Web 2.0 tool is Meebo, an excellent replacement for IM-ing for those of us who can't download any chat clients on our work computers. It's sort of like a web-based version of Adium without the cute duck; you can aggregate various chat clients in one web browser instance.

Thing 10: Online image generators for instant fun!

Oh boy what fun! Thanks to http://www.imagechef.com.