#21 Podcasts, Schmodcasts!

I haven't jumped on the podcast bandwagon yet personally, though I know they are vital to a lot of people. My Brian is one of those people; he is set up to receive podcasts of the shows that he never has time to listen to. While he's been up in Ann Arbor, he listens to them at night to go to sleep (since I'm not there to bore him to sleep with my rambling nighttime converstations).

A number of our medical students that I talk to at Irvine Hall also subscribe to relevant podcasts. I'm just not cool enough yet I guess, but I imagine I will be getting involved quickly once I head to Ann Arbor.

As far as the podcast directories go....I found them similar to some of the feedfinding tools out there in that I didn't find much useful stuff "searching" for it; I tend to go with things I find on my "usual sites" or things that others have shared with me. Perhaps not the most proactive approach, but saves me a lot of time!

#20 You Too can YouTube

As you can tell by the sidebar of my blog, I love YouTube. Although I find it virtually impossible to "search" on YouTube and find anything meaningful or useful, it makes it very easy to share the hilarious videos that I see other places online or get from my friends. Check out Terry Tate from my sidebar; laughed so hard I cried. And Chad Vader is also a favorite (Darth's younger brother; day manager at Empire Grocery Stores).

On a more somber, serious, and scholarly note, YouTube can be a great way to connect with our audience. A lot of libraries are already creating videos and uploading them to YouTube, and easily embedding them on their sites to share will all. Our very own library has created a great "Intro to the Library" video based on the Creative Commons videos:



I generally have to tweak the height/width settings a bit in my blog posts to make everything fit nicely, but that's pretty easy to do.

#19 Discovering Web 2.0 Tools

I'm going to say the same thing everyone else is saying: Wow! Though we've covered a number of "Web 2.0" topics and tools in this program, the Web 2.0 Awards page makes it very clear that there is much, much more out there! A bit daunting, to be honest. We'll never get a chance to try everything, and just when we do, more things are added! Exciting, but also kind of depressing in a "when will it ever stop?!?" way.

I checked out Yelp, ad city-guide type of social site. I was interested to see what it had to say about my hometown area, Minneapolis/St. Paul. The site deafulted to San Francisco, which was kind of annoying (instead of letting me choose my city off the bat).

I entered in Minneapolis, MN and off I went to check out the "local flavor" section. At first glance, nothing about the Minneapolis page seemed as robust as the San Fran page, but I guess that shouldn't surprise me :). I didn't find much, to be honest (I know there's more flavor in Minneapolis than 4 entries!!). It offers the option to add a business, but to me, most local flavor isn't a "business" per se. For example, the Minnesota State Fair is definitely local flavor!

All in all I wasn't that impressed with Yelp (at least for my uses), but I'll give it a chance again. I checked out lots of the other "winners" as well, and there's definitely some cool stuff out there! I plan to check this site the next time they do their "awards", as its a nice compact place to find some of these Web 2.0 tools.

#18 Web-based Apps

Love love love Google docs and calendars. I've used Google docs for a while now, in my ongoing (and increasingly futile) effort to coordinate budgeting information with my husband. Since he's on the road all the time, and we are both spending money, having a document loaded on a specific computer just didn't make sense. I store all kinds of things on Google docs now, since I never know where or when I might need to access my info.

I have been using Google's calendar application more as well (see my UM Men's Basketball Calendar post; all you Buckeyes, feel free to add it to your iGoogle or your Google calendar!!). I think it has tremendous possibilities for organizing groups; I've been suggesting to Brian that he use it to organize his team's classes and schedules, but we'll see how that goes.......

#17 Playing Around with Wikis

I've added my blog to the PBWiki page. It's much "easier" to use than mediawiki or even wetpaint, but it loses alot of functionality and customization along the way. It was, however, the perfect option for this program since most of us are wiki newbies. Hopefully we all have the hang of (or at least the idea of) wikis, since the Staff Information Wiki will be launched soon!

Keep your eyes peeled (Mark will be demonstrating it at the Wrap Party), and get ready to contribute your knowledge and information!

#16 So What's in a Wiki?

Love the wiki! It does, of course have its limitations (it can't be used for everything), but it's a pretty cool tool for gathering information from a variety of sources.

I think wikis can be a great substitute format for our traditional (and static) subject guides, as Chad has done with the BizWiki. Great stuff!

It also allows for others with subject expertise to add content (theoretically, profs, grad students, motivated undergrads, etc). Of course, you would have to talk them into it first.....

UM Men's Basketball Calendar