Week Three: Social Networking

Yes, I tweeted. Yes, I added Tony Millionaire to follow. (Then I decided to remove him and his mature and often immature content and just stick with something I am indifferent about but is current: fifawwc!) Goal.


Facebook. I used the lfpl practice site because I knew it would take me days and gallons of coffee and pounds of patience to do it proper like. Yes, I noticed the vast differences switching settings. Is it more tedious or meditative to adjust settings like that? Depends.

My personal experiences with Twitter (T) and Facebook (F) have been limited. I set up an account on each in the beginning stages of each and neither engaged me enough to suck much of my time. I have neither account now. Professionally, and by that I mean here at the library, I help patrons with their F accounts occasionally and their abilities range from "my friend set up my F account" which equals they don't know the name of the account or their password to "how do I print this rant on my wall" (= you don't really, unless you copy and paste it into a document) to "how do I do jfldhpfgnvnk" (= I suggest they use the help menu on F because I have no idea what the person means). I don't follow anyone or anything on T. I did. I lost interest. Gotta cull the words somewhere and the 140 genre were the first eliminated from my feed reader. (Talk about culling words, Simon; this needs editing.)

A few years ago when T began, I recall reading David Pogue's thoughts it. He explained it well and the example of its usefulness as a search engine he gave is more or less how I might use it here with patrons. It had to do with patents and emerging technology
and trying
to determine if anyone anywhere was working on a specific widget (for my memory fails as to what exactly the tech was). So he tweeted. In moments he had several responses and none was any type of info he could have gotten via any other way of networking, at least at that very awesome speed.

I would very much like to learn more about F, but mostly just so I will be able to help patrons with their questions. It just seems so bloated and massive and wasteful...hmmm, interesting how it reflects, or highlights, our worst qualities.

I don't love or hate social networking. Or maybe I love and hate it. I do know that I would prefer not to. (Thanks Bartleby.)

Are people still using LinkedIn? I like the concept, but it doesn't have the push and pull that F and T have. Rather, it hasn't the media's attention.

Is LinkedIn still valuable as a tool or has it hit the doldrums?