ACRL Photos on Flickr

People have been furiously adding their conference photos to Flickr in anticipation of the contest deadline of April 8th. There are some wonderful photos in there, and yes, some of them are mine.

Flickr: Photos from acrl2007

ACRL on Flickr

For those who haven't found it yet:

ACRL2007 tag on Flickr

My life in 2.0

Discussion about 2.0, web, libraries, life, what have you, has been happening for a while. Maybe because I've been plugged in more often for the last month than I have been previously, but it seems like the frequency of discussion has spiked in the last month or so. I thought it would do me some good to practice some self-reflection on the topic. I'm not going to hit on every 2.0 app out there because I don't know about all of them as there seems to be a new one popping up every day. It's also hard to separate out sites into categories after a while because the majority of them use similar features. Anyway, here's my shortlist.

Blogs
I'm scared to count up how many blogs I contribute to, let alone am considered a member of. I started my first blog about four years ago. It's long dead, but it led to this one. Contributing to blogs helped me to hone my writing skills and build my presence on the web. I currently use Blogger, LiveJournal and Vox for somewhat regularly updated blogs, all with different purposes.

Wikis
It took me a while to see the value in wikis. I now use Wikipedia as a starting point in personal research like how many soldiers comprise a legion. I've contributed a little to a few other wiki projects. This is a service that I can see the value of, but rarely have the proper context in which to use it.

Social networking sites
I could almost do a whole essay on the use of social networking sites alone. Here are the networks that I have accounts with, even if I don't use the accounts:

MySpace
Friendster
Ning - Library 2.0, Library Bloggers

The only one that I'm particularly interested in at this point, because I actually understand the use of it, is Ning.

Tagging
I never got on the del.icio.us bandwagon, once again because I couldn't figure out the usefulness of it to myself. However, I'm a big user of LibraryThing. I got a paid account back when $10 got you a lifetime account. I have a secondary, private account, for a project I'm a member of and man, is it easy for managing my part of that project. See, I found the use for myself.

Photo sharing
I've had a Flickr account for about a year and a half now, and when I remember to upload pictures to it, I really like it. This is one of the services that I wasn't quite sure where to put it though because it's more than the tagging feature, and it's not quite blogging.

Instant Messaging
Is IM really 2.0? It's hard to think of it as being a 2.0 app, mainly because I equate 2.0 services as being available only after I left college (1999), and I was using IM well before I graduated. However, if the IM aggregators like Meebo are to be 2.0 apps, then yes, I'm a Meebo user when I remember to use it. It's only been recently that I've returned to regular IM usage. Why? Because I had AOL on all the time when dial-up was my connection to the internet. When broadband became my mode of connection, my computer was not robust enough to handle multiple programs with any efficiency and IM fell by the wayside. At home I still forget to turn it on, but on my work computer, AIM and Y!M turn on when the computer turns on.

Conclusion
Notice how many services I didn't mention, like the 2.0 app du jour, Twitter? I'm glad there are others out there experimenting with it because it's a service that I just can't see the usefulness of for myself. And I think that's the whole point of 2.0. What do you have a use for? If you can't see how a service relates to, or joy of joys, eases your life, you're not going to use it. This is why I'm a secondary adopter. I love new techie toys (I'm often teased by my siblings for being the uber-geek of the family), but I need to have a use for them or they get tossed by the wayside fairly quickly. Like I said, I was quick to hop onto the LT bandwagon, however, as my cousin and brother will be happy to attest to after helping me move, I own way too many books.

Edit:
Yeah...Forgot about the YouTube thing. So, I guess the header for where Flickr is should be Media sharing. And, I'm adding the tags I forgot.