is for VCarious, "a new way to explore travel destinations." You can read travel guides written by others, post your own photos and journals, and share interesting items with your friends and colleagues. This is based on a core Web 2.0 concept to get the users to create and contribute the content. Actually, this site is quite cool; it's definitely worth a look if you're planning a trip somewhere.

VCarious is a new kind of travel site for exploring destinations in the same way as first-hand travel. Using Web 2.0 technologies, VCarious provides a dynamic, interactive environment for exploring photos, journals, and travel guides. Members can interact with other travelers, share their photos and journals, and participate in creating community travel guides.

VCarious was created by travelers who were tired of canned, one-size-fits-all printed guides and frustrated with disorganized travel web sites filled with sponsored links. With its dynamic and interactive tools, VCarious enables travel enthusiasts to share their experiences and truly explore the world.

and Yes, I know I skipped "U".

Web 2.0 Alpbahet:Part 2 (letters N-Z) were originally published in Information Today 24.10 (Nov 2007): p.15(2).

2.0 Alphabet

is for Twitter, "a global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing? Answer on your phone, IM, or right here on the web!" My immediate reply was, who the heck cares? For some reason, Twitter has received a lot of buzz in the library community. It's not as though we weren't already plagued by information overload.

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send "updates" (or "tweets"; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter web site, via the Twitter web site, short message service (SMS), instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific or Facebook.
Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and instantly delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. The sender can restrict delivery to those in his or her circle of friends (delivery to everyone is the default). Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, instant messaging, SMS, RSS, email or through an application. [Wikipedia]

There's always a lot of chatter on Library 2.0 blogs about the significance, need, point, etc. of Twitter. I'd comment more, but I've got to read my email (8:05am); then I'm going to drink some coffee (8:07, 8:15 & 8:34am); I have an appointment with my supervisor (9:15am) but will stop by the restroom first (9:06am) ... "What are you doing?"

Web 2.0 Alpbahet:Part 2 (letters N-Z) were originally published in Information Today 24.10 (Nov 2007): p.15(2).

2.0 Alphabet

is for Squidoo. Squidoo is a network of user-generated lenses --single pages that highlight one person's point of view, recommendations, or expertise. Lenses can be about anything, such as ideas, people or places, hobbies and sports, pets or products, philosophy, and politics. Lenses aren't primarily intended to hold content; more emphasis is placed on recommending and then pointing to content on the web. Annotation and organization and personalization delivers context and meaning.

Squidoo's goal as a platform is to bring the power of recommendation to search. Squidoo's goal as a co-op is to pay as much money as we can to our lensmasters and to charity. And Squidoo's goal as a community is to have fun along the way, and meet new ideas and the people behind them.
Read more about Squidoo at The SquidLens.

Check out Squidoo's Library 2.0 Lens.

Web 2.0 Alpbahet:Part 2 (letters N-Z) were originally published in Information Today 24.10 (Nov 2007): p.15(2).

2.0 Alphabet

is for reddit, where users submit links to content and then vote on the links, so the most popular items bubble to the top. Similar sites are Digg.com and Newsvine. A study released in September 2007 by the Project for Excellence in Journalism showed a wide divergence in what the so-called "mainstream media" considers to be important and what "the masses" perceive as worthy of attention. This is proof.

"The site has discussion areas in which users may discuss the posted links and vote for or against others' comments. When there are enough votes against a given comment, it will not be displayed by default, although a reader can display it through a link or preference. Users who submit articles which other users like and subsequently "vote up" receive "karma" points as a reward for submitting interesting articles."[Wikipedia]

Web 2.0 Alpbahet:Part 2 (letters N-Z) were originally published in Information Today 24.10 (Nov 2007): p.15(2).

2.0 Alphabet

is for Pandora, which lets you create your own streaming Internet radio station that plays only music that you like. The technology at work here derives from the Music Genome Project, which parses a song using 400-plus attributes, making it easy to find more related or similar songs. If you love music, you've probably already found Pandora.

Take a look at the recent article from Information Today - "Pandora lets users create online radio stations.(Link-Up @ Home)." by Thomas Pack. [Information Today 25.5 (May 2008): p.38(2)].

Web 2.0 Alpbahet:Part 2 (letters N-Z) were originally published in Information Today 24.10 (Nov 2007): p.15(2).

2.0 Alphabet

is for Ourmedia, "a community of video producers, podcasters and other grassroots media-makers coming together to show off citizen creativity, discuss methods for creating higherquality works, and interact with one another." This one is interesting (at least to me) because J. D. Lasica, who has a long professional history in print journalism, started it. With those at so many print publications scratching their corporate heads over how to remain relevant (not to mention profitable) today, sites such as Ourmedia need to be on the radar screen as an archive for grass-roots multimedia content.




Web 2.0 Alpbahet:Part 2 (letters N-Z) were originally published in Information Today 24.10 (Nov 2007): p.15(2).

2.0 Alphabet

"is for Ning, an oddly named service that lets you "create, customize, and share your own Social Network for free in seconds." Well, we like anything that is free, and that's a good thing about Web 2.0 apps in general. Ning is one I really don't get, but apparently plenty of others do; thousands and thousands of networks are listed on the site. I couldn't tell you how many are active. I'm not sure why someone would choose this particular social network rather than Facebook, for example, but a Library 2.0 Network exists here."

Here's another example of a user created social network: The Barista Exchange - just for Baristas (one who has acquired some level of expertise in the preparation of espresso-based coffee drinks):

"Ning hopes to compete with large social sites like MySpace and Facebook, by appealing to users who want to create networks around specific interests or have limited technical skills.[5] The unique feature of Ning is that anyone can create their own custom social network for a particular topic or need, catering to specific audiences. At its launch, Ning offered several simple base websites developed internally and by members of a closed beta. In late September of 2006, Ning narrowed its focus to offering a group website, a photos website, and a videos website for people to copy and use for any purpose. Later, these three templates were superseded by a single customizable template aimed at allowing non-developers to more easily customize their copy of the social website. However, Ning does allow developers to have some source level control of their social networks, enabling them to change features and underlying logic." [Wikipedia]

Web 2.0 Alpbahet:Part 2 (letters N-Z) were originally published in Information Today 24.10 (Nov 2007): p.15(2).

2.0 Alphabet

is for meebo, which is "instant messaging everywhere." If you're stuck at a place where the IT department has locked down the computers to keep people from installing stuff, head for meebo to use popular IM programs, including AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk, ICQ, and Jabber. Its versatility makes it useful for librarians doing chat reference or as a bookmark on public access computers, if you don't want to mess with separate applications for all these IM services.


Remember meebo? Way back in Lesson #2 - IM & Virtual Reference we used meebo to sample chat with each other -> take a look...


Web 2.0 Alpbahet:Part 1 (letters A - M) were originally published in Information Today 24.9 (Oct 2007): p.17(2).

2.0 Alphabet

is for Last.fm, which "taps the wisdom of the crowds, leveraging each user's musical profile to make personalised recommendations, connect users who share similar tastes, provide custom radio streams, and much more." Listen online. Yes, it's very cool; CBS liked it so much that it bought the site last May.

Last.fm is a UK-based internet radio and music community website, founded in 2002. It claims over 21 million active users based in more than 200 countries.[1] On 30 May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for £140m (US$280m).
Using a music recommendation system known as "Audioscrobbler," Last.fm builds a detailed profile of each user's musical taste by recording details of all the songs the user listens to, either on the streamed radio stations or on the user's computer or portable music device. This information is transferred to Last.fm's database ("scrobbled") via a plugin installed into the user's music player. The profile data is displayed on a personal web page. The site offers numerous social networking features and can recommend and play artists similar to the user's favourites.

Users can create custom radio stations and playlists from any of the audio tracks in Last.fm's music library, and are able to listen to some individual tracks on demand, or download tracks if the rightsholder has previously authorised it. Registration is required to acquire a profile but is not necessary to view any part of the site or to listen to radio stations. [Wikipedia]

2.0 Alphabet

is for Keyword Density Checker. This is actually aimed at Search Engine Optimization (SEO) people who need help deciding which advertising keywords to buy on various Web sites. But it's a cool toy too. Type in a URL, and it generates not only a tag cloud ("visual depiction of keywords" with more frequently used words in larger fonts), but also a keyword density chart, with a count and percentage total for each keyword. It's easier to use than to explain.

Here's the tag clound for the hcplc=LIB 2.0 training blog:

Here's the keyword count:

Web 2.0 Alpbahet:Part 1 (letters A - M) were originally published in Information Today 24.9 (Oct 2007): p.17(2).

2.0 Alphabet

is for Joost. Watch TV online and interact with friends (or complete strangers) while you do. This is another potential time sink.

Joost (pronounced /j ooːst/ "Juiced") is a system for distributing TV shows and other forms of video over the Web using peer-to-peer TV technology, created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis (founders of Skype and Kazaa).
Joost began development in 2006. Working under the code name "The Venice Project", Zennström and Friis assembled teams of some 150 software developers in about six cities around the world, including New York, London, Leiden and Toulouse. According to Zennström at a 25 July 2007 press conference about Skype held in Tallinn, Estonia, Joost has signed up more than a million beta testers and is on track for an end-of-year launch.[1]
The teams are currently in negotiations with FOX networks. It has signed up with Warner Music, Indianapolis Motor Speedway Productions (Indianapolis 500, IndyCar Series) and production company Endemol for the beta.[2] In February 2007, Viacom entered into a deal with the company to distribute content from its media properties, including MTV Networks, BET and film studio Paramount Pictures. [Wikipedia]

Yes Jason, you can watch every episode of Jericho right at your desk...

Web 2.0 Alpbahet:Part 1 (letters A - M) were originally published in Information Today 24.9 (Oct 2007): p.17(2).

2.0 Alphabet

is for ImageGenerator.org, which is actually a humongous collection of links to tools that let you "Create free custom graphics & clipart online without any software!" Make your own Presidential Seal, Dummies book cover, Nigerian Scam placard, various flags and banners, bar codes, logos, signs, and much more. This site should be labeled with a "time sink" warning. Excuse me while I take a few minutes here and make my own Monopoly Chance and Community Chest cards.

One of my favorite image generator sites (not included in the one above) comes from the New Zealand National Library -

Click the catalog card to givce it a try!

Web 2.0 Alpbahet:Part 1 (letters A - M) were originally published in Information Today 24.9 (Oct 2007): p.17(2).

2.0 Alphabet

is for Hype Machine. The Hype Machine is here to make music discovery fun and get artists paid. The Hype Machine tracks a variety of MP3 blogs. If a post contains MP3 links, it adds those links to its database and displays them on the front page.
Some of the frequently accessed tracks are cached by the Hype Machine server, much like Google Search caches web pages, to reduce load on the bloggers' servers and protect their bandwidth.
Those tracks are NOT available for download, but you can preview them via the play buttons that are next to each track.
The blog that posted a particular track is identified under every track by name so you can read more about why they posted it. If you enjoyed a track someone posted, stop by and let them know!

The Hype Machine is an MP3 blog aggregator created by Anthony Volodkin. It enables "one-stop shopping" of postings from thousands of MP3 blogs.[1] Volodkin created the website in 2005 while enrolled at Hunter College.[2]
Some MP3 bloggers have complained that aggregators (such as The Hype Machine) allow users to download music without taking in the entire experience of a music blog, such as its editorial content. [Wikipedia]

(the return of ) 2.0 Alphabet

is for Google Labs, a sandbox for all kinds of Google-based Web 2.0 toys. Not all innovations will become permanent features, but here you can find a definitive "Graduates" list of those which have, including Google's suite of online office applications (Docs & Spreadsheets), Google Reader, and Google Maps (an application programming interface that provides the basis for many Web 2.0 goodies).

Google Labs is a website demonstrating new Google projects "that aren't quite ready for prime time". It serves as a testing ground for new services being developed. This is a way for Google to gain feedback on the products before releasing the final versions. Google's services do not always appear on the Labs page; some are beta tested by invitation-only, like Gmail and Google Calendar once were. [Wikipedia]

Take a look at Google SMS - reference help by cell phone!

Web 2.0 Alpbahet:Part 1 (letters A - M) were originally published in Information Today 24.9 (Oct 2007): p.17(2).

2.0 Alphabet

is for Furl , from Look-Smart (remember them?). It's kind of like an online filing cabinet that lets you save, store, and share Web pages of interest. As with del.icio.us, you can get an RSS feed of the most popular items that people are currently Furling.

Furl is a social bookmarking site like del.icio.us or Simpy, Furl enables members to bookmark, annotate, and share web pages. Topics are used to categorize saved sites, similar to the tagging feature of other social websites. Additionally, a user may write comments, save clippings, assign each bookmark a rating and keywords (which are given greater weight while searching), and have an option of private or public storage for each topic or item archived.
Considered one of its main features, Furl also privately archives a complete copy of the html of each page that a user bookmarks, making it accessible even if the original content is modified or removed, an antidote for link rot. This also allows full text searches to be made within the archive. However, as highlighted under limitations below, images that are embedded using links are not archived with user's copy of the html page, so images may disappear over time. [Wikipedia]

Web 2.0 Alpbahet:Part 1 (letters A - M) were originally published in Information Today 24.9 (Oct 2007): p.17(2).

2.0 Alphabet

is for eSnips is a free, web 2.0 interest-driven social sharing site that allows users to share content and promote their creations and form social niche communities around their specific areas of interest. Members can upload and share content in any file type from one centralized profile, in folders representing their different areas of interest, and can determine the audience for each folder. eSnips is a Flickr type service for data files.

We've already used eSnips to view the survey results from the "How 2.0 R U?" survey.

There are many free online Image Storing and File Sharing sites:

flickr - zoto - glide effortlessly - Shutterbook - Fotolia - iStockPhoto - PhotoBucket - fotki - BubbleShare - openomy - xdrive - omnidrive

Allmydata - Avvenu - SendSpace - eSnips - StreamLoad - Wiki upload - Pickle

Web 2.0 Alpbahet:Part 1 (letters A - M) were originally published in Information Today 24.9 (Oct 2007): p.17(2).

2.0 Alphabet

is for del.icio.us, "social bookmarking" for the great unwashed (e.g., everybody else). This is the 1,000-pound gorilla of social bookmarking sites (for some reason, I always have trouble spelling this one). If you're a voyeur or just want to make sure you don't miss anything cool/interesting/useful, snag the RSS feed from the front page to see what people are bookmarking right now. del.icio.us is part of the Yahoo! family of sites, along with Flickr, the iconic Web 2.0 photo-sharing site.

del.icio.us is a collection of favorites - yours and everyone else's. You can use del.icio.us to:

• Keep links to your favorite articles, blogs, music, reviews, recipes, and more, and access them from any computer on the web.
• Share favorites with friends, family, coworkers, and the del.icio.us community.
  Discover new things.
• Everything on del.icio.us is someone's favorite -- they've already done the work of finding it. So del.icio.us is full of bookmarks about technology, entertainment, useful information, and more. Explore and enjoy.

del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website -- the primary use of del.icio.us is to store your bookmarks online, which allows you to access the same bookmarks from any computer and add bookmarks from anywhere, too. On del.icio.us, you can use tags to organize and remember your bookmarks, which is a much more flexible system than folders.


We'll spend a great deal of time discussing social bookmarking and tagging in session #10 - Social Bookmarking, Tagging & Folksonomies.

Web 2.0 Alpbahet:Part 1 (letters A - M) were originally published in Information Today 24.9 (Oct 2007): p.17(2).

2.0 Alphabet

is for Connotea, "free online reference management for all researchers, clinicians and scientists" (e.g., social bookmarking for researchers). Developed for the scientific community, it "knows about" scholarly science journals and Web sites.

"Unlike many of the other well-known tools, Connotea is aimed primarily at scientists (though the user community is rapidly growing throughout academic disciplines), and while users may bookmark any webpage they choose, it incorporates special functionality for certain academic resources. Connotea recognises a number of scientific websites and will automatically collect metadata for the article or page being bookmarked, including author and publication names. It is also possible to add non-recognised webpages, by manually entering information." [from Wikipedia]

Web 2.0 Alpbahet:Part 1 (letters A - M) were originally published in Information Today 24.9 (Oct 2007): p.17(2).

2.0 Alphabet

is for BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer file-sharing protocol that facilitates sharing large amounts of data. It's not just for illegal downloading. Really.

A BitTorrent client is any program that implements the BitTorrent protocol. Each client is capable of preparing, requesting, and transmitting any type of computer file over a network, using the protocol. A peer is any computer running an instance of a client.
To share a file or group of files, a peer first creates a "torrent." This small file contains metadata about the files to be shared and about the tracker, the computer that coordinates the file distribution. Peers that want to download the file first obtain a torrent file for it, and connect to the specified tracker, which tells them from which other peers to download the pieces of the file.

It has often been used to transmit music, movie, software and computer game files from one personal computer to another via an informal network of users.

Now, all that said, we can't show you BitTorrent in the library. Peer-to-peer file sharing networks are not allowed according to county standards. Here's a diagram:

Web 2.0 Alpbahet:Part 1 (letters A - M) were originally published in Information Today 24.9 (Oct 2007): p.17(2).

A is for Ajax

This will be the first in a series of Web 2.0 Alphabet posts. Shirley Duglin Kennedy - librarian at the MacDill Air Force Base - has published these in two consecutive issues of Information Today magazine. They will be re-posted here, one letter each week.

Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is a combination of technologies that powers many interactive Web 2.0 applications. It's also a cleanser, but it's always more rewarding to surf the Web than to scrub sinks, right?

From Wikipedia: A primary characteristic (of Ajax) is the increased responsiveness and interactiveness of web pages achieved by exchanging small amounts of data with the server "behind the scenes" so that the entire web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user performs an action. This is intended to increase the web page's interactivity, speed, functionality, and usability.

What do you think "B" could be for...you'll have to wait until next Friday.

Web 2.0 Alpbahet:Part 1 (letters A - M) were originally published in Information Today 24.9 (Oct 2007): p.17(2).