Friday, May 02, 2008

Blogging is so last year!

I'm a little jealous, but my supervisor went to a workshop yesterday. I'm jealous because she actually learned things that I didn't already know!

Last year I went to a bunch of library related workshops and learned nothing. They were about MySpace and Facebook or Blogging and YouTube...who doesn't know all that?

She came back all wide eyed like a child in a candy store talking about twitter, twhirl, animoto and tumblr. It's a whole new world I don't know about! I've been playing around a bit with them today, but I really suggest you check them out for yourself.

twitter- it's a mix between a chat and a myspace or facebook update...you know, on facebook your status updates. It let's you tell your friends what you're doing...in real time. You pick who you want to watch and who you want to block from watching you. I only have 5 people and, so far, only two of them have used it. You can upload a picture so people see your face when you update...it's neat. You can put it on your website or blog so others can see it, but it won't show up on my MySpace page...I do have it on my facebook, though. I haven't really found a great use for it yet, but I have it open at all times...which brings me to the next cool application

twhirl- it's something you download onto your computer so you can keep your twitter open all the time. It's kind of like IM only different. It dings when someone posts an update (I think it's actually called a tweet), which is nice, but you have to refresh it everytime so you can see what they wrote. I'm sure it's a work in progress, but it made me like twitter better.

animoto- it makes 30 second movies out of pictures. It's neat for myspace or facebook, but I'm really not sure what else you'd use it for. I have it on my facebook. I don't remember, but I don't think I made a movie yet.

tumblr- It's like a short blog. You can very easily post pictures, websites, just words, anything...as long as it's not too long...with the touch of a button. It's a way of putting multi forms of online media, that you like, together in one place. I posted three times today and, as you can see on mine, it is all on one page and it's short and sweet. Well, it's short anyhow.