#18 YouTube

YouTube is another of those sites where you can spend a lot of time both in enjoyment and in frustration - enjoyment in watching all those fascinating and funny videos, in frustration waiting for the video to download and also searching for the gems amongst the junk. The first videos I watched on Internet a few years ago was when R showed us this beer commercial. We still love watching it:

I opened a YouTube account soon after that and every now and then visit the site to look at some interesting videos people recommend via emails, blogs and other forums. One of those videos was Evolution of Dance by comedian Judson Laipply. This video was the most popular video of all time according a blog post of the ReadWriteWeb blog.(Viewed 98,368,870 at time of writing.)That was in 2007. Of course things change over time and in 2008 Google Blogoscoped reported that CANSEI DE SER SEXY Music is My Hot Hot Sex is the most popular video - viewed 13,746,509 at time of writing. What I find puzzling is that neither video is listed on YouTube's most viewed videos of all time.

Another interesting series of videos I came cross was this Manga artist, which I'm sure some of our patrons would be very interested in - beautiful, expressive drawings. The YouTube videos cover all kinds of subjects. I can remember that a student once needed information in audiovisual format and we found a suitable video on YouTube.

Video is a very versatile medium which can be effectively used for marketing & promotion, instruction, information and recording of events. This list of 100 Awesome Youtube Vids for Librarians compiled by Laura Milligan illustrates the many ways video can be used by libraries. Looking at many of the YouTube videos I think that making videos for the library should be done by professionals to project the right image and quality of presentation.

Having mentioned professionalism, the video I want to share with you is a typical home video, but it has an amazing story. It is a bit long (8.24 minutes) but worth the wait while downloading it. IslandSchoolHongKong did a remix and shortened it to one version of 4.09 minutes and another shorther version of 2.58 minutes. This video caused such a sensation that it caught the attention of the main media and there is an entry in Wikipedia. Enjoy!

#17 Web 2.0 awards

There are some interesting sites on the list. Although quite a few caught my interest, I am reluctant to open a new account if it isn't something I would use in the future. In the end I decided on Geni - a family tree web site, because that is one project that I am really keen to get off the ground. It was quick and easy to sign up and start using. I'm looking forward to building our family tree and adding some family history. It also allows family participation, which would make it a family project in more than one sense.

Browsing through the list of winners I have noticed that there are quite a few of the applications that we have either used or looked at with this programme. It gives you a sense of satisfaction looking at the list and think: 'Yes, I know about that!'

Zoho Show presentation

I have tried Zoho Show and here is the result. Easy to use and I will definitely explore it further when I want to make a slide show next time.

#16 Zoho Writer experiment

I am writing this post using Zoho Writer. It has quite powerful features and I would like to experiment with it. I have been using Google Docs and found that a convenient way of always having access to your documents - I used to either email documents or carry discs/memory sticks around. It looks like it saves your work automatically although it is not as obvious as with Google Docs. Google Docs is not as feature rich as Zoho Writer. The fact that you can import Word documents make this very versatile. I wonder if you can create a document and export it as a Word document. (You can do that with Google Docs, which is very convenient.) I am impressed by ZohoShow the presentation application - I still have to use the Google presentation application so that I can compare the two. The only complaint I have is that it is another account to open and use, but if it proves worthwhile I might switch to Zoho Writer.

One thing that bothered me was when I signed up using either my Google or Yahoo account Zoho Writer ask to have access to my contacts and data in the accounts. I felt very uncomfortable with that and denied permission with the result I couldn't sign up that way. When I signed up from scratch there was no such intrusive action, although I gave my Web 2.0 programme's gmail address to sign up. But any case, here I am now typing away on this blog post and am quite intriged by Zoho Writer.

I also looked at the other web-based applications. Thinkfree also looks good although it is not free. I don't understand what gOffice is about and at this stage don't have the time or interest to have a closer look at it. Up until now Google docs has served the purpose and now that I have a Zoho account I might use that for a while to see if it worth having two accounts. The sharing funtion (for both Google doc and Zoho writer) is very useful for collaboration.

#15 Rollyo

Rollyo have the potential for librarians to select good quality sites and make them avialable to the public via subject specific Rollyos. I can imagine that many people will appreciate this service as it will save valuable time on internet searching. Although internet contains gems of information you can spend a lot of time sifting through irrelevant junk before coming across reliable and good quality sites.

The Rollyo I compiled is a mixture of websites and blogs on book reviews. I started off adding just blogs and then changed my mind and added general websites as well. I found that the title space is limited. I created the search engine anonymously - didn't feel like registering - and easily found it again. (Note: the sites I added where just a few I have bookmarked and I haven't seriously considered a balanced list as this exercise was an experiment.) Another rollyo I want to create is one for maths homework, but perhaps one of my colleagues will create that one so I will wait and see.

Another image generator

Image by Cool Text: Logo and Button Generator - Create Your Own

These image generators are really fun to play with. This image was created by Cool Text graphics generator.

#14 LibraryThing

LibraryThing is a wonderful tool for Reader's Advisory - looking at the recommendations, comparing your list with others based on your titles. I have already picked up new authors to try from those lists. The groups are another great source of information and discussion, and so are the tag searches. It would be wonderful if we could add LibraryThing to our catalogue and have patrons add their lists, reviews and tags.

Here is my list on LibrayThing.