The Network is the Future: Getting started with social networking tools

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The Network is the Future Getting started with
social networking tools

• Scott Brown
• scott.brown_at_sun.com
• Digital Libraries Research
• Sun Microsystems, Inc.
• CLiC Spring Workshop
• April 25, 2008, Pueblo, CO

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Today's Agenda

• Social networking tools
• What are they?
• Which should I use, and why?
• What's available?
• Live demos using Facebook, wikis

Objectives

• You will be more familiar with social networking
  tools and how to get started using them
• You will know about some tools you can use

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What tools will I be talking about and showing
you today?

• Blogs
• Social networking sites
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Wikis

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What tools won't I be showing you today?

• RSS because there was a great session on this
  yesterday!
• Virtual worlds
• Second Life
• Anything really complicated or complex

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Aw, gee why not?
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Why am I showing you what I am today?

• All very social in nature
• All web-based
• No special software or anything to download
• All free
• All relatively straight-forward and easy to use
• You can start using any of these immediately -
• ...and we will!

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Web 2.0 tools what are they?

• Next generation tools
• Online, most often available free
• Often social/collaborative in nature
• Read/write platform

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Some common goals of these tools

• Share
• Build communities
• Collaborate
• Connect with others quickly
• Get more specifically what you want/need (not
  what someone else wants you to have)?

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Some common goals of these tools

• Share
• Build communities
• Collaborate
• Connect with others quickly
• Get more specifically what you want/need (not
  what someone else wants you to have)?

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Share

• Blogs
• Twitter
• Photo sharing
• Flickr
• Shutterfly
• etc.
• Digg

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Blogs

• A blog (a shortening of web log) is a website
  where entries are written in chronological order
  and commonly displayed in reverse chronological
  order.
• Many blogs provide commentary or news on a
  particular subject others function as more
  personal online diaries.
• Personal publishing
• Easy to create
• Informal way to share information and communicate
  with an audience
• They're fun!
• Many, but some of the most popular are

• What are they?
• Why use them?
• What's available?

• LiveJournal http//www.livejournal.com
• WordPress http//www.wordpress.com
• h

• Blogger http//www.blogger.com
• TypePad
• Many others...

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Twitter

• A blog-like application that asks the question
  What are you doing?
• Network-driven you follow people
• Interesting way to keep up with people socially
• Use it as an alternative marketing channel
• http//www.twitter.com

• What is it?
• Why use it?
• Where is it?

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Build communities

• LinkedIn
• Second Life

• Facebook
• Ning
• MySpace

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Facebook

• Quickly evolving into a top social networking
  tool
• Very popular social networking application
• Individuals, institutions, associations,
  businesses all starting to adopt Facebook
• Ability to create groups, advertise events
• Many integrated applications - for example, you
  can get your Twitter feeds in Facebook
• http//www.facebook.com

• What is it?
• Why use it?
• Where can I find it?

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LinkedIn

• A social networking tool, with a business
  emphasis
• "Resume on steroids" - post information about
  your employment, accomplishments, education, get
  and give recommendations, etc.
• Rolodex on steroids" - Connect with business
  colleagues, but also industry colleagues find
  connections by employer, alumni associations,
  search, etc.
• Find jobs, answer questions, etc.
• Requires a lot of up-front work before seeing
  benefit
• http//www.linkedin.com
• Free registration, basic benefits subscription
  pricing for added features (such as InMail)?

• What is it?
• Why use it?
• Where can I find it?

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Ning

• Free, online application to build networks of any
  kind
• Social, professional, etc.
• Easy to create networks
• Lots of features (forums, photos, videos, tag
  clouds,blog posting)?
• http//www.ning.com

• What is it?
• Why use it?
• Where can I find it?

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Live Demonstration
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Collaborate

• Wikis
• Wikipedia

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Wikis

• A wiki is a web application designed to allow
  multiple authors to add, remove, and edit
  content.
• From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• A wiki is a collaborative website - a read-write
  platform - which can be directly edited by anyone
  with access to it
• Easy to edit, create pages
• Relatively easy to learn (no HTML knowledge
  required though it helps)?
• Very good for group collaborative projects
• For the more sophisticated wiki platforms, you
  can implement navigation tools such as tags,
  internal links and search
• Many, but some of the easiest to use are
• Wiki.zoho.com
• Pbwiki http//www.pbwiki.com
• Wetpaint http//www.wetpaint.com

• What are they?
• Why use them?
• What's available?

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Live Demonstration
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Challenges and considerations with some of these
tools

• Privacy
• Intellectual property/proprietary information
• Security IT department
• Adoption
• Multiple tools
• Making the time/wasting the time
• Technology issues (IT, browsers, firewalls)?

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Opportunities

• This technology gives the opportunity for having
  a voice to anyone for better or worse
• It is absolutely changing how people interact,
  find information, etc. - and will continue to do
  so
• It changes how you and your organization are
  perceived and gives you new opportunities for
  visibility

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Suggested actions

• Experiment play around and see what works for
  you
• Have fun!
• Invite and involve others
• People already using these technologies expect it
• You never know what might happen!

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Resources

• Blog tools
• LiveJournal http//www.livejournal.com
• WordPress http//www.wordpress.com
• Blogger http//www.blogger.com
• Twitter http//www.twitter.com
• Top 25 Librarian Bloggers
• http//oedb.org/library/features/top-25-librarian-
  bloggers-by-the-numbers
• Social networking tools
• Facebook http//www.facebook.com
• LinkedIn http//www.linkedin.com
• Ning http//www.ning.com

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Resources (continued)?

• Wiki resources
• Pbwiki http//www.pbwiki.com
• Wiki.zoho.com http//wiki.zoho.com
• Wetpaint http//www.wetpaint.com
• Wikipedia http//www.wikipedia.org
• The Future of Social Networking (BusinessWeek)?
• http//www.businessweek.com/technology/special_rep
  orts/20070618thefutureo.htm

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• Scott Brown scott.brown_at_sun.com or
  scott_r_brown_at_comcast.net
• Sun Learning Services - Digital Libraries
  Research
• Information Inspiration Innovation
• CLiC_SNTools_042508.ppt