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Social Networking

FourSquare and Libraries

Feb 25th, 2010
by pollyalida.
7 comments

Have you tried FourSquare yet? It’s a new-ish social networking tool that lets you use your phone to checkin at the places you visit during your day. You can share those locations and tips about them with your friends.

Along the way, you can earn badges for checking in at certain locations, traveling around, etc. I just earned the gym rat badge and the jetsetter badge (and yes, I still have my girl scout badges, so obviously I like badges!) In addition to sharing with your friends, you can become the mayor of a location by checking in more times than other people. Competition!

Ok, maybe this all sounds a bit silly? But, hey, it is fun! And many locations (think coffeeshops, bars, restaurants) are offering deals for people who checkin and/or become mayor. Starting to see the opportunity to build some brand loyalty here?

Over 1600 libraries are listed on FourSquare and some are offering rewards for checking in. Since anyone can add a venue, I do wonder how many of the libraries are actually aware that they’re listed? I’d like to think that all of them do! Check to see if you’re listed. Update your listing. Add some tips and some tags to describe your services. If users search for ‘free wifi’ when they’re in your area, they’ll find you.

I’m putting together a ‘FourSquare in Libraries‘ resource page for my classes. It’s just a start, but there are some ideas and tips that might be fun for libraries to try. Many of the ideas came from recent blog posts and twitter posts, including:

If you’ve got some fun ideas for using FourSquare, please share!

Foursquare Venue widget that you can add to your website: (via PlaceWidget)

Using Web 2.0 Tools to Deliver Statewide Library Services

Sep 15th, 2009
by pollyalida.
5 comments

On Sept 24th, I’ll be participating in a forum at the 2009 COSLINE (Council of State Library Agencies in the Northeast) meeting. The theme for the conference is the role of technology on delivery of statewide services.

I’ll be leading a discussion and demonstration of how Web 2.0 tools are being used by state library agencies. There are tons of great examples out there that I’ve been bookmarking on delicious.

But I’m still looking for more examples! How are your states using 2.0 tools?

Teachers & Students & Facebook?

Mar 17th, 2009
by pollyalida.
No comments yet

photo by inju

If you’re a teacher/librarian, do you friend your students on Facebook? MySpace? twitter? flickr? Do you communicate via email? IM? Texting? Is Facebook different than other tools for some reason?  As educators do we have the responsibility for teaching smart/safe online behavior in ALL possible contexts? Does setting up a separate account for your teacher persona solve the problems? Does your school district have a policy? Should they? Or are we trying to control what can’t be controlled?  Will all this worry and fretting seem quaint in 5 years? (1?) Have you avoided the issue by not using Facebook and other ‘social’ tools?

There are some great discussions going on around these issues on Doug Johnson’s and Dean Shareski’s blogs.

Whether you have a strong opinion on the issues or not, take a few minutes to read the various points of view expressed in these posts and comments. And add your voice to the discussions!

10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know

Feb 6th, 2009
by pollyalida.
No comments yet

If you’re using Facebook and haven’t paid attention to who can see what you’re posting, take a look at this great post by Nick O’Neill on 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know. Facebook’s privacy settings are a bit confusing to navigate, the links in this post will help you get to the right places to manage your settings.

The 10 main points of the article were highlighted by Elyssa Kroski on iLibrarian:

http://oedb.org/blogs/ilibrarian/2009/10-privacy-settings-every-facebook-user-should-know/

iLibrarian » 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know via kwout

This is great timing as I prepare materials for a class tomorrow on Personal Learning Networks that will cover Twitter, Facebook and other social networking tools

What are you doing? Twitter what?

Jul 1st, 2008
by pollyalida.
1 comment

I have to admit to a love-hate relationship with Twitter, the microblogging “what are you doing?” tool that many people are, shall we say, twittering about. Some days I love being tuned into all the goings on in my community there, other days, I just need to tune out.

140 characters, enough to say where you are during a conference and find out who wants to meet for dinner. Or to find out where there’s a great session going on so you can leave the deadly dull one that you ended up in by mistake. I’ve used it a lot during conferences and had great meetups with colleagues I would have missed otherwise.

On a day to day basis, it’s very useful for sharing breaking news, alerts about interesting blog posts, posing questions and getting fast answers. Many organizations are using it to connect with customers, patrons, supporters. Political campaigns use twitter to alert supporters to the latest campaign news. Libraries use it as one more way to distribute updates about services and events. Library professional groups use it to get news out to members and the library community at large.

What you get out of it, depends on finding friends and colleagues who share your interests. And like any community, you have to give to get. So I try to respond to questions when I can and share new resources that I come across. In return I’ve gotten help with questions of my own. Will I stay with Twitter forever? Will I be fickle and love it and leave it? I don’t know, it has had some problems keeping up with traffic lately. If they continues, people will certainly move on to another tool that serves the same purpose, and there are other ones out there! For now, I’m finding Twitter a useful way to connect with friends and colleagues.

To find out more and see some great examples of how libraries are using Twitter, read Elyssa Kroski’s terrific article in School Library Journal, All a Twitter: Want to Try Microblogging? It’s an excellent introduction to Twitter. And even if you don’t get into using Twitter yourself, it’s definitely a tool to be aware of.

Comment on DIGtrends post = $10 donation to Campaign for Burma

May 17th, 2008
by pollyalida.
No comments yet

From DIGtrends: Leave comments on the THIS CAN’T WAIT post and they’ll donate $10 to the US Campaign for Burma.

As part of our commitment to the people of Burma, Digital Influence Group will contribute $10 to the U.S. Campaign for Burma for each unique, non-spam comment or trackback to this post, up to $5,000 total. The deadline for commenting is May 31, 2008, because for Burma: It Can’t Wait.

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