Johnson reading

Since I disagree with George Will about most things other than baseball, I'm not really surprised to be disagreeing with his comment about the sophisticated delivery of stupidity. What does surprise me is how impressed I was with the argument made by Johnson's Everything Bad Is Good for You.

I don't consider myself a "real" gamer, but on the other hand, I've always enjoyed games. Board games, card games, D&D, computer games...when I think back on my life, I realize that I've spent a lot of it (probably too much) doing things like that. In other words, Johnson's contention that playing games sharpens the mind seems reasonable. Heck, I can even see a fast change in the learning curve as I've played new games this week and quickly improved my technique and reaction speed.

The part of the Johnson reading I enjoyed most was his discussion of tv. Now, I'm a tv snob. Sure, I've watched my share of junk tv over the years, but these days when I do watch it, it tends to be PBS. I was blown away by the persuasiveness of Johnson's argument that tv has gotten more mentally challenging, complete with very effective examples. That he topped it off by linking the appeal of reality shows back to game-playing (and his excellent discussion of emotional intelligence) was the final slam dunk. I won't think about tv in the same way again (whether or not I watch any more of it^). (It also helps that a good friend of mine is an avid game-player and fan of 24 and Survivor as well, and he even used a similar argument in trying to explain Survivor's appeal to me.)

So, consider me convinced of Johnson's argument, and add one more topic of disagreement with George Will to my lengthy list of them. :)

Ning

Ning is an interesting service. I could see this being useful in a work environment (or any environment) where you need to create your own customized network. Facebook and MySpace have a lot of apps and features that are not really necessary for "serious" networking or collaboration (and could even distract from it). Ning allows a group to focus on things that are important to it, not on an outside site's standard interface.

I think all these services raise the issue of the security of data and information that's stored somewhere outside of an organization, however.

boyd readings

After reading the danah boyd readings assigned for class, I found the blog post most thought-provoking. In terms of libraries, I think one possible message to take away is the following:

Facebook is widely seen as being a more "respectable" site, and therefore would probably be the site a library would gravitate to in order to set up a social networking presence (all other things being equal). However, boyd's description of the teens who tend to use MySpace is a list of those who are socially-ostracized for one reason or another. Those teens may not have much support in their everyday environment; meanwhile, libraries have a mandate to serve all, especially the underserved. Arguably, the teens who need libraries the most are on MySpace rather than Facebook. In any case, since both are such popular sites, it's impossible to ignore one in favor of the other.

It's also a matter of knowing what the local community uses. If a library is in an area with a large Latino population, and Latinos have a strong presence on MySpace, then that library needs to be on MySpace. A library that hosts musical events might want to be on MySpace for the huge musical community to be found there. In any case, these decisions about where and how to set up a library presence in cyberspace need to be based on something more than hype and misunderstandings, and the work of boyd and her colleagues provides a good lens through which to view these trends.

Facebook screencast

Getting this week's screencast homework done was more problematic than it was last week. Jing seems to like to quit at inopportune times. My screencast is about becoming a fan of a radio show (or tv show, or website, or what-have-you) in Facebook. You can find it here.

Sticky?

The question is why social networking sites are "sticky," encouraging people to spend lots of time on them. I have to say that I've been on Facebook in my "real online life" (well, one of them) for close to a year and although I've fooled around with it some, I haven't spent much time on it. In other words, it hasn't been "sticky" for me.

However, some of my offline friends (longtime friends dating back to my college years a long time ago) have started migrating to Facebook in the last couple of months. I think I might've been the first one on Facebook, then another one joined and now she's been successful in getting several more to join. And, guess what? Now I'm spending more time on Facebook (other than homework for this class). I'm not really interested in the goofy little games and such, but now that people I know and care about (and some of whom never check their e-mail^) are pitching their tents there, I'm more interested. So, for me, I'd have to say what makes a site like Facebook sticky is the opportunity to be in touch with my friends (which dovetails nicely with the article by boyd and Ellison).

Although it isn't a social networking site in the sense of Facebook or MySpace, Flickr is the site I find stickiest. Number one, it's networking around something other than myself (namely photos). I'm a shy person, and it's always been easier for me to bond around shared interests rather than throwing the spotlight on myself.

Number two, more of my offline friends found Flickr sooner; some have very active lives on Flickr and absolutely no interest in Facebook.

Number three, it's a less-threatening way of meeting new people. I also prefer Flickr's language of "contacts" over Facebook's "friends;" to me, the title "friend" is not something I hand out lightly. Another thing I prefer about Flickr is that relationships can be asymmetrical; friending on Facebook seems like such a commitment.

Number four, there are oodles of things to do on Flickr in terms of discovering what pools to add your photos to (ok, so my spice rack isn't alphabetized, but I used to reshelve my books for fun) ("Hey, let's do them in chronological order this time!"^); games you can play (I'm not big on Facebook's games but Flickr's Free Association pool is loads of fun); refining your tagging protocols (yes, I really do this!); geotagging your photos; seeing what your contacts have posted; looking for photos of specific subjects...the list goes on. I don't know if Flickr counts as a social networking site for the purposes of this week's classwork, but to me it's way stickier than Facebook.

If my friends continue to gravitate to Facebook, I'll probably find it to be sticky for the opportunity to stay in touch with them. But Flickr offers me the opportunity to stay in touch with my photographically-inclined friends and also offers me lots of geeky little toys and activities into the bargain. What's not to love? :)

Oh, and here's Germany Schaefer

[Germany Schaefer, Washington AL (baseball)] (LOC)
Originally uploaded by The Library of Congress

Schaefer would be called a flake today. He played for the Washington Senators ("First in war, first in peace and last in the American League."). Here he is clowning around with a camera. The photo comes from the Library of Congress and is part of Flickr's The Commons project.

How to add a note in Flickr

This screencast finally ended up being about how to add a note to a Flickr photo. You can find it here.

I like Jing's original-styled interface, but the downside of that is that things aren't where you expect them to be. I think that helped lead to the loss of an absolutely brilliant screencast I did about how to post to a blog from within Flickr; I somehow managed to not save it. :( This was after several false starts on the topic, mostly because I was hit with unexpected twists in the process. It was so annoying; I picked out a great photo of Germany Schaefer...ah, enough of my whining.

I can see how screencasting would be a great tool to create presentations, but there's definitely a learning curve!