Web 2.0 Awards List Exploration - #19

For this Discovery exercise, I explored a few sites/tools from the list of Web 2.0 Awards nominees. I recognized a few names, e.g., Rollyo, Technorati, YouTube, Facebook, Bloglines, and Craigslist, but most were new to me.

I decided to try Upcoming.org, which is a way to keep track of and find events. I created an account and looked for events in Bismarck, North Dakota. Six events were listed at the time. I decided to add another -- BSC's fall 2008 drama production. [Note: you may need to click on "recently added" to see the "Almost, Maine" event I added]. Since I have a personal connection to BSC Theatre, I told Dan about the site and used "Invite Friends" to send him an invitation via e-mail. I also made "Bismarck" my default city for searching.

Upcoming.org was very easy to use and is a cool way to promote and publicize events. You can also use it to push events out to other calendars like ical, Outlook, Google Calendar, Yahoo! Calendar, and 30 Boxes. I plan to use Upcoming.org for BookTalk and other library events, too.

I created a Facebook account a few months ago, but never did much of anything with it. Because it was also on the Web 2.0 Awards nominees list, I decided to spend some time exploring. I have to say I'm not a huge fan ... at least not yet. I found Facebook to be somewhat clunky and awkward to use. Still, I accepted chocolate from a friend, sent chocolate to another friend, looked at a live chat message, edited my profile, added a "Where I've Been" application, and added a post about BSC's fall drama production.

I will definitely play around with this site some more because it is so popular. In fact, in the September 2008 issue of Good Housekeeping, I read that, "The number of kids ages 12 to 17 on the networking site more than doubled from May 2006 to May 2007: This April, it hit 5.9 million." (p. 103). 5.9 million people can't all be wrong! I'm the one who needs to get up to speed.

A BSC Library facebook account may be a good way to connect with students.

I also took a quick look at three food sites -- I'm Cooked, Recipe Key, and ifoods.tv. I'm Cooked and ifoods.tv focused on cooking videos. Recipe Key is a good site for searching for and contributing recipes.

So many sites ... so little time.