Tags

I like tags, although I'm not fond of the tag cloud concept. Looks confusing to me. Tags are the truly democratic way of looking at taxonomy. The flexibility of the Web makes tags ideal. User-applied tags are a great way of determining how the public views your content.

Don't Look! It's IM again!

IM. Short for Instant Messenger. I've used it for years, but haven't endorsed it completely. Maybe I'm a bit of an old fogey. Perhaps IM stikes me as a bit too "Big Brother"; after all, IM always knows my status. Sure, I've found it really useful at times, sending quick hit messages to fellow workers in a nano-second. Receiving smiley face icons in return. Good stuff. But,I have concerns that it is too chatty. I for one, enjoy the control offered by email. I receive an email and a preview briefly appears onscreen before it is banished to Outlook. It is completely at my discretion to read and answer. Chats, unlike email letters, are real time events requiring immediate attention. Sometimes that's great, sometimes that's intrusive. One place I where have enjoyed using chats is online help. Let's face it, holding for the next available operator is no fun, but if I can get in touch with someone faster by chat, then I'm all for it.

Social Networking and Haiti

Interesting that in the midst of the turmoil following the horrible earthquake in Haiti, when no mainstream news was getting out of the country, the world found out about what was happening by way of social networking: short cell phone videos from YouTube, Twitter and Facebook entries.

Picture Sharing

It's nice to share. That's the premise behind picture sharing tools. I added Picassa 3 to my desktop at work and discovered that I had many, many more photos on my disk drives than I imagined. I have picked out a couple that I will share with you!

Talk About Twitter

It has been brought to my attention that I have shared little (actually nothing) about Twitter. Well, I will take care of that now. Twitter is an interesting tool. I use it, but not frequently and not actively. I am a passive Twitter user. A follower. I follow a number of sites on a daily basis but I do not add tweets. I just read what is presented. I do have an account and I even have a few followers. Why I don't know, since I don't add to my page! It is a strange thing to get an email saying so-and-so is following you, when you have no idea who that person is or why they are making the effort to follow.

Even as I have been less than enthusiastic about embracing this tool, I am still cognizant of its power. When riots broke out in Iran and the regime in power sought to close outside media access, they could not do so because of Twitter and Facebook. Extraordinary to think that little Tweets could somehow effect the future of governments!

Can you Digg it? No, not really.

Well, I've checked out Digg and found it lacking. Sure, I've previously seen Digg icons next to articles on blogs and websites, begging you to attach a Digg, but I've pretty much resisted the urge. Just because something appeals to me, why should I expect it be as meaningful to you?

I did visit the Digg site and found a mixed bag of items. Some old.... I clicked on a headline of interest, only to find it was published December 17. In today's fast-times, that is ancient history. Some new.... I scanned an op-ed piece by economist Paul Krugman in the New York Times. It was one of those end of the year, or decade, or century pieces where the writer capsulizes the preceeding events and puts them in perspective. Well, I don't often agree with Krugman, but in this case, I think he could have been talking about Digg when he characterized the past year as a big "zero".

Happy New Year.

A new tool

This week Santa (in the form of IT) came early and gave us all Communicator. Its basically instant messaging. Looks like it will be a useful addition to the desktop. Now, I just have to force myself to use it. Do me a favor, send me a message with Communicator and get me used to using it!