Week 8 - Thing 19

I'm already familiar with some of these Web 2.0 sites. I"ve used Craigslist before. That's what all the young people use as online classifieds. The subject headings on this site are web 2.0 tags. We used it to look for an apartment in Cleveland for my daughter's internship in the big city this summer. And my daughter at Kent uses Facebook all of the time to talk to her friends.

So for this discovery exercise, I explored the Mashup, Ning. I first heard of Ning when I was reading the YALSA (ALA) website and discovered that they have a Ning. Ning is described as a way to Get Your Own Social Network! They claim to be the only online service where you can create, customize, and share your own Social Network for free in seconds. And they call themselves a Home Depot in terms of social networking, saying that if you have the time and the inclination, you can build the network yourself. And you can choose which networks you want to join. There are network tags and also a search feature to find which network(s) you want to join.

Ning, like all mashups, puts an emphasis on interactive user participation and would be great for library staff and patrons to network and communicate. Actually, the library could have a Ning like YALSA does. YALSA has one main Ning, divided into 4 main separate subject areas. The library's Ning could be 1. Reader's advisory and post your own comments and reviews about the latest books you've read (or new books at the library) 2. DVD and music networking 3. Children's books 4. Teen book discussion. The thing I dislike about Ning is people have to join in order to post, and that my inhibit some from participating.