Friday, March 27, 2009

Thing 27: Twitter

After much speculation, I started a Twitter account. I watched the Common Craft video for basic info, the How I Made 5000 Twitter Friends in 90 Days for one person's suggestions, and read the WebJunction Beginner's Guides for various Twitter uses and additional ways to jazz up its use.
Katherine Boehret's beginning paragraph mentions that several of her friends in their 20s and 30s were asking her about Twitter. How about her older friends. Are oldsters Tweeting also?
In The Big Juicy Twitter Guide, Caroline Middlebrook's word "Twitetiquette," means "the etiquette of using Twitter." Though she is mainly interested in internet marketing, her points about starting, followers, and favorites are helpful.
See, I'm learning some Twitter jargon.
Reading on, I see that bad Twitter manners occur occasionally.
Will I find Twitter as a useful microblogging tool, or as totally unnecessary?

Monday, March 23, 2009

Thing 26: Ning

This morning I reviewed the 23 Things on a Stick Ning, which I joined last year. Two groups interest me, so I joined them both: "Knitting in the Library" and " Library Trustees."
My photos at that site remind me of summer.
Last year I didn't discover the Ning until I was doing one of the last 23 Things. It should be much more helpful as I move along on this project. Since I'm way behind, maybe members of my new groups will have answers I need.
I look forward to exploring the Ning more. The badge I added provides the link to the Ning, too.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Thing #25: Blogger's Tooklit

After reading about blogs, I have named the general topic of this blog near the title, so visitors will know right away.
I also like the idea of encouraging comments by not requiring commenters to sign in. I'm still looking for a free way to do that. Disqus makes commenting easier; however, I'd like to find a comment feature that allows anyone to comment, even if they're not registered to Disqus. Anti-spam ability is also necessary.

Posting to the blog through email is an interesting new feature.

Robin Good;s videos about widgets led me to add a dictionary "word-a-day" widget along the side of this blog.

For example, Contactify allows others to email you directly, without seeing your email address.
Postreach offers icons so blog readers can mark your post "cool" "fun," "insightful," and more.