Saturday, April 18, 2009

Notes from the Meeting...aka Things to Consider

When we discuss RSS, do we include explaining RSS feed options that are built into browsers?

We decided to NOT feature any portals, such as iGoogle or Pageflakes.

Regarding Photos and Videos...
Do we only feature how to find, view, post....or do we include any photo or video editing sites?

JumpCut was removed, because it is no longer going to be active.

Should elearning only be for languages or does it expand into other elearning sites?

Regarding IM...
Do we explain how use use the IM features on other sites, such as Gmail and Facebook? Should we include an IM lingo section?

Regarding music...
Do we only feature tools that allow you to listen to music v. download music?
If we do feature downloading tools, can we offer the sites that are not as high of quality in order to have something to share?

Any features of tools for downloading emedia of any kind must be both free and legal.

Anything else?

7 comments:

  1. Since I didn't get to stay for the last half of the meeting, I wanted to share some thoughts I had about the rest of the list:

    - First, I feel like we should avoid things that have to be downloaded to use. Most of what we have listed are things that you can just go the website and start using right away, but other programs (iTunes is a good example) have to be downloaded onto the computer first to use. They might be fantastic, but they aren't as easily accessible (and they aren't already on our public PCs). And to be technical about it, a program that you have to download isn't Web 2.0 - it's just a program.

    - IM is another example of something that I'm not sure even falls within the scope of our project. It certainly isn't Web 2.0 - I started using IM in middle school! But, I definitely think we need a way to highlight the library's IM service. So here's my thought: what if we have a rotating, "featured" CML service that we highlight? The first one can be the IM service, but others could be the sharing feature on the catalog, new or improved premium resources, and any other enhancements we make as time goes on. These aren't technically Web 2.0 either, but I think pimping the library's resources and cool new features is definitely within the scope of what we are doing.

    - Because of the issues with downloading (and wanting to stay away from having to download programs), I'm in favor of keeping the music resources to just those that you can listen to music online, like Pandora and Last.fm.

    - The eLearning category is tricky. There is a lot out there, so limiting it would probably be good. I'm fine with keeping it as languages, but if we do a featured CML resource, one of the things we could highlight after the IM service would be Mango Languages. Then we could either eliminate the eLearning category, or focus it on something else.

    Sorry for not being able to stay for the rest of the meeting to discuss my thoughts with everyone. What does everyone else think?

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  2. I agree with you Erica, I think a featured CML page would really work well. Especially with the eLearning category, since it seems like we mostly want to feature mango languages. Although would it then be weird to feature CML resources in the other categories? Is that redundant?

    Also, I don't know about chatting. It's not 2.0, definitely, but a lot of 2.0 products have built in chat, like facebook and google products. So sending these people to these 2.0 things that could potentially throw them into chatting situations without help... Maybe it's not in the scope and maybe it is.

    I also agree with you about downloading things: that's going to be a whole different overwhelming can of worms for people. It's probably best to steer clear of that, unless there's a good reason not to..?

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  3. Regarding Photos and Videos...
    Do we only feature how to find, view, post....or do we include any photo or video editing sites?


    I think it would be a good idea just to stick with how to find, view, post, etc for photos and videos. Editing might become too technical. A simple Google search can direct people how to edit photos if they wish.

    Regarding music...
    Do we only feature tools that allow you to listen to music v. download music?
    I think steering away from downloading music is a good idea. Many patrons who come to the library like to listen to music while they are on the computer. We could feature listening to free music online and just have a bonus section on iTunes or would that cause more trouble than we need?

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  4. I completely agree that we should limit music to free online sources. IMHO we shouldn't refer customers to sites such as iTunes that are nothing but online music sales profit centers.

    If we go this direction, we ought to tell our customers when they enter our "portal" that we're focusing on Web 2.0 tools that are free to all.

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  5. Good comments. I agree about the emphasis on free services. I also agree about steering away from downloads as well as photo editing.

    IM/chat is kind of a "question mark" area for me. I see where Erica and Lindsey are coming from, and I can also see where it might be helpful to include. I guess I don't really feel strongly one way or the other on this one.

    Maybe one way to look at it to help us make our decision is to talk about whether we want ASK IT to be a permanent tool in this portal, or if we'd be okay with it being a temporary one that rotates with other CML tools.

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  6. Katie, that's a great question for us to think about. Do we want ASK IT to be a permanent tool, or just a temporary featured one? That may help steer us toward whether or not chat is something we want to cover.

    Lindsey, you are right about chat being offered as part of sites like Facebook - and we'd be amiss not to mention chat at all when we talk about Facebook's features. I guess we just have to decide if that will be enough, or if we need to have a separate module for chat alone.

    Also, I think if a CML resource or feature fits nicely into one of our groups (like the My Discoveries one fits into social bookmarking), then we should go ahead and feature it there. But for other resources that don't fit into one of our pre-defined groups, having a page specifically designed to feature our newest and coolest thing would be ideal. It's all about keeping things malleable, right? *wink*

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  7. If we limit our scope to only Web 2.0 tools that can be found freely online, then we really don't have a lot of information to create. We won't have to "re-invent the wheel". I think a lot of the knowledge that we pass on can be in the form of ready-made videos. All we'll need to do is come up with a few exercises for the customer to run through, and even then, Joy and folks at other systems that have created Web 2.0 portals have given us enough material where it seems that an original approach is not too important.

    That said, I'm all about more and better (even though I'm usually out-voted), so....

    I still think including links to tutorials and a bit of text about photo editing within a site like Flickr would be good.

    The RSS section should include some "discover more..." regarding RSS feeds within browsers (probably embedded video tutorials).

    E-learning is very expansive, and besides LiveMocha, where are the other places to go that follow a Web 2.0/participatory culture ethos? Would places like Expert Village and Instructables fall into this category?

    I'm cool with Pandora being the go-to spot for online music, but embedding a player (like Last.fm) inside your blog would be a good exercise.

    Another thing, while I know that searching isn't necessarily Web 2.0, what you can access and how you find the information can be. What if we included some exercises dealing with finding what you need better/easier using Google or featuring a specific aspect of Google like Maps/Street View or their new, improved Timeline features.

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