#19 Web 2.0 Awards

I've mentioned this site before, but I just have to mention it again:

Geni is a social networking service for family trees. I created an account and started a tree for my family, inviting my mother and a few cousins. They, in turn, invited a few more. In the past few weeks it has snowballed and over 100 members of my extended family have accepted invitations to join the family tree. They are all adding the information they know about various ancestors. All I did was create the bare bones and now I have this great, rich resource in case I ever get the genealogy bug. It's also nice because whenever a new member accepts an invitation to our tree I get an email telling me exactly who they are and how we are related ("Jane Doe, your third cousin once removed, just accepted an invitation from Joe Smith your maternal uncle.").

The purpose of the site is not for researching your family tree, but for compiling the information once you have it. As my family's example shows, it takes advantage of the collective knowledge of the masses (in this case your extended family) the way all good social networking sites do. My family is pretty spread out over the country and we don't ever really have reunions of extended family, so I never would have had the chance to ask that third cousin once removed what she knew about our shared ancestors if it weren't for this tool. (Heck, I didn't even know she existed, much less her name or email address. That, in itself, would have taken me a lot of research to uncover. Through the power of social networking, I'm now in touch with many relatives I didn't know I had. And it barely took any work on my part!)

Web 2.0 for Boomers too

From news story about the "Entertainment Trends in America" Report:

According to The NPD Group, a leading market research company, online activities once mainly popular with teens and young adults, are now enjoying active participation by baby boomers, too. Recent consumer surveys of U.S. consumers show that 61 percent of baby boomer Internet users (age 44 to 61) had visited sites that offer streaming or downloadable video (e.g., YouTube and TV network Web sites), while 41 percent had visited social networks (e.g., Linked-In, Facebook, and MySpace).

"There's an ongoing misperception that certain Web activities are the exclusive domain of young people," said Russ Crupnick, entertainment industry analyst for The NPD Group. "That misperception could cost the entertainment industry, in terms of lost opportunities to target valuable consumers."

It could cost libraries too...

Thing #11: LibraryThing vs. GoodReads

I've found myself using GoodReads much more than LibraryThing. Again, I think this is mainly because most of my friends were already on GoodReads. However, it seems that LibraryThing uses tags much more efficiently and the edit screens are simpler and easier to use. Also, the tools they have developed (and are developing) for public libraries (pulling LT tags into the catalog, etc.) are pretty awesome.

Social Networking for Genealogists

A pretty cool website I've been playing around with (and reading about on quite a few blogs) is Geni.

I joined last week, invited a few of my family members, they invited a few more and voila! My tree now has info on more than 50 people. And I'm in contact with a few of my mom's cousins who I rarely spoke with before.

This is definitely a Web 2.0 tool I'll be sharing with our patrons.

Thing #10: Social Networking

I've had a MySpace page, a Facebook account and a LinkedIn account for at least a year each, but the only one I really use is my Facebook account. MySpace seemed too pop-up ad-y, and I haven't found much use for LinkedIn in my professional life yet. Probably the biggest reason I use Facebook more is the critical mass of people that I know and care about are on Facebook as opposed to the others.

I'm in charge of the library's Facebook page (there is a distinction in Facebook between an individual having an "account" and an institution having a "page," if you are interested). IMO, the primary purpose of the library's page is to reach our online patrons outside of the library's website. We use it to announce events and resources and as another forum where patrons can contact us. I think it is important for a library to reach out to patrons online. While crucial, it's not enough to just have a great website. We need to be present in other online spaces where our patrons can find us...