VUVOX is a neat mashup tool that allows you to mix, create and blend your personal media – video, photos and music into neat presentations. It’s free and easy. You can use Flickr photos, Picasa albums, and RSS feeds – and then you can add audio narrations and music. There is an express service or a studio option where you can construct your presentation in a storyboard style. Here’s one I created using Flickr.
Pandora is Internet radio, customized for you! You tell it what you like, then it builds a station for you – and you can say yea or nay to its selections, to further get it your way. It’s all free. Sign up here.
Here’s my station, as an example.
NetVibes is a personal start page service, like Google or Yahoo, but the emphasis is on customized media widgets. You sign up for a free account, and then you can personalize your page to send you the latest content from RSS feeds, pictures from Flickr, your Facebook page, even email from your webmail accounts!
Hello! I haven’t added a new thing in a while, so to make uop for it, today I have TWO new things. The first thing is a web browser. It’s called Flock, and it calls itself the “social web browser.” Whay do they mean by that? Basically Flock lets you integrate all of your Web 2.0 activities, from Flickr to YouTube to your RSS feeds in one place. if you have a blog, you can even set Flock up to post entries to your blog! It’s free, and available for PCs, Macs, or Linux. Give it a try!
This has nothing to do with libraries, but it is very Web 2.0. The Queen of England has a YouTube channel!
So you think she did some of that with a webcam and edited it herself?
I just finished adding several folks from Yorba Linda Library to the blogroll. Welcome! And yes, we have flash drives waiting for all of you who finish the challenge! I can’t figure how to reverse the order of the blogroll, so I’m afraid your blogs are appearing at the bottom. Nothing personal – I just can’t make it go the other way!
You’ll notice that there are more than 23 things now listed. For the purposes of the challenge, you only have to do the 23 we list here. But if you’re feeling industrious, or just curious, take the plunge and try some of the additional tools!
Want to keep track of what everybody is up to on ALL of their Web 2.0 sites, from FaceBook, to MySpace, to Twitter, to LinkedIn? Try Spokeo! It’s free, and signup is easy (you’ll need a webmail account with Yahoo, AOL, or Gmail). Once you join, it imports your contacts from your online address book, and then goes out and checks on their social networking activity. Potential library uses? I’m not sure, what do you think?
When I’m driving and remember something I need to do, I often call myself and leave me a message that I can pick up later. It’s a quick and dirty way to build a mini verbal to-do list for myself. Jott takes that idea one step further. Set up an acount for free, validate uour phone number, then you call a toll-free number and leave a message for yourself or any of your contacts who have Jott accounts and are in your contact list (which you build online). Your messages are converted into email and text messages that can be picked up online at the Jotts website.
Pretty cool! Now think about how this could be used in your library! Hint: you can create Jott groups.
Well, the official challenge has concluded, but I want to assure anybody just starting or interested in starting the 23 Things that this site is here to stay. So feel free to keep plugging away (or to start plugging away).
Feel free, also, to hijack our idea (of course, it wasn’t really our idea – we borrowed it from PLCMC!), and adapt it for use in your library.
And as we find them, we’ll add new things to this blog for you to try out.