No.14 Twitter - Sharing texting

They say that Twitter will replace Blogging and Blogging will be a passing phase.

Twittering is new to me. I have been getting my first Tweet from Radio 4, but I only have one friend to send my tweets to. When I get a tweet from Radio 4 is good, I am alerted to a recent item in a Radio 4 programme and I receive a link so that I can play the repeat.

I am not generally keen on texting and mobile telephones, but twittering gives me more control. No more bleeps from my mobile. You do not even need to sign in to the Twitter site in the usual way to get your tweets. Just sit at your computer and you will see the Tweets arriving in a long stream in your Favourites folder.

No.13 Slideshare - Sharing presentations

Slideshare , a social website for sharing presentations, is a unfortunate name at a time of a falling stock market. A prize is currently being offered for the best 30-slide Powerpoint presentation about the Credit Crisis.
Slideshare gives me a chance to make a collection of the best Powerpoint presentations that I have found, recommend them to others and to develop my own presentations and share them. I hasten to add that I do not post the presentations of others on the web without permission. As for many other social web sites, you can store all your favourite presentations on line and then you can choose which to share with other groups of people. As with the videos on YouTube, the quality of the presentations found on this web is very variable. It is therefore useful to store them with comments and recommendations. Again this is on my To Do list

No. 12 Google Docs - Sharing Documents

Here l have changed my choice of my favourite site for the sharing of documents. I have been trying to choose between Google Docs, which seems to be designed for managing your documents and Office Live, which seems to be designed for Work Groups. As elsewhere, Google is competing with Microsoft for the market in social sites and I think that Google are in the lead at present. I have also considered a site called Zoho, which I had found useful to share the draft of a book and emphases the advantages for businesses of working on line.
I have chosen Google Docs because it is easier to use and it shares features with my other Google sites. It is no disadvantage that at present you have to upload your documents one at a time and sort them out into folders. It is great that you can work off line and then your online document is automatically updated. It is great that you can insert hotlinks to other web pages and elsewhere as well as email links.
The Google Documents are in a special Google format but wordprocessing documents, spreadsheets and PDFs can all be loaded in and saved again. I also am looking forward to exploring the use of "google forms".
You can see this document loaded on line in my Google Docs and you can move in and out of it using the hotlinks. I set new pages to "open in a new window" so that you can get back to the original document more easily. Hotlinks are not popular in the business world because all the web sites are designed to make sure that you stay on the original site. It is good if you browse and wander into other sites as long as you return to mine. As well as using Google Docs in order to share my documents with "the world", I want to use Google Docs in my small workgroups and to store my private collection of presentations that I do not want to share with everyone.

No.10 Library Things - Sharing Books

I found this site several years ago. I thought that I might want to record all the books in my library there. However the work involved was much too great. However it is great to record the books that you are reading at present. I like reading all the reviews but I usually save them until I have read the book.

No.9 Tribal Pages - Sharing Family History

There are many family history sites where you can post information for others to share. I found this site from a new friend on Vancouver Island whom I had met on the web. I like this site particularly because I can add new stories about the family and pictures and it easy for other members of the family to share this information.

No.8 Freecycle - Sharing Rubbish

The Freecycle Network is made up of more than 4000 groups with nearly six million members across the globe. It is described as a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It was a surprise to find that there are more than 4000 subscribers in the group in Chichester and more than 2500 in the group in Havant. I discovered the network in a Sunday newspaper and although there are so usersliving near me, many of whom I know, none of them had mentioned it to me. Perhaps they do not want to tell their friends what they do with their rubbish!! I am very pleased to find the site and I am now getting rid of objects for which I would like to find a new home there as well as finding some things that I would like.

No.6 Facebook- Sharing Everything

I think that the success of Facebook seems to depend upon its viral effect. You can invite your friends to see you inforkation of all kinds, you pictures, your interests. There are many gadgets to enable you to do this and they are increasing all the while. Almost all the things that can be shared on my other thirteen sits can be shared on Facebook

There are many sites like Plaxo, Linkedin and MySpace that enable you to link up with people all over the world. If you are looking for a job, put your cv on Linkedin will help you. For professionals the site called Plaxo may be better. If you are looking for a partner then try Adult Friendfinder.

In Facebook you can share everything but it has come rather low down in my list of top sites, because it caters mainly for younger people, I am also rather shy about sharing everything. It has recently been revamped. You can be clearer about how you are meant to be in control and what risks you may be taking.

No.5 YouTube - Sharing Videos

Mark Pesce describes YouTube as a “sort of repository for all sorts of information, some of it delightful, some of it infuriating and some of it very very informative”.

Ariana Huffington claims that YouTube has dominated the recent US election and yet in 2004, YouTube had not even been invented.

No.4 Blogger - Sharing thoughts

Blog sites provide a personal space for people to write. My own blog has been a sort of note book for web surfers rather than a personal diary. As you know, I have been using my blogs, My First Blog and the Broadband Revolution in order to help me plan talks and this talk is also being recorded in my blog. Sometimes I change my earlier posts in order to keep them up to date. I was very pleased to find that you can find my blog by typing “thebroadbandrevolution” (all one word) into Google and then my blog will open up when you click on I’m feeling lucky. Blogger is linked to other Google sites and so I can sign in to them all in the same way. A blog is a social web site because anyone in the world can access a blog and add comments.
Reading the Lady, the other day, (I’ll read that again) I was especially impressed by Blaugustine, the blog of Augustine, the alter ego of the writer Natalie d’Arbeloff, which she now publishes on her own web site. She gets many comments from readers. She says that she did not begin her cyber journey until 2001 and now includes satirical comic strips, paintings, photos, video and an ongoing illustrated autobiography in her blog which has won a national competition. Perhaps it is the most notable feature of a good computer application that it brings together in one parcel all sorts of different things that you didn’t realise were related. Sometimes this is called “convergence”.

No.3 Wikipedia

Wikipedia, my No. 3 site, is the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. I described in an earlier post how I had signed into the site in order to edit some of the posted articles, including one on Chichester Cross. Wikipedia is a social site where people can share information. There was some concern about the reliability of this information but is almost as accurate as the Encyclopedia Britannica. I seach it many times each day, adding"wiki" to my Google search request. Sections on living people are improving rapidly and are a most useful source for questions about the media. Today I wanted to know more about Itshak Perlmann, the virtuoso violinist, who contracted polio when he was four. I often have a Wikipedia page open as I listen to the radio or the television.

No.2 Picasaweb

No.2 in my list of top social web sites must be Picasaweb, where you can see my albums. Half of the albums in my online collection are private family photos while the public albums enable me to share photos with friends and acquaintances. Albums can be plotted on the world map and captions can be added. Picasa is easy to use and does two jobs in one, the organisation and the simple manipulation of pictures. I can now update my web albums automatically by using Picasa 3. Picasaweb has completely changed the way in which I take photos and my enthusiasm for photography at home and on holiday.

No.1 Genes Reunited

It was quite hard to decide which would be my No.1 Social web site. However Genes Reunited has had the greatest influence upon my activities. Some four years ago I posted my family tree file and every few days my names are matched to the other family trees on the Genes Reunited web site. I receive an email that alerts me to people who have possible matches on their tree and we start a correspondence on line. At first, we send messages without revealing our email addresses. As we become more confident, we use emails and sometimes postal addresses and telephone calls. It is weird that I often cannot remember if we have spoken before when we first talk on the telephone. I have met many new distant relatives all over the world in the this way.
Let me tell you about ne of my new friends, Pat. lives on the western coast of Vancouver Island overlooking the Pacific. I met Pat through Genes Runited and Pat has gathered together a group of people from different part of the world, John in Australia, and Julie in Rainham in Essex as well as Adam in Newcastle and Tony in Sheffield whom I knew a bit already. We are interested in the history of several interconnected families as we are all distantly related. We are a mixed company, housewives, university lecturers, civil servants, some whose work I know nothing of and me.
When I first met Pat, I was not sure whether it was he-Pat or she-Pat. She did not let me know. I am now getting to know Pat socially. I know that she and her husband have been married for forty years and they are just about to take off in a mobile home, but she has promised to continue her efforts in family history and to keep in touch while she is travelling the world.

Social Web Sites

As I am giving a talk on Social Web sites, I have been reflecting on sites that I have used during the last five years. Social web sites are those where you can communicate with other people and share information with them. The growth of web sites like Facebook and UTube has been truly astonishing. Utube allows anyone anywhere to share videos with anyone else. Facebook used to be for college students but now has nearly 75000000 members and allows you to personalize your own profile, upload photos, and write messages to friends. My next posts will each be about the social web sites that I have visited and I will label them all as "social".

Please add your comments on your own experience of Social Web Sites so that I can include them in my talk.