I am glad to be finished with this exercise, although I definitely feel that a lot of what I learned is useful and very possibly applicable to future questions I may get. I think social media very definitely has a place in libraries, because it has a place in the life of our patrons...in order to stay relevant we need to meet the patrons on their level. I listened to some cool podcasts as one of the "things" and I thought some libraries did an excellent job at that. I don't believe FPL currently does anything like that, and it may be for a good reason, such as no one was interested in listening to them. However, it would be something interesting to explore. I learned a lot from the program, mostly by gaining an understanding of the how's and why's behind a lot of the current internet technology. I like feeling well-educated on things like wikis and rss feeds, even if I don't plan to use them personally. And I think LibraryThing is something I will definitely use in the future, at least on occasion. It's great to know all of these things are out there, because it's hard to predict if/when I may need them.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Thing 23 - Reflection
I am glad to be finished with this exercise, although I definitely feel that a lot of what I learned is useful and very possibly applicable to future questions I may get. I think social media very definitely has a place in libraries, because it has a place in the life of our patrons...in order to stay relevant we need to meet the patrons on their level. I listened to some cool podcasts as one of the "things" and I thought some libraries did an excellent job at that. I don't believe FPL currently does anything like that, and it may be for a good reason, such as no one was interested in listening to them. However, it would be something interesting to explore. I learned a lot from the program, mostly by gaining an understanding of the how's and why's behind a lot of the current internet technology. I like feeling well-educated on things like wikis and rss feeds, even if I don't plan to use them personally. And I think LibraryThing is something I will definitely use in the future, at least on occasion. It's great to know all of these things are out there, because it's hard to predict if/when I may need them.
Thing 22 - Groupon
For thing 22, user's choice, I decided to first do some internet searching to see what new social media sites might have emerged in the last year, after the creation of 23 Things. I found the following sites which lists the top 5 emerging social media sites of 2010: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-emerging-social-media-sites-to-watch-in-2010/ . After glancing through the list, #5 caught my eye because I've heard of it before but never used it or been exactly sure what it was. I figured this was a good opportunity to check out what all the buzz is about. So I went to groupon.com and tried to do some looking around. Basically, in order to see anything you have to join, so I entered my city and my email address and it brought me to a page with todays deals. The way it works is apparently by guaranteeing a large group of people will use a company's product or service, the group is offered a discount. There were 9 discounts offered for the Dallas area today. Unfortunately, none of them appeal to me. The discounts included: golfing at a country club, a session with a photographer, a session with a make-up stylist, a discount to a restaurant, sunless tanning discount, and more. It appears that the deals are changed on a daily basis, so you have to check back in tomorrow to see what sort of discount or coupon can be obtained tomorrow. So you have to make up your mind pretty quickly as to if this is a product or service that interests you. It also appears that some of the deals have a limit to the quantity available, again making it seem necessary to login daily and decide right away if you are interested in the deal.
I admit I'm somewhat skeptical of this. I'm not a big coupon person to begin with. It's not that I don't like saving money, it just seems that if I go out of my way to get a coupon, I've lost it, forget to take it to the store with me, or it's expired by the time I use it. I also don't like being cornered into something, so deals that are "buy 3 get 1 free" sort of deals always turn me off because I don't want to be forced into buying three of that particular item. Anyway, I should probably be more diligent about coupon use, my wallet would probably appreciate it. I'm open to loggin back in to Groupon a few more times to see if there's anything that interests me. But I will probably expect to find a usable/noteworthy deal in the near future or I will probably write it off as not worth my time. I am glad to know what it's all about now, and given the hype I think it's probably earned it's position as one of the top new social media sites - at least for now.
I admit I'm somewhat skeptical of this. I'm not a big coupon person to begin with. It's not that I don't like saving money, it just seems that if I go out of my way to get a coupon, I've lost it, forget to take it to the store with me, or it's expired by the time I use it. I also don't like being cornered into something, so deals that are "buy 3 get 1 free" sort of deals always turn me off because I don't want to be forced into buying three of that particular item. Anyway, I should probably be more diligent about coupon use, my wallet would probably appreciate it. I'm open to loggin back in to Groupon a few more times to see if there's anything that interests me. But I will probably expect to find a usable/noteworthy deal in the near future or I will probably write it off as not worth my time. I am glad to know what it's all about now, and given the hype I think it's probably earned it's position as one of the top new social media sites - at least for now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)