My own thing

Well, I stumbled upon my own 2.0 app today, and I like it. It's called Wordle. Here's Barak Obama's 2009 Inaugural speech:

Thing 20: Hype vs. help

After browsing through the list of Web 2.0 Awards, I must say, it's a bit overwhelming for the Internet user to find what's useful and I can only imagine how overwhelming it must be for a site host to capture their niche market.

I took a good look at BuzzDash. According to their site, "BuzzDash is a site and tool for gauging popular opinion on a wide range of topics - from sports, movies and politics to relationships and philosophy." It looks like TIME magazine even solicits their help. But, from a researcher's point of view, I'm not encouraged by the responses. Many of these polls have very few responses, making the results less than reliable.

Perhaps these are the up-and-coming 2.0 sites. When I looked at views of videos on various winners' sites, even the greatest numbers seemed low.

Thing 19: Web-based apps

Aha. I am now writing in Google Docs. I was relieved to see that I did not need to create yet another account to use the web-based applications available out there. I did visit Zoho, but will pass on that for now. I see Zoho offers polls, and will look at what Google Docs has to offer later.

It's very easy to get sidetracked on the Web. While going through this exercise, I came across a Zoho polls blog that referred me to a blog about Zoho polls (two different things here). Also, along the way, I sought out the Common Craft video Google Docs in Plain English. Couldn't help myself. They're fun to watch.

Google Docs will indeed come in handy when collaborating with individuals outside my work zone. Also a good tool to promote to library patrons who use the computer labs.

(I did come in after bringing this over from Google Docs and clean it up. It had 2 lines between paragraphs, so the html carried over differently than I anticipated)