Thing 2: Here Comes Everybody

I heard Clay Shirky speak at the Health 2.0 Conference in October, he is a great speaker with ideas that force you to rethink what you think you know. And he is good enough at flogging his book that I bought it. It is really quite good.

So just a taste for you from Chapter 8 about Meetup.com. This is a site where you register your location and your interests, that allows you to find groups that are meeting with the same interest-really meeting, in person, not virtually.

<-This links to a YouTube video that explains it well.

And here is a list of the Meetups in Minneapolis->

So maybe we aren't really bowling alone!

Time spent: 2:30

Thing 1:Blogging Sites

I've wandered through the free blog services that are listed and I would add one more: Wordpress.com. (.com, not .org) I particularly like their stats. You can easily see the number of readers per day and how they got to your site.

Now this can be a good thing and a not so good thing. It is easy to get too caught up in trying to get your numbers up, causing you to harrass your friends and relatives and to read your posts. Well, really, they don't even have to read it, just click on the site for it to 'count'.

On the other hand, looking at how readers got to my site taught me that using a clear title for your post is better than a cute title, if you want links.
And on the day I got over 100 hits (usually I get 0-15), it introduced me to a new site: alphainventions.com.
Here is what Cheru Jackson says about the site:

If you update or publish your blog at the same time my visitors are browsing blogs in my site then my visitors will get a chance to see your blog in real-time. BAM! (the entire blog is in their face instantly) It’s not even annoying to watch. Is it alpha addicts??

I also provide a link to your blog in case they want it to open your blog in a new window, or bookmark your blog . The links provides your title, and description to help my visitors get a better understanding on what your blog is about, and get more interested. Alphainventions.com is useful for wordpress.com , typepad.com, spaces.live.com, and blogger.com I love it, and want to grow it like a tree. Yahh!

Warning: I think this site might be addicting.

Time spent: 2 hours

Delving Deeper

I have been following the librarian's Web 2.0 journey with interest for the last year. I have tried a number of the "Things" that they have written about.
My first blog-a family blog fizzled for lack of interest (mine and my sister's). It also lacked glitz.
My second blog is more focused and so far my interest hasn't lapsed. And it has more links, picture, videos, etc. It's tough though to get readers to comment, though.

I'm looking forward to more things to explore-but is 8 going to be enough? What happened to the other 15?

Time spent: 30 minutes