Web 2.0 Awards

Here is a list of some of the 2008 Web 2.0 Award winners. Here is a list of all of the Web 2.0 Award winners I have used or do use now.

- CareerBuilder
- Monster
- Pandora
- Facebook
- Myspace
- YouTube
- GoogleMaps

For the web 2.0 exploration exercise, I explored Upcoming.

CareerBuilder and Monster have never been useful to me. I have never found a job on there that matched my interests. Maybe it's because libraries don't necessarily post their openings on these sites, I don't know. I'm just saying that they have never been helpful to me.

I LOVE Pandora, Facebook, YouTube, and GoogleMaps. The great thing about Pandora is that it directs you to new music. If you type in a band that you love, it will give you songs by them and songs by others that are like them, and you can even further customize your listening experience by selecting whether or not you liked the selection that was picked. I listen to this all the time at home. It's like being the director of your own radio station.

Facebook is more user-friendly and fun than Myspace, in my humble opinion. Both let you connect and keep in touch with friends, but I think the only real thing that Myspace has going for it that Facebook does not is that your profile page is more customized.

YouTube is awesome. I think you can find pretty much any video on there. I found someone who had uploaded all of the Jem and the Holograms episodes. That was pretty cool. Also, you can subscribe to certain "channels" and they'll email you whenever that user uploads a video. I've done that with my favorite band. ^_^

And GoogleMaps is wonderful. It's one thing to be able to get directions. It's another to be able to edit those directions so that you are travelling on roads you are familiar with/would rather travel. For example, I'm not a big fan of highways. So, I can drag and drop my route onto a parallel surface street with no problems. That's what makes GoogleMaps so useful.

Last but not least, Upcoming. I created an account, added an event I was attending and searched the events. It was meh. I have a similar system with GoogleCalendar. Add an event, invite friends, comment on the event. This is more public, but it doesn't recommend other events that would be similar to what you've picked. It only recommends other events at the location you've picked. As far as a library application goes, it would be a good place to publicize our events. Especially if you are a teen looking to go to something other than the "Bare Buns contest at Club Copa". But yeah, I wasn't that impressed.