Some Web 2.0/Social Networking Flotsam and Jetsam

One of the effects of becoming immersed in the use of Web 2.0 and Social Networking tools and technologies is the sheer volume of information that I now receive daily. Between the hundreds of feed a day that I get from Netvibes and other sources, I have an ever increasing circle of friends and colleagues with whom I am sharing information and they are doing the same in kind right back at me. I would not be surprised if I was receiving more than 1,000 pieces of information a day.

Obviously that is way too much information to easily manage and utilize and I am sure that I am missing some great stuff that is just floating around out there. But on the other hand I also see a lot of stuff that I would love to spend more time with but just can't. This post collects some of that flotsam and jetsam and gives me a chance to at least briefly try to make some sense of it.

• Politicians and YouTube - several politicians are actively using YouTube, Facebook, and Second Life among other tools, to access their constituencies at the same time that governments are banning their use by civil servants. What's that all about?
• 2007 Web 2.0 Awards - To really see what is going on with Web 2.0, check out this site - over 200 Web sites in 41 different categories - a great way to check out the great stuff being done with Web 2.0
• Shaping Learning Through Comments - a great post on how students are learning from comments posted to their blogs - a very effective learning tool from my perspective. The teacher here uses student blogs to have learning happen and then measures it against standards like "the student understands and acquires new vocabulary and uses it correctly in reading and writing". Very cool.
• Can Social help in finding resources? From the Flosse Posse, this post talks about leveraging our learning communities through the use of Social Information Retrieval (SIR). SIR is described as "a family of techniques that assist users in obtaining information to meet their needs by harnessing the knowledge or experience of other users. Examples of SIR techniques include sharing of queries, collaborative filtering, social network analysis, social navigation, social bookmarking and the use of subjective relevance judgements such as tags, annotations, ratings and evaluations." This is how I am getting and sharing most of my daily information - neat to have someone put a name to it. There is a SIR workshop planned called SIRTEL 2007. Check it out!
• Encyclopedia of Life - the Encyclopedia of Life is an an "ecosystem of websites that makes all key information about life on Earth accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world.". It's aim is to catlogue all species on Earth and have the information accessible online. This just might be the "killer" Web 2.0 app.
• Tagging Tips and Non-Bloggy Remorse - this post is from Nancy White, who is absolutely amazing. Some tips and hints on how to keep up and manage tags while still living and working your busy life - a must read. Check out her blog and company.
  
• McLuhan's Laws of Media and PLEs - from Terry Anderson (more brilliance), this post applies Marshall McLuhan's Laws of Media (Enhance, Obsolete, Retrieve, Reverse) to PLEs (Personal Learning Environments). If you are at all interested in PLEs, you have to read this post.
• Read/Write Web Weekly Wrapup - a weekly wrap up of all things Web 2.0. You can subscribe and get the weekly feed. A great way to get a manageable digest of what's happening with Web 2.0 tools and technologies

I know there are literally thousands of other bits and pieces out there. Hope that some of these will be of use. Now, it's time to fire up Netvibes and get the next flood of information...

(Photo "Flotsam and Jetsam" by RobW)