Twitter

I chose to draw the line with Twitter, I don't have smartphone, and my impression of the site is that it is most useful if you tweet regularly, and probably is most intelligently used by someone who is promoting themselves or their organization. I can see it being very useful to the library in that it provides up to the minute information about programming. The drawback of this being that if the information is not up to date ( as is unfortunately the case with some of the twitter accounts linked !!) then it can be a bit dssapointing.
I can imagine if i was a politician on campaign, or a musician on tour, that providing supporters and fans with new information about my wearabouts and appearances might be very useful. As for myself, I am quite happy with my current level of busyness, and not particularily keen to add more.

LibraryThing

Google Docs

I have mentioned Google Docs previously for being one of my favorite online applications. It does make expensive software redundant, for this reason I have suggested it to several customers as a good alternative if they do not have the means to maintain a personal computer and software. For my part Doc's has allowed me to avoid having a personal laptop, and has facilitated many group projects where multiple people are contributing to the same document, or need to view the same information. I think that one of the very best uses for Google Docs is maintianing jobseach documents, Having a current, resumes, CVs, cover letters, project diescriptions and budgets avalable at the click of a mouse, even when somthing unplanned comes up is fantastic. This has been particularily usefull for me working in the arts, where there is an ongoing series of deadlines for grants, applications and artist calls.

Flickrititititi

yes, flickr and I are friends, i have been using flicker for at lest 3 years. As a visual person i really like the straight forward clean visual layout of the site, which is obviously geared towards people who like photographs, the cite is used extensively by professional photographers, and some major magazines like American Photo often print updates of the latest Flickr stars. Some of the best things about the cite: it links easily t0 other cites, blogs, facebook etc; it has it's own built in copyrite agreement, so your photos are automatically protected unless you specify them as part of the creative commons; there is a bundled photo editing application, with add on's. My favorite thing? There is no advertising on the site because pro accounts are administered by paid membership.

RSS feeder

Bloglines seems like a good concept, and it was easy enough to set up, but i think i will have to spend more time with it to see if it is actually useful personally. I appreciate that it might keep me more focused on moving down the list of subscribed feeds. Since many of the blogs i read have a visual component, i am a little underwhelmed by the way stories display, i end up opening the individual blogs anyway, and then things start to get a little cluttered.

Google my best friend

I admit, I use Google on a daily basis. I use it often to search, and appreciate the advanced search options, and the ability to focus the search to video, images blogs etc.... I fear that Google may promote a kind of lazy scholar, and that vetting the information is still something a lot of people need to learn to do better, but it cannot be denied that it has become an essential part of navigating the internet. The other part of the Google universe use most frequently is Docs, i started using it in school to avoid constantly sending myself emails of half finished papers because i did not have my own laptop. Since then Docs, along with Flickr (which is the Yahoo version of Picasa) have been the repositories for all of my written and pictorial property worth saving, i think some people might find that scary, but i have found that storing my documents online is actually more secure than on a personal computer. I love Docs because I can use it anywhere, and it is especially useful when I am not prepared... I can keep an updated copy of my resume and know that it is the most recent because docs will tell me the date I last changed it, it doesn't matter if i am in a different country, or don't have a USB key or computer with me. Even better google docs can be exported and emailed to be compatible with Microsoft word, they can be shared with others for collaboration, and you can upload full PDFs to be filed away for reference.

Faceblah

...as it is often called by a friend of mine. Facebook can be useful and it can also be a time waster. Like most things in the interland it depends how one uses it. I have found it useful in promoting events on a small budget, although increasingly the number of confirmed guests can be misleading. Initially i was amazed with the buffet of events and the possibility that presented, but this quickly gave way a sense of being overwhelmed.

I have used it to keep in touch with some friends who are far away. I think for many people, especially those in Canada who's families are elsewhere it is a very good tool. However, I would never consider my "friends" on Facebook to be equivalent to my friends in real time, some cross over but i have a great Many acquaintances on facebook with whom I rarely spend quality time.