Social Networks > 3: Share
"What we're trying to do is just make it really efficient for people to communicate, get information and share information."
Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CE0 of Facebook, Time Magazine, 7/17/07
3A: About Blogs
Weblogs, or "blogs" for short, are a cross between a diary, a web site, and an online community. Blogs are usually quite informal, and they often reflect the humor and personality of their creator.
Blog writers (bloggers) share opinion and commentary on social issues and other topics of interest. Some bloggers help to filter information on a topic, providing links to news and resources as they become available. Many blogs allow readers to post their own comments or react to others on the site, as shown in the illustration.
Blogs are built using specially designed software that makes creating and updating the site easy. Many blogs are updated daily and often have multiple updates in a single day.
3B: How to Find and Search Blogs
Blog postings are sometimes very good sources of information on new or hot topics.
Although blog posts will show up in results of general search engines, like Google, the best way to search the content of blogs is with a specialized blog search engine.
- Google Blog Search main search results always return links to posts. However, when there are entire blogs that seem to be a good match for your query, these will appear in a short list just above the main search results.
- Technorati offers a variety of search options. You may search within a posting, in the directory of blogs (descriptions of their content), or in tags supplied by users.
- BlogRunner, shown in the illustration below, is a great site for browsing blogs and news by topic and also for searching for specific content.
- Other blog search engines are listed in Google Directory: Weblogs: Search Engines
3D: Social Utilities: Facebook, MySpace
Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, and other social network utilities are very popular on college campuses. They allow you to create a profile, to share information about yourself, photos and videos, and news about your activities and interests. This is great a way to stay in touch with friends and also to form new online and offline social relationships.
Facebook is organized around networks of people who attend the same school, live in a city, work at a company. Within networks, people and organizations who share interests form various groups so that they can communicate easily. You can easily browse and join different types of groups within your networks or start your own group.
Maybe your library has a group, like the one shown below for OSU Libraries. This is a good way to get the latest news, tell us what you're interested in, and meet librarians who can help you with your information needs.
Join the OSU Libraries group at: http://osu.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4960507210
Applications are small tools that plug-in to the Facebook page. Many are simply fun, but some can be useful for your academic work as well. One interesting application keeps track of your del.icio.us bookmarks from within your Facebook profile. Almost 10,000 members have decided to integrate this social bookmarking widget into their profiles.
JSTOR, a scholarly journal archive, has created a search application which accesses its collection of full-text resources. Researchers must follow instructions for remote login, or may need to sign in from their library website before being able to use this Facebook feature. Some libraries have built Facebook applications that let users search their library catalogs.
Activity
Use Technorati Advanced Search to locate information on a topic of interest to you. Refine your search results by selecting "some authority" or "a lot of authority" in the search box on the results page.
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