Thing 5: Online Networks [Part 1]

Facebook

I originally singed up to Facebook in my first year of college to keep track of the friends I made. This quickly turned into online gaming with those friends.

Now I am mostly a re-poster, re-posting images, videos, music and articles for me to look at later. You will often find my page littered with posts about cats, books and manga & anime.

I debated with myself about using Facebook in a professional manner as up until now I have used it mostly for personal use.

I had to remind myself that I have used it professionally when I was admin of several groups and when I updated the Epic-Con like and event pages.

Epic-con was an annual Sci-fi, fantasy & anime convention run by the Omega Society, NUI Maynooth for charity. I was part of the Omega committee that ratified the first convention and during my time as Convention Director for Epic-con 5. The name was changed to Phenomocon for its final year.

I would have no problem updating a like page or event page for a library I work in, it would be similar enough to what I did for Epic-con. But if it would require that I had to post as myself I would probably make a professional account because my current account is set up for interaction in the convention and gaming communities perfect for those scenes but may be off putting to some.  

So for Thing 5, I joined the Rudai 23 Facebook group and liked a few more library pages, for this thing I seem to be more interactive on the library front with Twitter than Facebook. I think this is because I have been on Facebook so long it is hard to create new habits.

Find out about my Twitter experience in Part 2!

Part 5: 23 Things Course Rudaí 23.
Tasks Facebook: Join Rudai23 Facebook group and say hi, follow a Facebook page that you like
Tasks Twitter: Set up Twitter account, follow @rudai23, tweet with #rudai23, subscribe to a list

Thing 4: Google

The post for this has been sitting unpublished, for the last few weeks. Stuff being added and taken out at random intervals, just waiting for me to get around to HangOuts. I think it is time I just publish it.

Now days it is pretty hard not to use a Google product unless you are affected by the great firewall of China. So I am assuming that everyone has used a Google Product at some point. 

I have used Google products for both work and leisure and some for both. 

I pretty much stumbled into using my first google product, which was Google Video, before Google bought YouTube their video service was called Google Video. I mostly used it to watch TV shows, Anime and AMV (Anime Music Videos). Now I look up videos for both entertainment and educational purposes.

In 2006, I inadvertently created a Google+ account. I was signed up to a Google account using my Hotmail address to track my Google videos and on one of my last times on the platform I was asked did I want to transfer my account to Google +. Which of course I clicked accept and have never really used until now. Eventually I signed up to a g-mail account so I could access to Google Calendar so I could keep track of social events.

 When I was working as an administrative assistant I used Google Analytics, a statistical tool used to track clicks and visits to webpages. I also had some interaction with adwords. 

I used Google Translate to translate work documents into English and quickly discovered not to just copy and paste the entire document. It was better to do it by sentence or paragraph and to correct the grammar along the way or you were left with an incomprehensible mess at the end.

Finally HangOuts…

I watched the Rudai 23 Google Hangouts live on YouTube and was inspired. (To watch the video click Rudai23 Hangout On Air.)

After exploring Hangouts more I discovered that there were interactive apps you can attach so that you can doodle on your friends videos, play games with them and lots more. There are even apps for story telling.

My impression of Hangouts so far is that it is a mix of video streaming and chat, kind of like a mix between skype and a webinar. This is definitely something I want to spend more time exploring this but my friends tend to use Skype instead.

While we are on the topic of Google, a few weeks ago I read an article about Google. I found it an interesting read.  The article talks about the steps Google have taken for restructuring the business into a model more suited for a conglomerate and how it is to be more transparent for investors. (The Economist August 15^th 2015, p 55-56.)

There was a nice timeline and I was tempted to attach a photo of it below but I was not sure about copyright. If anyone is interested in taking a look, Google Timeline: The Economist August 15^th 2015, p 55.

  

Part 4: 23 Things Course Rudaí 23.

Tasks: Open a Google account, set up Google+ profile, do a Hangout chat, Try Hangouts On Air (optional)

Catch up: All Things

This blog post was supposed to be for catch up week but we have been having internet troubles since our move.

This week is catch up week and I feel like I am not making a dent in my assignments. With the motivation to catch up from The Google Hangout Rudai23 Hangout On Air and Twitter chat #R23chat smoldering away I decided to come up with a plan.

So far I have been tipping away at my blog posts at home in 10- 20 minutes a day and grabbing a few minutes here and there during my breaks at work to Tweet and browse my LinkedIn. I am finding that although with this I am getting through some of my posts, they are sitting unpublished on my blog waiting for me to complete some of the tasks.

Ten to twenty minutes does not provide enough time to have a good sit down and explore the new software and networks to my satisfaction.

My life is hectic still, after moving into my new apartment and I am still behind, so I need to set up a system where I can claim more than 20 minutes a day to work on my Rudaí 23 Things 4-15.

So it is time for a new strategy…

I am hoping to publish at least one post a day until I catch up… I know this will be hard to do but I am determined to do it.

This week I have been trolling through my unpublished posts polishing them off and dividing them into categories. Completed, Revisit and Explore.

Completed, as it suggests these posts are complete and ready for publishing but not published.

Revisit, these are posts that can be published but I want/need to revisit some of the tasks.

Explore, these are the posts that have tasks with software/platforms I have never been on and require in depth exploration. I literally only have a few note as reminder of what I want to write for these.