Is Facebook Really The Point?

A post to Web4lib alerted me to this U Mich survey about libraries in social networks (blog post) that finds 77% of students don’t care for or want libraries in Facebook or MySpace.
the biggest reason being that they feel the current methods (in-person, email, IM) are more than sufficient. 14% said no because they [...]

[Insert Word Here] Is Hurting Your Network

Corporate networks are defenseless against the growing threat from instant messaging, and the government warns WiFi is insecure and easily sniffed.
Experts suggest we take precautions against the growing risk of p2p software that’s exposing sensitive documents and threatening national security.
Businesses blame security problems on their employees, their mobile devices, and other consumer technologies.
And now we [...]

Internet Safety

NPR : Back to School: Reading, Writing and Internet Safety
As students return to school in Virginia, there’s something new in their curriculum. Virginia is the first state to require public schools to teach Internet safety.

The Sky Is Falling

MySpace, Second Life, and Twitter Are Doomed.
myspace, second life, twitter, social software

Inclusion Is Addictive

Lichen, who’s had a great string of posts lately, pointed out Amy Campbell’s website, which opens with the following:
So I guess this myspace thing is going to catch on.
I resisted for a long time. These things make me nervous - myspace, messenger, emoticons… I can’t help but see it as some sinister forerunner of the [...]

Wal-Mart Trying To Ape MySpace, Seriously

I just got a heads up on an Advertising Age story that Wal-Mart is trying to be MySpace (and, yeah, I aped their headline, too).
Here’s the lead:
It’s a quasi-social-networking site for teens designed to allow them to “express their individuality,” yet it screens all content, tells parents their kids have joined and forbids users to [...]

Living The Life Embarrassing, Stupid Online

Without contradicting the moral weight of social software post from last week, let’s take a moment to look at three stories from Arstechnica about MySpace and others: online video leads to teen arrests, shooting rampage avoided due to MySpace posting, and Google + Facebook + alcohol = trouble.
These are the stories we’ve come to expect: [...]

Danah Boyd On The Moral Weight Of Social Software

Danah Boyd posted recently at Many-to-Many about the future of social software. I’ve been more than a little bit gung ho on web 2.0 for a while, but I do like her caution:
If MySpace falters in the next 1-2 years, it will be because of this moral panic. Before all of you competitors get motivated [...]

What Does Facebook Matter To Libraries?

Lichen pointed me to this Librarian’s Guide to Etiquette post about new technologies:
Keep up to date with new technologies that you can co-opt for library use. So what if no one will ever listen to the pod casts of your bibliographic instruction lectures, subscribe to the RSS feeds from your library’s blog, send your reference [...]