Blog Tools
Though I’ve been using the internet for quite some time now, I’ve only started seriously looking into blogs fairly recently. I’ve come upon a few blogging tools where the mix of practicality and the community factor is quite intriguing.
Some tools which strive to mix usefulness with community are: flickr, zoto, 43 Things and delicious.
Flickr and Zoto are photo hosting places both in the Beta stage. They are designed to make it easy to post photos to blogs. The other thing they do is act as social desitinations in and of themselves. Flickr appears to be current leader in terms of popularity. For both services, when you upload your photos you “tag” them and can then be found by other members who want to see pictures of “California” for instance. You can also leave comments and make “contacts” with out of people.
43 Things is a “New Years Resolutions” type place which asks “What do you want to do with your life?” and then proceeds to show you how many other people want to do that same thing. You can then comment on your goal or on the goals of others to offer them encouragement. In some ways I see this a big Jennie Craig type place where a peer support group helps you accomplish things.
Delicious is a web bookmark tool. On the functional side of things, it’s a handy way to keep your bookmarks accessible from any internet enabled computer. On the sociological side of things, it again shows you who else has bookmarked the same page, letting you then explore what else that person has. You can also browse “tags” to see for instance what’s new in the “geek” category.
