Week 8 -- #19 Web 2.0 Award Winners

The list of Web 2.0 Winners was quite extensive so I ended up using the shorter winner's list from which to select the ones I would look at more closely. I chose two: Twitter and docstoc.com but plan looking at some of the other ones to see what they are and what they have to offer. Twitter seems to be the big 'buzz word' lately which is why I wanted to explore it more thoroughly and it was fun to go through. I signed up for my account and they have a neat video clip (one of the ones by LeFever which are so popular) that explains what Twitter is (quick way to keep in touch/follow other people to see what they're creating short snippets about) and how it works and where it works from (such as from phones, computers, etc.) It does incorporate an RSS feed for the people you are following. Basically, it's a running 'diary' or blog with each entry having to be no more than 140 characters and you can choose to 'follow' someone and then when you log in, it will list who you are following and you can see all the recent postings they've had and even respond back to them if you'd like. As far as applications from a library stance, I'm not sure there would be too many except to possibly follow authors who tweet and see what they're doing, working on, where they're speaking, etc. but it is an interesting place and a quick way to post updates on what's happening.
The 2nd winner I visited was doctoc.com which has 3 million public documents that have been uploaded by various people. When you open the site, you get 10 main categories that show up but you can expand that to many more. The opening screen also shows you areas that are of timely interest and a "Lighter Side" which are comedic documents, such as "the 10 Life Lessons fro Star Trek". There is also an area where people who post the documents can put a profile to be seen by users. I did search for MD education and there was only 1 document that appeared, but it did have meta-tags on it so I could have taken those and done further searches. You can upload your own documents and there is an area that has templates for various documents, such as resumes, different types of letters, etc. The subject ares that I found to have the larger amount of documents in them were in Politics and History, Jobs, and Heath and Fitness. I can see where it could be of use for someone looking for a public document under a particular subject area, but they are at the discretion of who wants to post them. They can be downloaded which would be good if someone needed them for a presentation.