So much is happening in the online world

I've spent the last few days having a great time playing. I've cataloged some books on LibraryThing (a very slow process with a dial-up connection), uploaded pictures to my blog and to Flickr (where I also joined a group and organized some of my photos into sets), created a chiclet for LibraryThing on my blog, and a widget for it as well. Of course, when I was in library school, I cataloged some of my books for practice, and I do cataloging and classification at school all the time (and filing--tons of filing!). The problem with cataloging my books at home is that I have to drag them to the computer in order to do it. Plus, we have all these boxes of books in the attic that wouldn't fit into the new (17 years old) house when we moved into it. I don't think this would be too useful for cataloging at school--at least, no more useful than what I currently do, which is searching LC for their numbers and subject headings. And for fiction, you don't even need to find a number, so it would actually take more time to use LibraryThing to catalog them.

However, I found it interesting that you can converse with others on various literate (and not so) subjects, as well as seeing who else has the books you have. Sometimes you feel you want to discuss a book and have no one to talk to about it. I plan to do more exploring on LibraryThing.

Web 2.0 is all about the social aspect of the Internet--and it is very social. But did you ever notice that whenever you visit a site, you set up an account that is your own private account? Everyone in your family may have his or her own private account (yes, I know there are people who have joint email accounts, and most families will share something like Flickr--but still . . .). So we're all in our private accounts, interacting with people we don't really know and probably will never see--instead of interacting with the people around us. And it is all-encompassing, this Web 2.0 journey. It draws you in deeper and deeper as you search out ever more pictures, groups, blogs, and conversations. And of course, you have to check your RSS feeds. Yikes! How many did I sign up for? I must have been crazed.