Thing #20: Discovering Web 2.0 tools is a bit on the overwhelming side. There's just so incredibly much to choose from. Having a list of award winners to narrow it down helps, certainly. These resources have all been vetted. They probably wouldn't be on this list if they weren't good, stable, and reliable.
Biblio.com is a service to allow you to search independent bookstores for out-of-print works. Not so much "web 2.0" to my mind (no integral social component), but very useful. I found facsimiles of Topsell's History of Four-Footed Beasts, which made me drool and wish I had huge buckets of money laying around. I'll definitely be keeping this site in my Delicious file.
Lulu, on the other hand, is "web 2.0" to the hilt, and it looks very promising for self-publishing a wide variety of content. If someone wanted to create a memoir or photo album to distribute to family members and friends, this is a much nicer alternative to photocopying it and putting it in a three-ring binder. If one wanted to publish a little comic book for their friends, but also try to sell a few copies on the side without going to a huge amount of trouble, this could be the way to go. I like what Lauren Parker said about their goal being "to have 1 million users that sell 10 books instead of 10 authors that sell 1 million books."
Live Mocha helps people learning foreign languages find native speakers to practice with. This is pretty darned awesome. I might use it myself, but I will definitely keep it in mind if I have patrons at the desk who want help finding a language partner.
Upcoming Events & Things to Do would probably be good for me to check regularly, because I never know what cool things are happening around town until they're over and someone is telling me what an awesome event I missed. I also like that this site is smart enough to look at my IP address and automatically supply events for Omaha, rather than forcing me to input my location. Going, on the other hand, defaulted to Chicago, the nearest city that they consider "major." Sorry, but I don't consider an event that requires shelling out big bucks for air fare and hotel fees to be "nearby." I'll stick with Upcoming, since they give me actual relevant local content. I wish it included smaller cities, though. I'd love to see what events are coming up in Schuyler or Columbus, but the closest I could find on Upcoming was Norfolk. Still, that's not too bad.
From a library service standpoint, all of the genealogy sites on the list (My Heritage, Geni, and Amiglia) could be useful. I didn't sign up for any of them at this time, but I might later if I get serious about converting the family tree from that stack of photocopies in my file drawer. But any or all of these would be great to show a patron coming to the desk with a genealogy question.
I guess my favorite thing I encountered in this exercise was the SEOmoz Awards list itself. It's a good overview of the types of stuff out there, and I can refer back to it later when I have a particular need for a particular type of tool.
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