Thing 33. Travel 2.0

Sure, I think travel sites are good for the library. I mean, as a supplement to the excellent travel guides that we have. I just don't find the user recommendations all that innovative or surprising (yet). It's that rule of the masses: more opinions don't mean more quality opinions. Unless someone is going to NYC, or London, or Hong Kong, there are not enough users at any one site to generate quality content. I want my content edited and vetted. Just like the selection process at the library or at my favorite radio station or even the grocery store: at some point I want to be able to rely on a trusted expert to tell me stuff, or show me stuff, or direct me to listen to stuff. I do use TripAdvisor because it has the most content, but I don't know that it is particularly wonderful. I mean, when people are rating chain hotels, it's hard to know what their standards are. Cause mine tend to be vastly different.
I thought some of the travel blogs were fun. Notes from the Road is truly one of the best looking blogs I have ever seen. The photos are lush and beautiful, and I like the tone of the writing. One of the sites that isn't included that I think is very useful is locally-created, but world encompassing VegGuide, for the vegetarian traveler. I'm not vegetarian, but I like to have the option, and I think it seems like a pretty good little resource. And what about wikitravel?

Thing 32. Google Maps and Mashups

View Come Visit My Roseville in a larger map
Uh, I created a map using the Google maps that takes you on a purely cursory tour of the neighborhood by the temporary location of the Roseville library. I did it because I had to, so don't judge. It seems fairly easy to do, but I honestly don't know how often I'd necessarily use this. I'm sure a lot of brides out there would love this and I think it could be really great for all sorts of specific purposes, I just can't think of any off the top of my head. Two really cool mashups are WalkJogRun, which enables you to track a route in your neighborhood or access the routes of others, and Panedia, where you click on a marker on the map and it shows you truly beautiful panoramas of the scene around you. Panepedia seems based in Australia, however, so there are few entries other than Australian ones. I cannot wait until it gets filled out, though I bet if I searched Flickr I could find some pretty good stuff.

Thing 31. More: Twitter

To say that I'm sick of Twitter would be an understatement. I felt like I said all I had to say in the last Twitter post. But, because I am trying to be flexible and open minded and young-seeming, I sucked it up and tried some other things that the More Things on a Stick Wiki (haha "stickwiki") told me I should try. Thing is, I have all the same feelings as before: it's a great marketing tool, possibly a great networking tool (if anyone you want following you actually has a Twitter account), and a fun phenomenon if you have time. Otherwise, I'm completely bored with it. I don't want to check it, even my (few) friends who are on it have nothing of interest to say, and I'm sick of hearing about it.
I added a gadget to my homepage so that my Twitter updates are all there, I practiced texting on my phone before deciding that I really, really did NOT want to have to come up with pithy status updates and tinyurls, and I messed around with the Tweeter Directory only to become more and more irate about the fact that I'm being forced to explore this platform ad infinitum. No my page does not reflect me as a person and no, there is not enough information there for people to get a sense of who I am as a person because I AM NOT OUT TO MARKET MYSELF. I am out to finish this endless "Thing," this monkey (or twit-like birdie) on my back. In that grudging spirit, I will answer the rest of the questions:
I am using Twitter to see if anything interesting comes of it. I've had an account for about a year now, 7 people I know have an account and a whopping 2 of them update with any regularity. I also subscribe to three businesses, two of which I'm told sometimes feature special Twitter-only coupons and one which I just want to know when their events occur. I tried subscribing to a local, interesting guy and a library specialty account, but they posted so much about so many trivial things that I quickly unsubscribed out of sheer uninterest.
As you've guessed I'm at "#2 Presence" in the 5 Stages of Twitter Acceptance and as far as adding to the list of what I think Twitter is... perhaps a graphic representation would suffice:

Any questions? Thanks for the image limeduck!