There are lots of types of social networking software out there. One that I'd forgotten about that many of my coder librarian friends use is Last.fm . This site let's you sign up for an account and get music recommendations from others. You can also join a group and see what others in that group are listening to. I haven't used this much but at code4lib liked the sound of music selections that others were playing so I decided to join to see if I could find out what some of the artist names, and songs were. For more info on different Social Music software check out this post at TechCrunch. In contrast, LibraryThing is social networking for books. You can input your books into LibraryThing, tag them, keep track of them and get recommendations. As you can see these are just a few other ways people are using social networking software.

Below are a few tricks/tips I mentioned regarding del.icio.us that I mentioned to during my group chat this week.

1. You can tag items for other people using the for:username tag
2. You can bundle your tags together. Tags can be in multiple bundles
3. You can make a feed of all of your del.icio.us items
4. You can post your del.icio.us links to your blog on a daily basis

These are just a few of the features of del.icio.us If you want to know more tricks that you can do with Del.icio.us then check out Hacking Del.icio.us .

In my group's chat last week we were discussing the fact that Feed2JS doesn't work properly if you have JavaScript turned off in your browser. While most people have JavaScript turned on, there are some potential exceptions. Most notably screenreaders and some mobile devices. To check to see what Feed2JS looks like when JavaScript turned off, turn JavaScript off in your browser. This page will provide you with instructions on how to turn off JavaScript.

Feed2JS realizes that JavaScript may be turned off and includes a <noscript> tag. However, you might want to check out what this does to how things render to make sure you are okay with the alternative.

During the Week 1 Webcast "Blogging Beyond the Basics" by Nanette Donohue I mentioned in the chat the blog spam can be a real problem. This is something we are having issues with right now at UH. While most blogging software comes with the ability to deal with spam, sometimes spam can become a problem that is greater than the built-in spam tools can deal with. In these cases, you or your technical person may need to employ stronger methods. One option is an Apache module called mod_security (http://www.modsecurity.org/). This tool can be used to setup rules that all comments can be validated against. If a comment contains a certain word or words then mod_security can stop it from being submitted. Mod_security is a good tool but the configuration can be complex so make sure you read the documentation to get it properly configured.

I found this nice article on ways to attract more subscribers to your blog. Some of the stuff is slightly technical and I can speak to it more during next week's discussion of RSS. However one suggestion that I liked alot was the following:

Educate your Readers

It is difficult to have a high RSS subscriber count if the majority of your readers don’t understand what RSS is or how to use it.If your blog is on a non techie topic with a readership who doesn’t have much awareness of RSS write a post that explains what RSS is and how it can help them follow your site. Then add a link to that post under your RSS button to help educate them.

Hi everyone. The focus of this course is social networking software and one thing I've noticed is this type of software is often banned, blocked, or filtered at many workplaces. Particularly public libraries. I was wondering how many of you have difficulties using instant messager at your workplace. Ie. it isn't allowed or the IT administrators have blocked sites like Meebo? What about MySpace or Facebook?

Please leave a comment on this post if these are blocked at your site and if you know, why? I'd like to use this a little bit later in the course regarding our discussions of "Selling Social Software".