OK so the Twitterverse has been a aflutter at the awesome campaign by @oldspice that has taken the internet by storm over the last few days.

If you were hiding under a rock, for some background reading – and watching – check out here, here, and here. And if you open up the Old Spice Channel on YouTube you may never leave!

While there’s a LOT of fun to be had by checking out the abs – *ahem* I mean brilliant marketing strategy – of the Old Spice Guy, there’s also some real opportunities.

@wawoodworth managed to get so many retweets of their original post that @oldspice gave libraries this shoutout:

I am pretty! How did he know?

And while, sadly, the Old Spice Guy phenomenon of over 200 video message replies to tweets is now over, (excuse me while I cry all over my iPhone), there are already examples of libraries jumping on the boat cart – and how!

So – how do we take advantage of this?

And how do we make sure that when we do, it’s not embarassing and does more damage to our brand than good?

I’m currently Chair of ALIA’s New Generation Advisory Committee (NGAC) and I have some ideas but am interested to hear your thoughts too. And while yes – we are a group to advise the board on issues relation to new generation/graduate involvement in the profession and the organisation -we are also a committee that welcomes ideas from experienced members of the profession.  So if you don’t identify as “new” anymore, but you have ideas on this topic, please don’t hold back!

NGAC is in planning stages for the next year or years of new generation involvement in our profession, so I ask you, interactive librarians: Where to, from here?

Personlly, I’d like to be on that cart.

@naomidoessel
Chair, ALIA New Generation Advisory Committee

Over on the Twittersphere we are discussing have a meeting of twitter library folk just prior to #ALIAAccess / @ALIAAccess.

@flexnib rightly tweets:

#aliaaccess will be one big tweet up

However as the conference dinner is Dine-Around, the conference is multi-streamed and we come from all walks of LibraryLand, we may not all get a chance to meet at the social events organised, so I’m organising a #tweetup.

#ALIAAccess #TweetUp

The Brisbane Twitter User Brigade #BTUB meets monthly at Greystone Bar which is conveniently located at South Bank very close to the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.

When: Tuesday 31 August

From:  6pm

Where: http://foursquare.com/venue/307181

RSVP: Tweet @naomidoessel to let me know if you’re coming so I can book us an area.

New Grads at the Pub

Additionally after the Welcome Reception 5-6pm on Wednesday 1 September, due to popular demand New Grads at the Pub is back!

Yes, the event made so popular as NLS4 in Melbourne is being revived, with a special after-drinks dinner & drinks (self-funded) at Brisbane’s historic Plough Inn, also at South Bank and only a short walk from the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Not a new grad? No worries! While this event is targeted at those attending the What Next! New Graduates Stream at ALIA Access and is a chance for those in the profession less than ten years to get together and have a relaxed dinner, if you’re laid back and friendly and want to chat to the up-and-comers in LibraryLand then come along!

When: Wednesday 1  September

From:  6.30pm

Where: http://foursquare.com/venue/279834

RSVP: Tweet @naomidoessel or email naomidoessel at gmail dot com so we can book.

Please use the hashtags #ALIAAccess and #tweetup.

Cheers

@naomidoessel

In the latest round of who is buying who, Facebook has purchased FriendFeed, for an (officially) undisclosed amount. Check out the reports on the acquisition and what will happen to FriendFeed at Tech Crunch, FriendFeed blog, Read/Write Web and Mashable.

Adobe has joined the ranks of online image editors by launching their new free service, Adobe Photoshop Express beta.  It offers crop and rotate, correct, exposure, red-eye removal, touchup and much more, making it a direct competitor to services such as  Picnik and Phixr.

It also offers photo sharing and online galleries, which brings it into competition with Flickr and enables social networking, with users able to share their photos through Facebook, Picasa and Photobucket.

Aimed at the photo hobbyist, it allows the user to upload, edit and store up to 2GB of photos for free and then exhibit the images there or on a Facebook page for example.  There are also limits of 10MB on uploads and 4000 pixels in height and width for images.

However, considering the photo of Adobe Photoshop as a image editing tool, it is well worth checking out.  Information Week anticipates that it may also be available as a desktop application in the future.

Hi All,

I thought you might be interested in a new widget called Sprout. (If you have already heard of it, sorry )

It is still in Beta so you can’t use it yet but you can put your name down to be included in the next release, and I asume a bit of testing as well for those interested in doing it.

I saw it in the Age online technology section in a story about changing the “voice skins” on GPS and the sprout widget came up so you could hear the different skins!

So I linked to it to find out more and it looks and sounds pretty spesh!

It is a fully customisable and very easy to use widget to display mini content feeds to multiple site hostings in a very easy way, the CMS software must be extreme. I love this nextgen 2.0 stuff.

I also did a search of other widget directory/aggregators that were mentioned in the story. (Again apologies if they are old hat )

Here is the a rough Google search string;

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=Clearspring+OR+Gigya+OR+Spring+Widgets&btnG=Search&meta=

Or go to each one direct:

clearspring, gigya and springwidgets

Cheers,

Bibliobudgie

As information by or about anyone who spends time on the web increases and fragments, there are several steps you can take to manage your online identity.

Previously, we looked at managing the number of social networks you sign up for. What do you do when you have moved on from your MySpace, Ning, or LinkedIn profile – but all your data is still there?

Don’t just forget about your profiles – in my opinion it is better to delete them than to leave behind stale or spam-filled information about you when people search for you. I’ve also written before about social network fatigue and trimming down profiles. Ideally, you should check that there is an option to delete your profile when you sign up for a service – if the option isn’t offer consider whether you want that company to always own your information.

Network by network

Here’s a brief sampling of ways to delete your account -

MySpace: Settings, Account, Account Cancellation MySpace asks you to explain why you are deleting your account, and requires email confirmation.
Twitter: Settings, Delete My Account
LinkedIn: Must email customer service.
Vox: Account, Your Account, Cancel Your Account
Second Life: Membership, Cancel Account Note: SL charges a fee if you wish to reinstate your account, even a free one.

Even from this small sample, you can see that the ease of deleting your data varies widely.

OpenID

For the networks you keep, consider using a OpenID service, such as ClaimID, to track your blogs, websites, and profiles. Michael Habib gives a thorough overview of the service’s aims at authority control on the web in an article for Library Journal.

Helping your patrons and colleagues to manage their identity

Managing your identity should be a part of every class on social networking or 23 Things. Some may not have privacy or identity concerns now, but they may change their mind in the future as they move on to the next big thing.

Have any librarians out there had to give advice to patrons about starting, managing and deleting their profiles? Leave a comment!

The entire library community knows about this bit:

The Librarians, is a new six-part comedy series from the ABC, based around the highly-strung head librarian of an outer suburban Melbourne library. This new social satire premieres on Wednesday October 31 at 9.30pm. You can also watch it online at abc.net.au/tv/librarians from 10:00pm.

But did you know that on Thursday night, you can chat about the show with other librarians on ABC Island in Second Life?

In conjunction with the ABC, Emerald Dumont – a librarian avatar from the Australian Libraries Building – will host a discussion of the show in the ABC Auditorium on ABC Island. Do we really look like that? What would you have added? What do you think will happen? Would other professions be having this discussion if the show was called “The Teachers” or “The Doctors”?

Brush off you avatar, or follow this guide to create a new one, and join in.

DATE: Thursday November 1st

TIME: 7:30pm AEDST, 5:30pm (WA Daylight savings) , 1:30am SL time (PDT)

PLACE: ABC Auditorium , ABC Island in SL

(If you are logged into Second Life, click on this SLURL to get there: http://slurl.com/secondlife/ABC%20Island/128/75/24)

Instant message Emerald Dumont if you need a Teleport to the event, or contact her close friend Kathryn Greenhill for further information ( kathryn.greenhill at gmail dot com)

More Commoncraft goodness.

Social bookmarking in Plain English (or.. find out how to use del.icio.us )

The clips below, produced by Lee and Sachi LeFever of Commoncraft , take less than 10 minutes to watch and explain RSS, Wikis and Social Networking more clearly than any other resource I’ve found.

Lee LeFever explains the stylistic decisions they made for the clips and why the constraints they chose give them freedom to focus on the ideas rather than formatting for each one,Why Paperworks: All About Constraints .

Very useful if you either want to explain these concepts to other library colleagues or are making decisions about presenting your ideas online.

RSS in Plain English

Wikis in Plain English

Social Networking in Plain English

Enjoy!