#23: Ta-(finally)-Da!

Hear that squeaking sound? That's me, coming in under the wire. I gotta say, blogging is a hard thing to keep up on top of the job and the actual life, especially during the jam-packed Hallowe'en-to-Christmas weeks. Of course, had it been run during the summer, I'd have said that was a particularly busy time, too, what with the kids off and vacations being taken. So, have a grain of salt with that grumble, won't you?

All told, I was very pleased to have been nudged and bribed and peer-pressured into exploring all the Things (even the silly ones) and I would certainly participate again in a similar program.

In the spirit of the tabloid papers' year-end Hot-Or-Not lists, here's my personal assessment of the 23 and 1/2 Things:

#1-#4: Reading, Learning, Setting Up, Registering: Hot! Because it was easy, and hey, 4 down.

#5-#7: Flickr, Mashups, Technology: Hot! Because it was fun. Flickr is awesome, easy to use,
extremely useful for sharing and keeping in touch, has no intrusive ads, and doesn't try
to claim the rights to every bit of content you provide.

#8-#9: Bloglines and RSS feeds: Hot! Because they save the time of the reader. And you know,
that's the law.

#10-#12: Image Generators, LibraryThing, and Rollyo: Not! Because they are time-suckers, in my opinion, without enough substance returned for the amount of time invested.

#13-#15: Tagging, Technorati, Two-Point-Oh: Hot! Not! Lukewarm! Because tagging is here
to stay, and we've got to keep working it until it works really well. Technorati, I'm not
convinced, as even with the ratings system, I think blogs are less reliable than
Wikipedia. Two-Point-Oh, you're just another way of talking about what I've been
doing all along.

#16-#17 1/2: Wikis and Facebook: Lukewarm! and NOT! Because wikis are a hard thing to do
well, and to keep up with: I found more than a couple of incomplete, abandoned
library wikis. Wikipedia is not bad, but it's not yet the Greatest Show on Earth.
And Facebook? No thanks.

#18-#19: Online Apps and Web 2.0 Awards: Hot! Again, because of the usefulness and the
benefits these things provide the average person.

#20-#23: YouTube, Podcasts, E-Audiobooks and Thoughts: Hot! Because they save the
time of the reader, provide every reader his or her material, and they provide these benefits without exorbitant cost. Even though e-audiobooks are not for me, I know lots of people who love 'em, and I can see why. I listen once in a while to podcasts, and I can see library applications for those.

All in all, I thought this was a great program, and I'll bet a lot of people who never continued or
even started blogging still followed some of it and tried a few new things that they wouldn't have otherwise.

Thanks to Hood and Hat for a job well done!