The review you have been waiting on the edge of your seat for is here! That’s right! I’ve entered the trenches for you and now have (limited) opinions regarding 3 different social media aggregation tools.

DISCLAIMER: My original ten categories for evaluating these apps didn’t work too well. Basically, they don’t crash my system, don’t have ads, and perform similar functions. So those categories have been thrown out the window. Instead, I’m going to focus more on the design and user experience.

~THE CONTENDERS~

If I’m going to be glancing back and forth between these apps throughout the day, then none of them sticks out too strongly. But, if I’m going to be using one of these for hours on end, then I have some opinions.

• Feedly: Offers a bunch of different reading options and the ability to customize fonts. I really did not like the look and feel of the thumbnail only view, but liked the “List” view that has small thumbnails and headlines.
• Hootsuite: The great thing about Hootsuite was all the information it provides on the homescreen. The issues with Hootsuite was all the information is provides on the homescreen. It felt very garbled and too busy.
• SproutSocial: I love simplicity. SproutSocial embodies simplicity. It’s clean, easy to read, and gave me all the information I needed in a visually appealing design.

WINNER: SproutSocial

Deciding on an app based on my own personal preferences is a bit lacking in professionalism and rigor. Therefore, I’ve decided to step back from my own feelings and reevaluate these three apps as if I were a social media director at an information organization.

The winner is still SproutSocial. If I were wanting to monitor and capitalize on my organizations social media presence, then I would want the ability to evaluate. SproutSocial provides reports through its integration with Google Analytics. 

I set up NetVibes at the start of term to try and stay on top of the blog postings for LIBR559M. I ran into a couple of difficulties:

• I was frustrated at how long it took me to input everyone’s blog.
• I accidentally deleted it and then had to enter everyone’s blogs again.
• I didn’t check it during the Reading Period and got logged out and couldn’t remember my password.
• I was never able to make it public and share it with the class (this one is on me and not the system).

That being said- once I got it operational, it has actually been pretty useful. It does sort of force me to read everyone’s posts and comments. Will I continue to use it after the class is over? Probably not. I just don’t follow enough blogs at this point to really find it helpful.

I started wondering if maybe there is an aggregator out there for me. So I did a little self-assessment. First, I primarily check my social media through my iPad mini. Second, I’m really only use Facebook, Instagram (yeah I have an Instagram now), and Pinterest. Third, I really would like to follow the news more.

So here is the challenge I’m issuing myself. I’m going to test 3 apps by the end of this week and provide you all with my ratings. Does anyone have any suggestions before I start this process? Because I just typed in social media to the app store and became severely overwhelmed.I’m going to try to be as subjective as possible.

Here is the 10 point checklist I’ve developed:

1. Is it Free? Yes or No

2. Are there Ads? Yes or No

3. Does it crash my system? Yes or No

4. What social media platforms does it aggregate?

5. Is it Intuitive? Yes or No

6. Visual Appeal? 1-5

7. Usability? 1-5

8. Is there a newsfeed? Yes or No

9. Would you use this in your everyday life?

10. Would you use this in your professional life?

I will admit that I use Facebook for a lot of things: messaging, stalking, and checking up on social activities. But, I’ve found my ability to collaborate with fellow MLIS students hampered by one thing: non-MLIS students. Yes, I respect everyone’s opinions and value input…but sometimes I really am only trying to connect and create with a certain group of people.

In the Ellison and Weber presentation, it is argued that SNS enable better remote collaboration. Let’s focus on two areas that support collaboration: Context Awareness and Identifying Expertise.

Context Awareness

When knowledge seeking (via Facebook posts and status updates), I always try to be as specific as possible. I’m trying to provide context. If I were just querying SLAIS friends I could be very non-specific and probably still get some good results. But, by over contextualizing a question, my hope is that people who don’t have useful or helpful information won’t comment. It feels a bit ridiculous to preface a post by saying, “Hey those of you in iSchool…” or “Other MLIS candidates…,” but this context usually stops other groups of people from commenting…usually.

Identifying Expertise

Something that frequently irks me is people not really knowing what I study in library school. My sister has a running joke that I am majoring in the Dewey Decimal System. I have a running joke that she’s being a stupid-head and I’m telling Mom. Something that bothers me more is people self-identifying as experts (in the field in which I study and work and see my future) and offering unsolicited advice and news.

I get a fair number of posts from well-meaning people about some break through they’ve had about information or libraries. Sometimes these are real scholarly works, but quite frequently they are tiny tidbits of which I am already aware. Because, dear Facebook friend, my field really is a thing and I really do study it. I feel like my friends getting MBAs don’t receive messages like this:

Yes I get that things like digital literacy, information-seeking, and intellectual freedom may be new and exciting terms for you to throw around. But believe me, I’ve looked into it.

Erika Pearson’s All the World Wide Web’s a Stage: The Performance of Identity in Online Social Networks concludes that “In essence, online performative space is a deliberately playful space. The fluidity and self–conscious platforms of performance allow individuals and networks of users to play with aspects of their presentations of self…”

So lets just ignore the number of innuendo jokes that could be made about playing with yourself and focus on the ways that we can play with our online identities.

One of the stresses of setting up a new social media account is the number of decisions that are required.

• Location Well, I live in Canada, but I’m from the US, and I don’t really know where I will end up permanently…this is just a hard time in my life to know “where” I am.
• Age Real age? How about January 1, what ever year makes me legal?
• E-mail Do I want to be contacted by your company? No…oh wait I have to verify to use the app.
• Google NO NO NO, do not link to my Google Account. No one needs to know.

So after intense soul searching, you normally get the the fun part- the part where you start forming an identity by creating a name and an avatar.

Alright, so my name for this blog was my attempt at being creative. It made me realize that for me creativity is equal to alliteration. Maybe not the best strategy. So I went on a hunt to find library blogs with great names. Here’s what I found:

Annoyed Librarian: Whatever It Is, I’m Against It

Information Tyrannosaur: Top of the Information Food Chain

Confessions of a Science Librarian

I like them because they are a bit quirky. Here’s the thing I’ve had this name kicking around in my head for when I feel comfortable starting a blog as an information professional: Turn the Paige

The part that I am stuck on is how to represent myself through an avatar. I’m not comfortable with photographs of just my face. But, I do like caricatures and I think they provide a unique way of showing a person without…showing a person. For example, here is my avatar from my Xbox Live account. She just looks so much more cheerful and professional than I do in real life.

In the future, I want the space I create to be fun and engaging. I need to provide a space which is playful to encourage and foster participation. Clearly this will be developed through the content, but I think a good place to start is with the basic aspects.

In a time long ago with dial up modems and having super teenage angst at my Mom for picking up the phone and disconnecting me, I used-

• AOL instant messenger- I had the full on profile and the little dancing icon that was were expressions of myself and everything thirteen year old Paige new to be true and right about the world. I believe I stopped using it my first year of university.
• MySpace- I spent the majority of my time customizing my profile and realizing that the majority of my top eight (?) friends did not include me in their top friends. Also, I thought it was so cool that you could put a song on your profile. I will not regale you with the terrible music selections I made.
• Chatrooms- when did these stop being a thing? what’s everybody’s a/s/l?

In more modern times (sin modems), I use some social media personally and have been recruited to do a bit of social media professionally.

Personally, I still maintain a Facebook profile (above is my current profile pic), but it’s mostly become a chat interface. It has been a saving grace for talking to friends across international borders. I think I have a twitter. I do not know the handle (or even if that is the correct terminology) and I don’t think I have ever posted. I have pinterest only because two of my friends (who are in this class) have pinterest. I wanted to be cool and find recipes and quirky craft ideas! In reality mine are memes I find funny and stuff about gaming. Like twitter, I think I might have an instagram. Just checked my phone. I have the app. I have no clue what to do with it.

YouTube and Twitch.tv take up a fair amount of my screen time. However, I rarely comment and almost consider this more traditional media consumption.

I also have a Linkedin which I do a really poor job of maintaining when I am not actively seeking employment. It is one of those sites for which I can never remember the password.

Professionally, I was recruited to blog a bit for my old employer. I think the main criteria for bloggers was by default anyone who had heard of a blog. One thing I found very confusing about these posts was I was never sure of the intended audience. Was I blogging to my colleagues, other industry members, or our customers?

After coming to library school, and being bombarded with social media from various information organizations, I’m definitely in the column of needed to be convinced that a social media presence provides an adequate ROI for the institution.

I have never used a personal dashboard. I am in the process of setting up Netvibes in the hopes that it will let me keep track of the postings from this class. I am not confident as I tend to drop apps and programs that don’t resonate with me rather quickly.