Best of the Best

Vanderbilt’s own InsideVandy has been recognized as one of the best student newspaper Web sites in the country. 10,000words.net – where journalism and technology meet! – praised our student site for its “massive amounts of content”: video, podcasts, slideshows and blogs, with a special shout out for the new students’ section. Way to go!

Connect.ed!

I had the great pleasure of attending and speaking at the terrific Are You Connect.ed? conference yesterday at the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s Health Sciences and Human Services Library.

I returned all hot and bothered about Qik, and finally got on the Twitter bandwagon. Yeah, I know. But hearing Andy Carvin from NPR say that he learned about virtually every major news story of the past year on Twitter first, often well-before it broke in the MSM, was enough to convince me that maybe it was about more than just minutiae. Or that it’s all about minutiae, but that minutiae can be darn fascinating. Anyway, if any of my five loyal readers are Twitterers, please let me know.

Saw this great presentation from The Catholic University of America about privacy issues on social networking sites and learned a bunch about Montclair State University’s cool Campus Connect program that is integrating cell phones into campus life in innovative way. Also learned about Ning, a do-it-yourself social network that I’m itching to try, and Utterz.

Oh, and apparently we’re not supposed to talk about Web 2.0 anymore. Because the future is now. Web 2.0 is now just the Web. If the deletion of Web 2.0 leaves a glaring gap on your buzzword bingo card, try social media instead.

Oh, oh, oh, and I almost forgot! One of the best parts was finding Common Craft, which instantly became one of my favorite sites. Ever! Takes the whole “explain it to your grandma” approach to a whole new fabulous level. If nothing else, watch the video about RSS.

To all of you Connect.ed’ers who are here looking for my presentations, hi! Great to see you yesterday! Here are the presentations:

YouTube and Universities: Using Online Video to Tell Your Story (19.9 MB)
iTunes U and Your University (17.0 MB)