6 alternatives to Google Reader, sorted by need

Google Reader, like iGoogle and other stuff we find useful but which doesn't fulfill Google's own criteria for usefulness, is for the scrapheap. It'll be turned off on July 1st - but don't wait till then to find something new, move on immediately and throw yourself into a new relationship!

What do you want out of a RSS subscriptions service? Here are 6 alternatives to Reader, sorted by need:

• I'm already bored with this article and just want something well put together and easy to use Look no further than Feedly. When you start using Feedly you'll immediately think that Google Reader looked outdated and bit rubbs anyway. Feedly takes literally seconds to access your old Google Reader feeds and then you're away - plus there's free Android and iOS apps for it too.
• I just want something that looks and feels exactly like Google Reader In which case let me introduce to Old Reader. It was made a while ago when Reader lost some functionality, to look like Reader used to look.
• I am a Mac person, I want something especially for me Newsrack may be the one - it works with Google Reader (you can sync with it for now, and import your feeds before Reader goes) but it works completely alone too. It'll cost you though, it's a paid-for app.
• I want something that can do more than just replace Google ReaderNetvibes can replace Google Reader AND iGoogle and do other stuff besides. It's relatively straightforward to import your Reader feeds too.
• I want something with a self-contradicting name Hello Newisfree! Looking forward to some free news, can't wait. Oh... okay. Premium.
• I want to approach things in a completely different way I personally don't use Google Reader anymore, because I trust my network on Twitter to surface what is important. If a blog post or news item is significant, or controversial, or just really well written, it WILL come to my attention on Twitter. So rather than resubscribing to a load of blogs via a new service, you could take time to make sure you follow some really good sharers on Twitter, and just take a more zen approach to finding good things to read... Plus if you do miss something, that's okay. .

Still have needs not met by any of the above? Check out the Online Journalism Blog's fabulous Google doc listing, at the current count, 50 way to subscribe to feeds.

- thewikiman

Twitter for Researchers guide

At my institution we're really stepping up our support for researchers, and I've been doing a lot of stuff around the Web 2.0 end of the spectrum. I'm running a suit of workshops called Becoming a Networked Researcher, and I've been into departments to give taster presentations like this one:

We've also finally completed a guide to using Twitter for Researchers. It's more a Twitter for Researchers actually, rather than the process of academic research itself (although that is possible). I've hosted it on Scribd in order to embed it on our web pages, and it got picked up and featured on Scribd's homepage so that helped boost the number of views it has had, which is huge, relatively speaking - around three-and-a-half-thousand. Plenty of those have been from York researchers, which is great - they've given us a lot of positive feedback and ReTweets.

The guide took a surprisingly long time to do - the difference between knowing stuff and actually writing an ideal version of it down in a document never ceases to disappoint me... Adding examples took a while too. I couldn't decide between very brief of very comprehensive - in the end I decided somewhere between the two, keeping it as short as possible but including a LOT of information. The idea is, if they want more, they can come to the Twitter workshop as part of the Becoming a Networked Researcher suite.

Anyhow, here it is - feel free to use stuff from it, with attribution:

Twitter for research by University of York Information

There'll be some more University of York Library stuff on the blog shortly, around Digital Literacy, videos etc!

- thewikiman

Digital Marketing Toolkit - workshop December 5th

A brief post to let anyone interested know that I'm running a one-day workshop, at York St John University on the 5th of December, on behalf of UKeIG. It's all about marketing with new technologies. Moving beyond the social network basics, this course will look at how to identify which technologies will be useful for marketing your organisation, how to use them effectively, and tips, tricks and general best-practice for marketing online. Topics will include marketing with video, viral marketing, mastering geolocation (such as FourSquare), mobile apps, publishing online, getting the most out of QR Codes, and taking social media marketing to the next level.

I'm also keen to accomdodate any other apsect of digital marketing that people would like to cover - if you're already booked on the course then let me know what you'd like to cover (and if you're not attending, I'd still be interested in the kinds of things you'd like to see covered on a course like this...).

Details of the event (including a booking form) are on the UKeIG website.

Hope to see you there!

- thewikiman

The curse of 'oh, we already did that'

Things move a lot faster in library-land than people outside the profession would ever imagine - approaches, trends, philosophies and pedagogies all shift on an on-going basis. For this reason, the fact that something didn't work 2 or 3 years ago is really not a good enough reason not to try it now (and by the same token, the fact that something DID work 3 years ago isn't enough of a reason to keep doing it - we have to make sure it's still working in today's landscape).

This happens a lot though - someone new comes into an organisation and says 'why don't we try such and such?' and the reply is 'oh we already did that; it didn't work' and that's the end of it. In effect, a policy has been built off the back of one experience - and that experience may not be representative anymore, because things change, and people change.

This is particularly true in the web 2.0 landscape, where individuals' attitudes to interacting with organisations and businesses changes all the time. A Library may run a trial and the conclusion 'our users don't want to be friends with a Library on Facebook' emerges. If this trial took place in 2012 then it is entirely valid; don't waste your time and effort on a Facebook presence. If the trial happened in 2009, it's almost entirely without worth! That is SO long ago as to need re-visiting before a decision can be made on whether or not Facebook is a good idea - web 2.0 years are like dog years, so a 2009 Facebook study is the equivalent of a 1990 Library Management System study. :)

So, if you come across something that has already been tried, and you think the landscape has shifted sufficiently to try it again, don't take no for an answer! It may be that it doesn't work this time either, or it might be a huge triumph - either way, your Library's policy will be based on something current, and will be more likely to reflect the needs of your users...

- thewikiman

p.s I was in a Lean methodology training session the other day, which is what inspired me to finish this post which has lain in my drafts folder for a couple of months. It turns out a lot of Lean principles are things I've been thinking about for a while, including the business of not just doing things one way because they've always been done that way, and not trying anything new because it has been tried once before in the distant past. Lean puts it in terms of the five whys - asking why (or more likely, 'yeah, but WHY though?') enough times to actually get to the root cause of something. Heidi Fraser-Krauss who led the session gave an example of a hospital who asked their staff to sign into a book when they rode their bikes into work. No one knew why, it had apparently ever been thus. The bike-book went back as far as the 40s and was, it turned out, something to do with rationing during the war... So it just goes to show, some processes need a quick currency-check to see if they're still needed. Eliminate waste.

We're being asked to take on so many new functions as part of the changing role of the Information Professional - if we don't make sure we also lose anything non-essential, we'll eventually run out of steam...

Social media for organisations: getting the basics right

A quick post to let people know that Megan Roberts and I are running a one-day course for UKeIG, on social media for organisations. It's open to all but aimed mainly at information services - and it's all about using social media at an organisational level rather than a personal one. Anyone who's started a library twitter account or facebook account will have quickly come to realise that the needs for library accounts are very different to the needs for librarian accounts! The idea of the course is to equip you with the knowledge and confidence to be able to use social media successfully - we'll be exploring best practice, seeing how the leaders in our industry use the tools, and answering thorny questions about how to deal with tricky situations online. Pretty much every information service needs to be using social media in its marketing these days; it's not that intimidating when you know what you're doing, and it represents a fantastic opportunity to achieve a lot without spending a whole bunch of money...

Details, including a the booking form, are on UKeIG's website.

When and where

The course takes place in York, at the York St John University, on the 4th of  September, from 09:30 - 16:30.

What the course covers

We'll be talking about what social media is, how it works, and how the approaches involved differ from traditional forms of marketing. We'll cover why you should be using the tools available, how you can tell if it's working, where to start in terms of platforms, netiquette, identifying stuff to talk about online, and using tools to manage the burden. Specific platforms covered include Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Slideshare, LinkedIn, Flickr, and yes, Google+ and Pinterest!

There'll be plenty of hands-on experience of using the tools in question.

A potential follow-up workshop...

I'm running a separate workshop in December (also for UKeIG, at the same venue) which operates both a stand-alone session and a follow-up for attendees of the social media for organisations course.  It's called the Digital Marketing Toolkit, and it's all about using emerging technologies to market your service: full details are on the UKeIG site.

Hope to see you there!

- thewikiman