Claudia experience, share & review

It was a night where the who’s who in the local social media community gathered for the first #nlbmeetup held at library@esplanade. If you’ve missed this one, don’t worry, cause they promised to have more coming your way soon!

Photo from Kevin

A meetup at the library? Isn’t that boring? On the contrary it’s quite an experience. Not all the time you get to cheer, clap and laugh out loud inside a library right?

Two main highlight took place that night. First the launch of myLibrary, a Facebook app by the Public Libraries Singapore. More about this app another day (after I try it myself!). If you are curious, click on over to http://apps.facebook.com/nlbmylibrary to find out more. This nifty app allows you to check your account, renew your library loans and also able to search and browse library resources. No more excuses for not reading enough cause you’re too busy replying to messages on your Facebook wall!

The other highlight was sharing by N. Sivasothi, otherwise known as @sivasothi on Twitter. He shared his experiences with social media, mainly on how he integrates blogging into his teaching at NUS.

There were a few points shared that hit me. One of which is how shallow many of us, including myself, have been using loosely the term blogging. We rant about our daily lives, load a whole lot of random photos that don’t mean a thing to the readers or blog nothing but advertorials! *coughs*

On the other side of the blogging world (puts on my serious tone), there are research papers compiled with the help of posts from years ago, or evidences of the change in this world that’s being collected from content created by you and me. Blogging has been used by professionals to share their knowledge and experiences. And there are serious topics out there that are being thought and discussed online through the use of blogging platforms.

So the next time when someone say he/she is a blogger, ask which topic he/she blogs about. Being a blogger may just mean that the person is a passionate writer who writes about serious topics such as scientific knowledge, theories and other educational posts. Perhaps the next time before you start a blog, ask yourself, how is this blog going to help make it relevant and useful for the others on the net. How the type of content you post going to help shape the way search engines crawls on it. And how these posts will get referred to or shared through the other social networks. To blog means to write. There are different types of blogs and blog engines out there. Some use it to curate content, some to create new content and some to just record one own’s life. Either way, as long as you’re posting with passion, one way or another, your blog content will be found, read and referred to. It takes minutes or hours to craft a post, but it may take up to a year before someone needs information chance upon it.

Blogging can be a serious hobby (or even a career) when one loves to write and is passionate about the topic discussed.

Ending off with a random video. And I think my thoughts in this post is also somehow random too! Anyway, I flipped that night. And was caught in the act by Kevin. Hence the lack of photos!