Who is going to pronounce this network dead?

[David Rothman]

Seriously. Has anyone else noticed that libraryfolk are pretty awesome at participating in online endeavors unless the endeavor is actually intended to be for libraryfolk? Activity on this network died off quickly as interest waned and Ning stagnated while Facebook kept developing features. LISzen Trends (http://liszen.com/trends/) didn't work either.

[Deborah Fitchett]

I'm not agreeing with you. Ning wasn't built for libraryfolk any more than Twitter or Friendfeed was; libraryfolk have just used them all to create library networks.

Personally I find Ning (like most forums) awkward to use and Friendfeed much easier to use, and maybe I'm not alone in that. But that's interface, it's nothing to do with who it was created for.

[David Rothman]

The purpose of Ning is to create subject-specific networks, Deborah. This is an LIS-specific tool in the same sense LISZen Trends is (even though it was made with an open-source package that can be purposed to any subject).

[Deborah Fitchett]

Ning says "Create your own social network" - nothing about 'subject-specific'. This particular group is library-specific, but so are the LSW and Librariology groups on Friendfeed, or various hashtags on Twitter.

Another difference between the Library 2.0 Ning group would be the signal-to-noise ratio: this group is high signal, Twitter and Friendfeed tend to be high noise. Noise of course isn't purposeless, as it puts the 'social' into social networking and supports group cohesiveness. When a discussion is running about food/chocolate/cats, you're more likely to keep checking in and so more likely to post about something on-topic. OTOH you have to put in more work to extract the useful stuff from among the chat.

Friendfeed also makes it easy to find and friend people who share your interests via friend-of-a-friend; with Ning you don't find the group unless you know about it or are specifically looking.

There are all sorts of reasons why the Ning group has less activity than Friendfeed etc. (And not all those reasons make it a bad thing!) Focusing on "subject-specific" to the exclusion of all else is not the best way to find out what's really going on.

[Bill Drew]

Well said. This is why I listen in many places.

[David Rothman]

Deborah, nobody suggested "Focusing on 'subject-specific' to the exclusion of all else." This is a straw man.

You know as well as I do that Ning exists for people to create their own networks around whatever theme they want, in the same sense that Pligg lets people create a digg-like application around whatever theme they want (like LISzen Trends).

Putting aside your straw men for a moment- how about addressing my actual point? Library-specific social apps seem to struggle to thrive while smaller communities thrive in bigger environments. Libraryfolk blog or tweet or use friendfeed, but don't seem to contribute to LIS wikis all that enthusiastically or use LISzen or this network. I'm wondering why this is.

Most of us could probably name 2-8 big names in the library world who are experts on libraries and social media. I cannot help but note that none of them seem to have noticed this conversation.

[Deborah Fitchett]

You keep talking about "library-specific" being the cause for this forum being quiet, and ignoring my alternative explanations; in what way is my rephrasing of this a straw-man?

Yes, Ning lets you create a network around any theme you want. Friendfeed also lets you create a network around whatever theme you want (using groups) and the library-specific groups there are doing just fine.

If I'm not addressing your point, it's only because I'm explaining why I think its premise is flawed. There is no evidence that being library-specific is the cause of certain groups 'struggling'. There's not even any evidence that this group is struggling. If the majority of the people who use it are happy with how it works, where's the problem?

(I've been in non-LIS groups that really were struggling, and the struggle was characterised by... well, struggling: lots of "How can we improve things?" conversations. Group death was characterised by nothing-but-spam. This thread aside, I don't see either of those here. It's quiet, but perfectly functional.)

[Bill Drew]

Frankly I don't care if the big names are here or not. That is a straw man argument. LISzen Trends is not a fair comparison to this group. LISzen Trends seemed designed to fail from the beginning, in my eyes.

[Linda Nelson]

Hi Bill,

I wanted to add a thought to this conversation. Just because there is not much outward, visible activity does not make a network "dead." I am here frequently, but not necessarily with anything to say. I suspect many librarians enjoy reading professional discussions and benefit from the good information on Library 2.0, as well as other networks. Please do not be discouraged Bill. This is a great idea and I, for one of many I am sure, enjoy this network. Happy spring!!! Linda

[Caryn Wesner-Early]

I read the e-mail feed I get from this, and sometimes come onto the site to make sure I haven't missed anything. But I don't want to add a "me, too" to discussions or carp on grammatical errors in other people's postings, so I don't generally end up posting. I'm glad this is here, and don't want it to go away!

Caryn

[Connie Crosby]

Great topic. I don't think it is specific of library folk; I notice the same pattern in all my Ning networks. People are keen to join up and join groups, but then reluctant to talk. I am in a lawyer marketing Ning group, for example; they have all added their names, introduced themselves, but that is far as the discussion has gone. Very little if any conversation. And I see this same pattern over and over again. There is not a lot reminding us to come back here, perhaps the way there is with Facebook. Yes, we can set it up to notify us about different things, but with a smaller network such as this we just get fewer and fewer notifications, and it just gets quieter and quieter. It doesn't mean we don't care, or don't want to be part of the group. What to do??

[Glyn Sinar]

I agree with you Connie, but I also think it may be a culture thing among libraryfolk. I am a library systems manager from a large English county and I worry that if I start entering conversations in networks like Ning I will have less time for 'conventional' talk - I need convincing that there are sufficient innovative and interest-grabbing topics to make it worth while. There are a huge lot of libraryfolk out there who haven't a clue what Library 2.0 is about and it's our role to hit them with it. So I know I need to come back to places like this for inspiration - but it's a collaborative thing so if everybody stays quiet nothing will happen and those folk will stay unawares.

[Bob Kosovsky]

If the network were dead, there would be no activity. But there has been a lot of activity in the past year - maybe less now than in April 2008, but that doesn't mean it's not "working."

I think a great majority of us don't like the speed at which Ning publishes posts (that seems not to be their primary aim) and so we read this Library 2.0 group and the subgroups through RSS feeds instead. Also, the group is really too large to have all attention focused on a single forum, so that's probably why Bill has fostered many groups (I see there are currently 77 - an enormous amount). Some groups are active, some not. Even if not, I still connect with many people from Library 2.0 on other networks and venues, so that is a value that can't be measured by simply observing numbers of posts.