OLJ Task 5: Social news sites

Published on Author equinn1989Leave a comment

I had not used any of these Social News Sites previously. I started by setting up an account for reddit and Digg. This was an easy process for both sites. During the process of setting up an account, reddit prompted for a selection of groups available to join. These groups were ordered according to popularity and interest. It is a quick process to join groups which are relevant to me in both a personal and professional sense. Reddit allows the user to refine the types of news shown to them through this personalising of news through interest groups. There seems to be a large popularity for those topics that are focussed on entertainment and therefore have more limited groups for professionals, in saying that I found some library and librarian groups. The ability to collate information relevant to particular professions is very useful when developing a professional knowledge base. My first “email” from them on my page had an explanation of how to use reddit effectively, which helped me initially to search for more areas/groups of interest. I am obviously new and exploring the site. Hopefully with consistent use I will be able to find more and more relevant news and features.

 

Digg was an easy process to log into as I was able to link my Google Gmail through it. Digg provides a front page with the most trending news articles; it also provides topics as available options for selection and a search bar for another form of refining. I was able to find relevant articles that I could use in a professional sense through searching on the site. It linked me to pages outside of the direct Digg website. This is not as intuitive as reddit and I found it a bit clunky to use. Its focus on the US made it difficult to locate the articles of interest to me.

 

I also had a quick look at Hacker, which ranked articles by the number of points it had received. Again, the articles linked to outside websites where discussions could take place through comments. All these “new” websites for me are interesting, though I will always choose the more intuitive source to save time and remain focussed.

 

Edit: I have continued looking at Reddit as prompts appear and have had the pleasure of reading some articles currated by a health library in regards to the COVID19 spread and impacts in other countries. It was interesting to see how other parts of the world are researching the spread in the context of their own environments.

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