A few weeks ago, Mami and I had a Skype session with Richard and Victoria. As we were speaking I had all sorts of ideas, and I promised to document those before the next meeting. The next meeting is this afternoon, and so I had better note down what I've got before the next brainstorm hits! (I also have a few notes from back in NZ to write up under a post called 'NZ farewell').
Online tools
The main subject of the previous Skype session concerned the possible ways that various online tools could be made use of. These include Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, Youtube and Blogger, as well as Skype itself. I have used them all, but to varying degrees.
- Facebook is one of the top social networking services. It would be a great way for people who have taken part in a TP to remain in touch. Its counterpart in Japan is Mixi, with 80% of the market.
- Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service. It seems simpler than Facebook, but could have even greater potential. To properly get the most out of it would require some study. Rated most the most useful tool here. I use the free software Yoono to connect and share all social networks and instant messaging services in one place. I'm not sure about using the identical format when using both Twitter and Facebook. The 140-character limit on Twitter may make for rather fragmented reading.
- Blogger is a great online journal tool that I'd recommend for TP participants. Wordpress is also meant to be good.
- Delicious is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing and discovering web bookmarks. It is ideal for keeping track of the many resources that exist online to support TP. (The link is to the approximate 1000 sites that I've looked at over the years.)
- Youtube would indeed be great as a way of keeping track of and making available the many inspirational and motivating videos that exist. At the bottom of this post, for instance, there's a channel that I've created for a collection of some 'Amazing' videos
Below I've included links to a few websites which demonstrate some features that a TP website could incorporate
