Directions are very handy when you are traveling to a new city.  HopStop fills a special niche for those of us traveling without a car.  Their directions are for subway, busses or walking.  The site covers New York, Long Island, New Jersey, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington DC and London. 

You enter your starting and ending addresses and tell the site how you would like to travel.  You can limit it to both bus and subway, or just one mode of transportation, including walking only.  You will need to give your departure time if using bus or subway.  The site will also give you a taxi cost/time as an option.

Full confession, there is no way in the world that I could be considered a crafter.  None.

But this site intrigued even me.  It is an online gallery where anyone can upload images of their art, crafts and photography.  The images are large and offer great inspiration for other crafters to draw from.  When you click on any image, it leads you to a webpage.  Some sell the item in the image, others offer crafting information, so you get a variety of websites attached.

Now, I am a much better cook than a crafter!  So I get very inspired here.  Again, they have large images that will lead you to recipes, blog posts, conversations, and much more. 

Both sites are perfect for explaining social networking to novices.  Both subjects are inviting and tangible, making the social piece more approachable.  I’d use either of them in a Web 2.0 course.

It can be dangerous when two of your favorite social networking services are mashed together!  StumbleTweets is a very frightening union for me and my free time!  StumbleUpon is a hugely addictive service that lets you ramble through websites recommended by others.  Now StumbleTweets enters with that same random rambling feel but this time focused on Twitter links. 

You can download the Firefox toolbar, or visit the website to start.  The toolbar has the nice feature of a RT (retweet) button and a TwitThis! option. 

Kiss some time goodbye if you start playing with this.

Wordage is a neat little online tool for those of us who adore words.  You can subscribe via Twitter and get a word of the day complete with definition.  What I appreciate most though is their neat approach to words when you enter one on the search bar.  Enter a word, and you will get not only a definition, but synonyms and related words.  If I click on a synonym, it takes me to that page.  But if I click a related word, I start to create a page of related terms that doesn’t have me losing the one I started with.  It’s a linked collection of related words, moving one to the other.  Very nice.

Loving the updated FriendFeed friend finder (whew!  Say that 5 times fast!)  The page has not only recommended friends who are popular with the people you already follow, but also a dead easy interface to find others who you are already connected with on different services. 

Click on Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Yahoo! or Hotmail and you can see which of the friends you have on those services are also on FriendFeed.  I found over 100 more people to follow on FriendFeed within a minute.

Just like with any social networking site, it is all about who you friend or follow.  The network is the key and mine just got a whole lot better!

One of the blogs I make sure to read every day is Seth Godin’s.  He writes about marketing but much more.  He writes about connections, creativity, innovation, change and courage. 

Now TED has his talk about Tribes up on their site.  It is great to hear him rather than read him.  Librarians everywhere need to start listening to people like Seth Godin.  He and others like him are sources of inspiration but also impetus to create change. 

I especially enjoyed the three questions he said everyone should ask themselves.

1. Who are you upsetting?

2. Who are you connecting?

3. Who are you leading?

Seth also speaks about the defining qualities of leaders:

They challenge the status quo.

They build a culture with a secret language.

They have curiosity.

They connect people.

They have charisma (which comes from being a leader).

They commit to the cause.

In other words, we can all be leaders.  All of us.  As long as we are willing to tick people off, form connections, show curiosity, and be committed to the cause.  Heck, that sounds a lot like most of the librarians I know!

I’ve been trying out some new Twitter desktop clients in the last few weeks.  I have used 4 of them so far.

Twhirl was the first client I tried.  It offers a nice dual interface with separate windows for Twitter and FriendFeed.  Very clean and simple interface which is nice.  Recommended for people who will use the FriendFeed interface.

Tweetdeck is the client I have used for the longest time.  It offers the ability to set up groups of people, so you can read the tweets you receive in different categories.  This is really nice if you are like me and follow distinct groups of people.  It also just added a Facebook functionality where you can update your Facebook status from TweetDeck and also check out the updates of your friends on Facebook.  It has a wide range of tools and I love the ability to follow someone from right inside the client.  Recommended for people who follow lots of people and Facebook users.

Statuzer is the third client I tried.  It has a very powerful filter piece that the others are missing.  It will let you view groups or tweets that match your filter settings.  It also lets me switch between two Twitter accounts, meaning I can tweet as my library or as myself without having to log in differently.  Recommended as a simple interface for people with more than one Twitter account.

Seesmic is the final client I’ve tried and the one I am using now.  It too has the dual account setup so that I can tweet in different accounts with one client.  I like the slickness of its design combined with the nice labeling that doesn’t force me to figure out what a tiny picture means.  It also has a fresher feel to me, perhaps it’s the lack of gray and black.  I can create groups of users, do searches which are saved, and easily scroll to my replies and private messages.  Recommended for people with more than one Twitter account who are looking for a sleek interface.

Really all of these are great clients.  It just depends on what bells and whistles are important to you.  It’s also a very personal choice.  What feels fresh to me may be dated to you.  I love that there are so many different choices out there with so many of the same features that are now standard.  I can’t wait to see what they come up with next and try that out too!