I was going to pick LuLu as my tool for this activity. It is an online publishing house that (I think) is going to revolutionise the publishing industry. It allows ANY writer to self-publish and LuLu will only print the copies that you pay for (so if you only want to print 12 copies of your work, 12 copies get printed). It will also sell your books for you so, if it costs $5 to print a book, you can charge $10 through LuLu and make a profit. Nice huh?

I’ve chosen not to do LuLu though because I’ve known of it before. A friend of mine was looking for somewhere to publish a book that he made and I gave it to him then.

Instead I have chosen Care2, a ‘global network of organizations [sic] and people who Care2 make a difference’. My first comment is that the site is VERY full of information, a little too crowded in my opinion. In fact, finding out exactly what the site was was rather difficult. As near as I can gather, it’s a ‘profile’ site for people who ‘care’ (like MySpace or Facebook where you advertise yourself for friends instead of to find someone who wants to help you change things).

Good things: The interesting search ways. Instead of just ‘searching’ for something you click on a term which brings up more terms for you to click on. After a while you receive a list of members. http://www.care2.com/c2c/people/tag/books/Gone+with+the+Wind <--that is a link to all people who like the book Gone with the Wind. I clicked on 'find people', then chose 'interested in books' and then 'Gone with the Wind'. The site itself is very similar to any other profile site (ie MySpace) but you can give other users butterflies for being a Care2 member (ie you earn them for being good). Finding petitions to sign is also very easy. You can create your own (ie Landrights for gay sperm whales), advertise it and have people ‘sign’ it online. Most of the petitions seem to be American based (about the US president or US politicians). Bad things: Crowded, crowded, crowded! VERY American based. I don’t know if that’s a cultural thing, but it’s a tad daunting. To do anything you need to sign in (I hate that kind of stuff, but that’s a personal thing).

#19 Discovering Web 2.0 tools

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