Friday, March 21, 2008

Meebo, Youbo, Weboo?

Meebo is an interesting option for the library's website. I love the widget that can sit on the website inviting use and that patrons can grab it and put it on another site (although this might bring messages from people who don't know that they are "asking a librarian"). My limited experimentation with meebo at other libraries was not encouraging since I found them offline or just plain unresponsive -- if we do this, we must have a person there to answer immediately if only with a "I'll be with you in a moment" or have it set to offline any time we are away. Offline is discouraging, of course, but there is a way to leave a message -- how do does the patron get the answer? Got me.

I didn't see any library meebo windows with anything happening and I'm still not clear whether the chats would be available to anyone who was looking at the site from another computer at the same time. Privacy seems a big issue even is private chatting is possible.

Is there any way to have canned responses at the ready with Meebo? Hmmm. Cut down on typos.

I use Google chat in my everyday life since most people I would chat with have gmail and my account sits open all day. The fact that messages are converted to email if the other person is not signed in is a handy feature. I won't be switching to meebo unless friends do it first and I'm dragged along.

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