Method 3

Share your impressions and thoughts regarding online productivity tools and cloud computing by posting to your blog. Some jumping off points for your blog post might be: How do you feel about these tools and concepts? Do you see great benefits for use in libraries? Overall, would you say that you are more excited or more cautious/skeptical about cloud computing?

I like the idea of being able to always have access to your music, pictures, documents, and other creations at any time or any computer. The ease of access is amazing. You no longer have to be stuck to one computer to access any of your work or music you like. For libraries, cloud computing could be useful. Patrons can have access to their music without having to carry CDs with them, and patrons can also save their work online at Googledocs, instead of having to worry about having something like a flash drive or CD to save them on. I do not, however, like the idea that a company, such as Google, could be keeping such a close eye on the type of music you like, the kind of work you are doing, or what sort of things you are doing while online. I am not a big fan of someone offering a tool for free that makes its money by selling ad space or a user's private information. I agree that a lot of people may not be sure that companies are keeping tabs on the things we are doing while online. I know that people do not like the idea that they can be tracked with the GPS in their phones. How happy would they be to know how much Google learns about them from what they choose to do online? I think I am really on the fence about this idea.