More than just another cute neologism, Amazon's newly released plogs (which stands for personalized web log, as if we needed a new word for personally aggregated content...) is an interesting marketing and promotional tool. In a nutshell, an Amazon customer who has turned on the service sees weblog entries from authors of books that customer has purchased. Messages you've read disappear (you can recall them at the author's Amazon blog). And each entry in your plog has a permalink so you can share it with your friends (and potential Amazon customers).

I suspect a clever programmer could use existing RSS feeds from authors' blogs (for those authors who have blogs on the public Internet) and add recent entries to an author display from the catalog. Probably only best sellers and authors with good marketing teams behind them have their own blogs, but it could be an interesting start.

Perhaps I've been asleep at the switch, but I just noticed an interesting use of two of my favorite social software tools over at The Washington Post. They include a Technorati and del.icio.us gadgets alongside articles.

So, for example, if you're blogging about the Post's article on Shani Davis' decision to withdraw from the 10,000-meter race at the Olympics, there's a Technorati "who blogged this" box in which your blog will appear. And if you want to save and tag the article into del.icio.us, there's a link built in to the article for just that.

It's refreshing to see a newspaper -- like most publishers, primarily concerned with bringing eyeballs to its pages -- trying new technologies that might actually increase the linkability of their articles. By making it simple to add their content to at least several major social software tools, the Post's editors are making it easier for people to find the relevant news on their web site.

I'm not sure what the connection is to libraries, exactly, but thought I'd share anyway.

Update: Now that Technorati has worked its magic, I realize that the real draw for adding a "who blogs this" sidebar: it's a great ego feeder for bloggers! There my humble little blog is, listed in the sidebar of a Washington Post article. Guess which newspaper I'm going to be trolling for ideas?

Over at the Alternative Teen Services blog is an informative summary of public libraries using various "library 2.0" tools to attract and communicate with teen audiences. Also listed links to libraries using pod- and vod-casts.

If your library's audience includes this younger set (and even for university libraries whose students are a bit older) -- take note. These technologies are the way your next generation of library users (i.e., people paying, one way or another, for the library) is familiar with communicating.