The social networking tools I use
In my column that ran Wednesday in the Mercury News, I discussed my growing fatigue with trying to keep up with all the social networking services and tools. I mentioned a few that I’ve tried, and a couple I use. But I thought I’d post a more extensive list here:
1. Facebook: Of course. I use it far less than I used to last summer when I first joined. But I do still use it.
2. Twitter: Still obsessive. Still think everyone should be on it. I use Twhirl to follow folks.
3. FriendFeed: I’ve created a page for this on my blog. I’m still mixed, though. Folks like Robert Scoble have become huge fans of the service. I’m still not as sure, but I do like it enough to keep using it.
4. Brightkite: I use this location-based networking service quite a bit, to my surprise. On the other hand, I’m not sure that it’s helped me in any practical sense. Except I did recently discover that another journalist I knew lived down the street from me after he saw me check in at home on Brightkite.
5. LinkedIn: I signed up for this what seems like ages ago. I forgot about it, but I have now rediscovered it in the past few months. In many ways, I find it more useful and practical for building my network than Facebook, especially for business related contacts. There’s more connecting and less trivia than Facebook.
6. Seesmic: I’ve signed up for the beta of this video commenting service. I’m following some folks, but haven’t gotten around to posting videos of myself yet, in part because I’ve been too lazy to get out and buy a webcam. Yes, that makes me lame.
7. Ning: I’m a big, big, big fan of Ning. First off, I manage a Ning site for a project that I run outside of the Mercury News called The Next Newsroom Project. It’s funded by the Knight Foundation. I originally had someone build us a site using Drupal, and it was a disaster. I switched to Ning last December and my life has been much better ever since. And the Ning folks even did a nice write-up on my site here.
8. Plurk: Tried it. But not sure I’m going back.
9. Pownce: This was one I’ve never tried, and never really seen a reason to try. Can someone convince me otherwise?
10. last.fm and Pandora: I’ve just signed up for both recently and don’t have too much to say yet. But I’m a huge music fan and I’m always looking for new music to discover. So I’ll see if these help me do that.
11. del.icio.us: Though Yahoo is long overdue to release an updated version, I still love this social bookmarking too.
Subscribe via RSS all feeds
Chris - I don’t know if you have tried our service (prowebsurfer.com). We built a Facebook service that allows you to replace browser ads with your Facebook Friends. Its great to see your friends on the ad banner of the New York Times.
Most Facebook applications happen within Facebook. Our service allows you to take your Facebook friends with you.
You can find our application (”ProWebSurfer”) in Facebook or look at our site. Happy to talk more. The ProWebSurfer team.
I have to say I kind of agree with some of your points - sites pop up everyday, which one to choose, which to ditch.. etc. However, as a member of 9 of your 11 examples, I find different features for each one keeps my attention- keeps me a member. Certain sites, I may maintain a profile, but rarely use (Facebook is primary, MySpace is secondary for example.) As for your Twitter-obsession (I’m an early adopter myself– I feel your pain) I personally have given up trying to watch live-tweets and merely bounce around from contact to contact seeing if there is anyone I want to follow - mostly are bloggers I read or Flickr contacts. You can’t do it all - test a site and move on if there’s nothing to keep you there.