The social problem

I have a confession to make - I’m addicted to social networks. OK not quite addicted to the networks themselves, well not all of them - but the actual process of signing up for a new network.

I’m registered on most (usually as upyourego) but only regularly login to very few, so, inspired by DoctorVee and Glen Wolsey, I’ve decided to list the ones I use the most.

Flickr

The one I use most, and has the most practical use for me is Flickr, in fact I even paid for a pro membership to the photo sharing service.

I have all my photos from the last couple of years on there, from photos taken for work at gigs or of news events to family snaps and screenshots of projects I’m working on.

It’s also a great way of putting photos on a blog without having to piss about with FTP - although I want a way of uploading a photo to flickr from my Wordpress interface - any ideas?

> Flickr

Twitter/Jaiku

I’m lumping these two together as they serve a similar purpose and I use them both about the same amount.

The difference is I use Twitter to fill the box on the top right of upyourego.com and I use Jaiku as a sort of mini blog - a way to brain dump without writing a full post.

I prefer Jaiku of the two because I like the threading, the ability to pull in content from elsewhere and the ability to comment publicly on someone elses Jaiku posting.

> Twitter | Jaiku

MyBlogLog

As well as being a brilliant way of publicising your own blog, driving traffic to your site and seeing who has been visiting your page - it’s also an amazing way for an RSS-o-phobe like myself to catch up on blogs.

I don’t like RSS readers, I prefer to read a blog posting in the context of a website and not in a little app or horribly slow web based feed reader - so MyBlogLog gives me a list of bloggers who I’m ‘friends’ with and read what they have to say - easily.

It’s also a great way of finding new blogs I might not have read otherwise which is always great fun.

> MyBlogLog

My Space/Facebook

I blogged about why I use My Space the other day - it’s basically the only way of finding out what bands, musicians, artists etc in Jersey are up to - something I need to know for my job.

However, due to the system constantly falling over, becoming sick of horrible background music and a crap interface I’m slowly moving to other services - Facebook included.

The problem with Facebook is that it doesn’t seem to be able to handle the ‘music stuff’ as well as My Space can.

> My Space | Facebook

Digg

I’m not a Digg nut, I won’t stand there defending it against all and any critisism but I am a fan.

I’ve found many a great story through the social news service in the past and in fact still do today. It’s a great source of inspiration for blog posts

> Digg

Tumblr

Not technically a social network but a great web2.0 style service - it allows me to pull all my blog posts, flickr photos, you tube videos, jaikus and tweets together in one place as well as write the odd one off quote, comment are piece.

> How to be a Geek

Technorati

Becoming more of a social network with time, Technorati is the blogger best friend - it’s the place to find out who likes you, who links to you and who else is a bit similar to you.

It lets you get the word of your blog out to the world - well at least other bloggers - and has some cool little toys to put on your blog and let people know you like them, they like you and how to find you.

It’s also THE accepted way of ranking blogs - my current ranking on this blog is 23, 20 on another blog and 6 on my Tumblog - but they all count seperatly so I really only have a ranking of 23 - so get linking to me please

> Technorati

That’s all folks

And that’s about it to be honest - yes I am signed up to last.fm, del.icio.us, newsvine, You Tube, 43 Things, Yahoo et al but I just don’t use them very often.

The ones I’ve listed I use pretty much every day - in fact they are all listed, along with my blogs admin panels in a bookmark folder on my computer called admin.

I use the wheel on my mouse, click the folder when I get in and then go through them all every morning - in fact about three times a day.

Something Else

You can find more Web2.0 sites on the go2web20.net website - a very cool 2.0 directory that has a reeally pretty interface.

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