TechWag

Remember when Digg was all the front page news before it looked like Google would have an on again off again purchase arrangement with them much like the Yahoo Microsoft deal? Remember Reddit, or whatever happened to Mixx, Jaiku, pownce, blogger, myspace, live spaces, and the host of other technologies that we all gushed over for a week and then went back on our merry way to doing what we are doing with other new shiny shiny stuff?

The question is “how many social networking sites do you really use”, because unless you had nothing to do but use a social web site, there are far too many of them out there for a normal rational human being (short of taking meth) to actually use.

While the space is cool, and whining about the near plain vanilla approach to social spaces, I think that realistically given time constraints, patience, and where your friends are is what systems you are going to end up using. Most of my friends use my Friend feed account rather than going to any one of the multiple sites I blog at or share photos at. It is much easier on them than going to the dozen or so sites I use on a daily basis. If you want ot know what I am up to (and there is no reason why you should), then friend feed would be about it.

The Digg, Reddit, Propeller, Jaiku, Mixx, and especially MySpace accounts exist but it has been ages since I used it. Zimbio, same, and the same across the other 50 or 60 social spaces that while they were interesting and have value, in trying to do some time management here, well had to go by the wayside because of how I want to use social spaces and social networking.

There is a realistic amount of time that someone can actually spend using a social space, and there has to be a perceived value to that social space to continue keeping people coming back and using the offering/service/product. So which ones do I still use, it makes an interesting mix of why I use them rather than the idea that I use them at all.

Facebook – mostly roped into this one, but use it because that is where all my friends are, I have some on MySpace, but my MySpace friends are all punk rockers and bands, while my Facebook friends are all my professional friends, big difference, and the reason to be more leveraged towards facebook than MySpace.

Linked In – with the number of layoff’s around Seattle lately, linked in has become the defacto place to stay in touch with ex-co-workers that you might have actually liked, or people you might want to contact someday.

Stumble Upon – just too dang easy to use, everyone digg, reddit, mixx, and everyone else should be looking at following in the same foot prints, although the best thing would be for some enterprising web 2.0 person to come up with a tool bar like stumble upon, but drops the article on all the top social networking sites. There you go, business idea, and no supporting financial model, excellent.

Friend Feed – this is where I am sending everyone who wants to keep tabs on me, from friends and family to co-workers to just about everyone else. This is where I am collecting everything on one nice handy page, and most everyone is very happy with how it has worked out.

Seattle Startup Group – while not a web 2.0 product, this listserv has been the most handy thing for keeping tabs on the great ideas, needs, wants, and desires of the Seattle Startup Community. And one I actually interact with on a semi-regular basis.

YouTube – occasionally make my own hacking videos and post them on YouTube for use on my blog over at IT Toolbox. Makes for an interesting day, and the comments back on YouTube are priceless chunks of anger, swearing, and general bad behavior, rarely go to YouTube other than to upload a video for use on another site.

At some point someone is going to say that I use Twitter, and yes, I have a twitter account that my blogs tie into, it is an announcing service like pingomatic, I don’t use twitter I have twitter because I use it when I blog, not really the same idea.

And that would be it, from all those shiny happy moments of discovery, it has all boiled down to 5 actually web 2.0 user powered web sites, and one old fashioned list serve because that is all I have time for. While it would be great to have more time, this is about it, so which ones do you keep up with, and how well do you keep up with them?

Tags: widget, web 2.0, use, facebook, myspace, youtube, which ones to use, shiny

Tags: web 2.0, technology, idea, Participation, business //