twitter me this, del.icio.us me that, washwords is … confused
In The Declining Value Of Redundant News Content On The Web – Publishing 2.0 Scott Karp examines the media Oversatura-plosion-ama that is the Interweb.
Microsoft withdrawing its offer to buy Yahoo is a sufficiently large story to demonstrate the problem of redundant news content on the web. Google News is currently tracking about 2,000 versions of this story. To get a better sense of why it’s a problem to have 2,000 stories about the SAME THING, I’ve reproduced about ten percent of them below — just the headlines and ledes. If you have the stomach to scroll through them all to see what else I have to say about it, check out the sources as you scroll:
This scroll (go check it out; we’ll wait) went on and on … and … It didn’t even count the blogs that repeated the same story or the multiple versions of each one, or editions or…
Conserve paper? Conserve time! and brain cells!
I find I’m facing a similar conundrum with “social media tools.” For someone (me) who once considered going to library school, and has been a lifelong researcher/journalist and social scientist (especially the social part) at heart, seeing the tools out there is like falling in love. They’re so shiny! They’re so fabulous! Each thing does something cooler than the last gizmo, something cooler, something I NEED RIGHT NOW.
But the trouble is… there are literally not enough hours in the day to use all these whiz-bangs, let alone use them well, use them like they should be. So I wind up playing each new toy just like when I FINALLY got the snoopy snowcone machine: cool! WOW! ZOWIE!! Better than my dreams!!!! and then… what’s on TV?
So here’s my query, no, my solemn PLEA to my readers (all two of you as my pal
Soup Is Not A Finger Food likes to say), which of these them there whozie-whatsitz do you use to enrich your life and how/why/in what detailed ways is it better than all the other thing-bobs. Be specific! If I had to pick three, which ones? What if I could only use one? And which ones (dear God, no) don’t I already know about?
Thanks!
Oh, here’s the list of what I know about already (yes, I know they’re not all the same thing, still tell me what they DO. I forget sometimes):
- facebook (i know of myspace, but that’s too busy/pop-uppy for me
- linkedin (i try to keep this one BUSINESS Washwords (it comes with a pink plastic briefcase and cell phone. no, mom, not really)
- digg
- del.icio.us
- soup.io
- technorati
- bloglines
- alltop (or other aggregator)
- popurl
- Google (or other) reader: is it me or is this not nearly as smooth as you’d think it would be
- scribefire (using right now)
- blog catalog (or blogher or …)
- IM (i have yahoo, gmail, msn-though-yuck, and now adium which combines them all)
- jott
- jangl (hmmm, waz that?)
- I do SMS, texting and can do this pretty darn well from my phone. I even after a practically month-long “internship” with some very nice boys on a message board (no, not THAT kind of web site) learned how to download music and contacts to my phone. once. now…
- I have widgets and google gadgets and home pages but the trouble is … I have one on google and yahoo and …
- Does anyone email anymore? Email newsletters?
Please help. Otherwise I’m going to have to go play in the box these things came in. and I guess that’s… the interweb itself. sigh.
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Great topic!! For video, YouTube is the obvious standard bearer but for social networking it’s freakin’ overwhelming!
I email, google, technorati, blogger, and I still feel like I am way out of the loop.
lacochran
May 8, 2008
thanks! me to, lacochran and i see you posting and mentioned on the elusive dc blogs noted (but i’m not bitter) a LOT so I think if I’m keeping pace at ALL with you, I’m doing a-ok. I wish there could be ONE thing that you’d know was IT. sigh. and right! i forgot flickr and youtube. eek.
washwords
May 8, 2008
Heh. I did get my Masters in Library Science but only worked in that field for ~6 years before switching careers. It wasn’t horrible, but with my educated clientele I was mostly confirming “no, I don’t see that book on the shelf either…”
The three of these I use the most are Bloglines (for reading blog content, natch), Twitter (I was slow to warm up to this but now love it), and del.icio.us (I use it for keeping track of great web content that I want to return to).
I had a Facebook account for a bit but used it with my blog persona and gave it up after the brouhaha about breastfeeding pics. Use Technorati occasionally for blog content searches (also Icerocket.) Used Google Reader during a brief period of disenchantedness (word?) with Bloglines, but recently went back. Don’t like IM.
I also use Google Calendar, Flickr, and a couple of those sites where you can build lists (Kaboodle, Stylehive).
Nancy
May 8, 2008
[...] Home at TomorrowPictures.tv wrote an interesting post today on twitter me this, del.icio.us me that, washwords is … confusedHere’s a quick excerpt…twitter … facebook (i know of myspace, but that’s too busy/pop-uppy for me … linkedin (i try to keep this one BUSINESS Washwords (it comes… [...]
more spamaliciousness
May 8, 2008
GAH I am with you Miss Washwords! I just feel old when we talk about these things that the kids are using nowadays. Why, in my day, I typed papers in college for a buck a page! On a TYPEWRITER! And I LIKED IT!
where was I? Ah yes, the New Millenium, not the 80’s. Someone, please tell me what Digg and Delicious and Technorati are. Twitter is growing on me, Facebook I’m kind of over, never did Myspace. I love IM and wish I had more friends on it. In fact, I wish more of my friends & fam were techno enough to know what a blog is and to read mine (and yours) and to know to subscribe to the reader and… when my mom reads mine she emails me comments instead of leaving them in the comment form.
I think only 2/3 of your list rang a bell with me. We *must* get together to confer and plot and scheme. Immediately if not sooner.
Meg
May 8, 2008
I prefer the Google homepage over the Google reader, but I use both. Homepage for fun stuff and reader for work-related stuff I’m trying to track.
One site that’s kind of like digg but with a female bent is kirtsy. It used to be sk-rt, but they revamped some time ago. How long ago? I have no idea because I only occasionally checked out sk-rt, even though I liked it. I found out about kirtsy when I went to respond to this post and wanted to make sure I was remembering the site name correctly.
Lara
May 12, 2008
Sk*rt just became Kirsty, like, this week. Or today. Or something. I think.
I used to have MySpace and Facebook but I’ve ditched them both — too time consuming, plus I got a little freaked out by all the applications.
I can’t live without my Google Homepage (www.iGoogle.com). I subscribe to all my blogs through Google Reader, which shows up on my home page. I use Twitter mostly to promote my blog, even though some people don’t like that — I do, dammit. Anyway, Twitter shows up on my home page, too. So do Google alerts so I know when I’m linked or talked about, and so does Gchat (I have a Gmail email account, too.) Everything is on my home page.
I’m registered on Technorati, but I don’t “use” it. Same with a lot of other sites like Bloglines and Flickr.
I’m listed on Alltop.
I use Linkedin professionally only – no link to my blog on there.
I’ve never used jangl, jott, scribefire, popurl, soup.io, del.icio.us, or gadgets.
Geeez, there’s a lot out there. A LOT.
maggie, dammit
May 12, 2008