I’ve been having something of a tidy up both my computer and the internet this afternoon, and realised just how far the tentacles of my internet presence spread. It’s something of a shock.
“Life and Times” (www.pluggedout.com/lifeandtimes)
My personal blog, and the place I write most often. At times it has seen new posts every day - sometimes several times in a day - but at present probably only sees a few posts a week. It records the thoughts, opinions and stories of note of my day-to-day life. It has moved from my own blog script, over to blogger, to Yahoo 360, and back again over the course of several years. It is presently hosted on my own webspace and powered by the WordPress blog script.
“PluggedOut Blog” (www.pluggedout.com/blog)
Alongside the personal blog, I have a geek blog. It gets sporadically filled with “interesting stuff” I find on the internet - be that webpages, software, or news related to the internet, software or computer hardware. When I have time I actively go out and play with new websites in order to write posts, but during busier times (read:now) of my life it gets perhaps a post a week. It is hosted on my own webspace, and powered by the WordPress blog script.
“PluggedOut Development” (www.pluggedout.com/development)
I became aware that I posting solutions to technical problems didn’t really fit with either LifeAndTimes, or PluggedOut, so created a third blog this year - the “Development” blog. When I remember to post to it (and when I can - my work is often governed by non-disclosure agreements) I post solutions to programming problems, and neat developer - related things I have found. It is hosted on my own webspace, and powered by the WordPress blog script.
Vox (jonbeckett73.vox.com)
Vox is the social network created by SixApart - the same people behind “LiveJournal”. I had a very early membership there because I featured it early on in the PluggedOut Blog (and because I spend far too much time surfing the internet for new and interesting things). I very nearly ditched my own blog in favour of Vox purely because it made life very easy, and had lots of very cool features. The one downside to Vox is the same as MySpace - visitors have to be a member to comment. I now look in now and again, and sometimes cross-post from other blogs if I want maximum exposure for an article.
Tumblr (jonbeckett73.tumblr.com)
I first heard about Tumblr while listening to TWiT one day, and reviewed it for my geek blog. It’s a simple blogging solution, and has some very nice features. The only thing going against it is that there are no comments - buy if you want somewhere to act as a public scrap book, Tumblr is perfect. It “understands” photos, feeds, quotes, conversations, and many more things that you might want to paste into it.
Jaiku (jonbeckett73.jaiku.com)
I should perhaps have listed Jaiku far higher than this. It’s a micro-blogging website that integrates with your mobile phone - meaning you can send and receive posts (and your friends posts) in your mobile as SMS messages. You can also visit the website of course and post there. Think of it as instant blogging, a sentence per post. You can also link your feeds into it to publish them all as one RSS output stream.
Flickr (www.flickr.com/photos/jonbeckett73)
I’ve been using Flickr since before Yahoo aquired them. They are by far the best online photo sharing website (although saying that, I’ve not actively used Picasa) - end of story. I have a paid account with them, which lets me upload any and all photos I take, which then lets me share photos with friends and family very easily. I also get to browse my friends public photos, such as Lauren’s. Flickr rules.
del.icio.us (del.icio.us/jonbeckett73)
Delicious is a wonderful idea - and executed perfectly. All it does is keep bookmarks for you - and let you tag them. It gives you a bookmarklet for your browser so when you’re looking at a website you want to remember, you just click the delicious link - and bang, it’s remembered. The trick is that it’s online - so on any computer, anywhere, you can get to your bookmarks - and your friends can share them too.
The crazy thing about all this stuff is that there is more. I have joined, and healf-heartedly taken part in just about every major social network in existence. Livejournal, Yahoo 360, MySpace, Digg, Wallop… the list goes on. I must be deranged.
In recent times Facebook has become a firm favourite in the social networking scene. I don’t think it’s any accident that Amber MacArthur refers to it as “Crackbook”. You can see my public profile on Facebook here.
Software has appeared that makes posting to these various systems very much easier though - and the choice today for something to shout about is Flock (www.flock.com) - a web browser on steroids. Flock knows all about Flickr, WordPress, Blogger, YouTube, del.icio.us, and many more online services. It makes working with them easy. By far it’s best feature is the best Flickr uploader you can find anywhere - and the ability to drag Flickr photos into blog posts while you’re writing them (it has it’s own blog word processor too).
Which online communities are you a part of, or have you been a part of? What do you think about them?Tags: internetsocial networking juggling blogging