Social Networking: Only the Essentials

I just recently got into this whole social networking thing, and to be honest, I have been missing out! When I say recently, I mean like within the last month or so. I always had my Flickr Account, and I used Digg as my source for news, but the popular sites like Mysapce, Facebook, and others, I never got in to.

One day while surfing on Digg I found an article comparing Pownce, Twitter, and Jaiku. I had heard of twitter before, but was never interested in signing up (that’s a whole article in itself!). Pownce was the “new” thing, and that Kevin guy had a hand in it, so I figured I would try it out. I saw all of these polls going up comparing the 3 mentioned networks, so I decided to sign up for all three.

On twitter, most of the notes on the main page were in several different languages, and I was lost. To a fresh set of eyes, that entire setup looks crazy, and random comments like “I’m taking off my boots” were coming in every 1/2 second. I had to get out of there. Plus somehow, Dell was one of my friends. Of all people.

Jaiku is a little better looking and easy to get started on. Though it took me a while to actually reply back to people (the first day I replied to myself several times) it was kind of easy to track old messages. I got the hang of it and was finally ready to walk outside to the public. “lol” is the only thing that describes my initial reaction. Nearly every reply was RSS to individual blogs and advertisements or something! I gave it a chance though. I went through looking for people that I possibly shared interest with, plus I browsed a few randoms that seemed active. Though there were signs that actual people used the accounts, most of the posts were feeds. NEXT.

Then I tried pownce. Pownce was the baby of the three, and there weren’t many people there yet. Some of the people there were just “there” and never really contributed so it was kind of hard at first to identify who actually talked. As that’s the point. There, it’s a lot tougher to find people who are interested in the same things you are, I wasn’t willing to read 1000’s of short paragraphs so I just added people that had posted at least 1 note at the time. Things started rolling and people started posting stuff. I found that on pownce, though there are some “boots” posts, it’s easier to discuss things and people linked to quality articles AND discussed them. People started quality topics, and with ample room for text replies, some of the discussions were broad. On pownce I have talked about anything from movies, books, politics, big books, and even stuff that I was never really interested in. When people post links to videos or blogs, they aren’t shoved in your face like a robot submitted it. I have clicked nearly every link submitted via pownce because I know someone took the time to check it out, and then share it with me. Not a one button click to “Tag” or RSS.

So naturally I chose pownce to add to my social networking needs. The essential tools I use daily to stay connected with the planet are: Pownce, digg, Stumble and Flickr.

Topped off with frequenting a few blogs written by friends, those 4 pretty much cover all of the bases for me.

How about you?

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 26th, 2007 at 7:56 am and is filed under Social Networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in Social Networking

17 Responses to “Social Networking: Only the Essentials”

Azh July 26th, 2007 at 8:29 am

My story is similar to yours. I haven’t really had much time for all this social networking thing, I’m notoriously terrible at keeping my blog up to date and up until recently had a tendency to delete it regularly (I’m happy with it now, so it’s less likely to happen!) and Jackie was responsbile for sending me links to social networking sites randomly. She sent me to Twitter, which I tried to use but it just irritated me at times (although I did like the way you could use googletalk to post messages) then she sent me a link to Pownce, which at first I figured would be much the same as Twitter. But I’ve found that 90% of the posts made on Pownce aren’t full of inane rubbish and spam - although there are a few messages that I wonder about! - and there’s no obscene rush for everyone to get as many people on their list as possible, which is something that puts me off most social networking sites *coff* myspace *coff* I’ve found some interesting links via pownce and some people who, for once, I actually go out of my way to read their blogs and own sites

Peety July 26th, 2007 at 9:02 am

Wow- I like the changes the website..
(you learn quickly) You make me proud..

These are the main Social Networks I use: Del.icio.us, Digg, Sumbleupon, Twitter(post my blog post there), Pownce (where I met you)..

Wishing you and your family a wonderful day…

ob81 July 26th, 2007 at 9:17 am

@AZH: Yeah I was never interested in stuff like myspace, but pownce makes it easy to get into the whole social networking scence. I don’t have much time to fully enjoy most of the popular sites,so I just had to narrow it down.

@Peety: I try! For some reason I just can’t get into Del.icio.us. Seems kind of pointless to have 2000 bookmarks.

Peety July 26th, 2007 at 11:15 am

MMMM del.icio.us is useful in many ways..

Here are just a few mac programs that del.icio.us can work with your mac.

Of course, this is just my silly opinion…….

ob81 July 26th, 2007 at 11:42 am

Well, the delicious to Safari could actually be beneficial. My main thing with delicious is that it is impossible to keep up with bookmarks over time if you are bookmarking something every day.
delicious2safari puts them into folders though.

Michael Wales July 26th, 2007 at 12:48 pm

I think the best way to look at del.icio.us is as your own personal Google - for sites you have been to and liked.

No, they’re not seperated out into folders because that would be absolutely hellish to navigate and use.

Instead, you think to yourself “Man, I wish I could find that tutorial I was reading 6 months on Ruby on Rails.”

A search on Google might turn it up - if it was one of the popular domains and a highly popular article, but what if it was more obscure?

A search on del.icio.us, after you bookmarked it, is much more successful. It only lists the sites you bookmarked for “ruby on rails,” your more likely to remember the titles of the pages you liked and find that article again easily, and there is no chaff to weed through.

ob81 July 26th, 2007 at 2:22 pm

In the way that you explained it Michael, it makes sense! I have been checking into it and it actually makes sense considering most of my surfing is done at work…

Loren July 26th, 2007 at 3:56 pm

After using Pownce, I’ll never go back to Twitter or Jaiku.

ob81 July 26th, 2007 at 6:17 pm

Good man Loren. Jaiku has the potential to be decent though, but its like an RSS farm!

phogasm July 30th, 2007 at 2:59 pm

The most useful social networking sites for me have been digg, reddit, flickr, linkedin, and del.li.cio.us, I am just getting into pownce, it seems pretty cool, only I don’t like about it is that you can’t post via text message like Twitter.

ob81 July 30th, 2007 at 3:54 pm

Sup Joey! Ah man, everyone says that text message stuff. One day soon probably though. I have to say Linkedin seems pretty decent. Its on a 2 week trail at the moment.

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