As usual, I was messing around with a new WordPress plugin from Sphere (you can see the new link at the bottom of each post) and I decided to test it on my Twitter post. It did what it was designed to do and found a bunch of Twitter-related blog links, which, on a lark, I decided to open. What I found amazing was the variety of reactions that Twitter seems to be getting from different people.

Little did I realize that more and more people would use Twitter in ways that actually ignores the question “What are you doing?”

– Aaron Landry: Twitter’s Deception

After starting to use twitter (a micro-blogging site that allows people to write small messages via phone, web and a number of applications), I am suddenly in the same situation where I am missing a prime social opportunity. Now that I a less awkward, more worldly (almost), it struck me how antisocial this all was.

– Jenn: Social Media Sites are the new antisocial

Folks, you’re already Twittering and you don’t even know it! You’re just using the wrong tool do to it. Pick the red pill.

– Tim Barrett: Why People Don’t Get Twitter

[Jeff] Pulver excitedly brought me over to meet an amazing guy named David Troy, who it turned out has 11,600 followers on Twitter. (That means they subscribe to and read the 140-character-or-less Twitter texts he sends out when he feels like it – some call it micro-blogging.)

– David Kirkpatrick: Geography, social media and breakfast

When you are clicking around looking at different web sites, you are bound to visit one that you want to return to later.  What do you do in that case?  Simple, your web browser has a handy bookmark feature that allows you to save a link to the current site URL (otherwise known as a web address).  Once you have a few bookmarks, you can organize them, get rid of the ones you don’t want any more, or even e-mail them to friends.  However, web browser bookmarks are quirky — your web browser loves them, but if you want to edit already saved bookmarks, use a different web browser or even a different computer, bookmarks quickly become a pain.

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I recently wrote a review of Twitter, so I wanted to share a related video with you, from Gary Vaynerchuck, founder of Wine Library. In this video he is speaking about Twitter vs Facebook from his personal video blog. I really think he’s really on to something here.

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It has generated a lot of buzz in the past year, but for many, what Twitter does is still a mystery.

Why do we need to log in somewhere just to type in a sentence worth of text?
Isn’t that what Instant Messaging is for?
I heard it is just like Dodgeball.
I have a few friends who LOVE Twitter.. but they can’t really explain why!
None of my friends use it.. why should I sign up?

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Most everyone has heard about Google Reader at this point. But I am sure there are more people out there who don’t know an RSS feed from a banner ad, and how Google’s product leverages this technology.

First we need to discuss what RSS is. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. The RSS feed format uses XML to define and standardize different fields in a data stream. This stream, or feed, can be interpreted by a RSS reader (also sometimes known as an aggregator) and presented to the end user in a clean, easy to navigate format. RSS feeds can contain text and URL links to media and pictures, or extra markup tags. The RSS specification allows for full-text or just snippets to be syndicated.

Almost all feed readers will manage multiple RSS feeds, keep track of what articles are read or unread, and will allow some sort of tagging and selecting articles as ‘favorites’. They usually will also present a view that shows articles from some or all subscribed feeds together sorted by date or other criteria to the user. This is sometimes called the ‘river of news’ view. Google Reader is one such RSS app with an additional trick up its sleeve — it is completely browser-based. It can also, however, be used off-line with a browser plug-in called Google Gears.

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Hi and welcome! The goal of this blog is to track new social media, blogroll and mashup sites and write reviews on them. Hopefully, this will help you get a better idea of what kind of things to expect when you are looking for the perfect feed or news river site.

Please, make an account and leave a comment, we appreciate all feedback!