Juggling friends– social networking tricks

I am way too busy for my own good… and usually not with what I want to be doing (mental note about working on that), so I need all of the social networking help I can get.  I am however a bit overwhelmed by everything that is out there, and I have to ask is it really this complicated to connect with people?

As always, Jon Stewart nailed it: 

 

more about “funny video“, posted with vodpod

Overall, after trying everything out for a few months here’s what I found works for me.  On top of this blog (and my other blog), Twitter, Facebook,  which has now been around for a bit, is really starting to explode is an even more pared down version of Facebook, which is why I was initially drawn to it.  Navigating Twitter and all of the new Twitter Tools is overwhelming. Especially when I have a blog to maintain, and still have most of my life on Facebook. 

As I often tease, I’m kinda a big tech nerd.. not that I’m smart enough to program a computer.. just lame enough to want to not be on something old hat, and miss out on the next cool thing… because really there is a TON out there! So my goal was to simplify my life and my information feed, and not get sucked into things that were just noise e.g. plurk.

I signed up for several social aggregators ping.fm, FriendFeed , twitterfeed, Tabber,  Profilactic, Socialthing!, I downloaded yoono, OuTwit, and installed Google Lattitude. I even checked out Spokeo, as in theory this site did what I hoped the others could — pull all feeds, photos and all into one stop shop and find all my friends for me.  What I disliked was that most of these sites acted as a way for me to post my information for others to follow, and unless my friends also joined that particular social bandwagon, then I wasn’t going to have it easy in tracking them (e.g. FriendFeed I can manually add everyone’s mini feed -way too time consuming).  Spokeo at least automatically found my friends and their social networks, but it’s a $4.95 and mostly if they didn’t tell me about it, or link it to something they told me about, they probably don’t want me knowing what they bought on Amazon or listened to on Pandora. I am digressing, the point is I’ve learned two things:

The google map social stalker tool is just way too much info, and completely useless.

At home I have yoono installed on my Firefox browser. I get to see all of my social sites and email (google, hotmail, Facebook, Twitter  , yahoo) all in one nice side browser, so I can do my emails, post my blogs, and I have the ability to share what I web surf to.

At work I installed OutTwit. It compiles everything into neat little Outlook folders, and I can mark all read like emails.  It’s not too big of an application, and it’s work time, so I don’t really need to be THAT plugged in.  I also set up search parameters (clients we are hunting) and it creates a search folder for them, which has been helpful.

I have found that I like ping.fm.  I tend to still post directly to Twitter (for Twitter friends only) with certain things, but ping.fm allows me to post on all my networks at once, which is nice occasionally and cuts time out for me.  It also auto shortens links, so I don’t have to worry about tinyurling things before I post. I also tried out the Vox feature, so if I’m driving down the freeway, and the status update urge hits me, I can still do it.  It didn’t work too well though last time I tried it, and “Why is a 350Z”  ended up as a “Why, is it 350C” but I probably mumble.  It does post the audio of what you said, so if people want to get the accurate DL they can.

So in summary:

yoono is super convenient, and a way for you to keep the updates rolling, without having to live in Facebook

ping.fm helps me update blogs, status updates, and a myriad of other things anywhere.. and has voice integration

Facebook is still my staple

Twitter is great for following information out there– not neccessarily personal friends.

Plaxo I have, as it’s a good way to keep people’s info, when you don’t neccessarily want them to see all of your personal life- think business.

LinkedIn great networking tool for business, not so much social