Open Thread: Where’s Your Online Home?
December 19th, 2007 (11:00am) Mike Gunderloy 23 Comments
Twitter. Facebook. LinkedIn. Digg. SlashDot. Jaiku. Utterz. Seesmic. The list goes on. These days there are so many places to be on the two-way web that anyone who cares to can spend all of their free time generating and posting content for the rest of us to read, view, enjoy, and respond to. Given the social nature of primates, it’s not surprising that all of this has generated an explosion of chatty online communities.
Many of us in web worker land have tried out more than one of these potential hangouts - but it’s a rare person who has time to keep up across the full spectrum of social networks. Most of us tend to gravitate to one online home where we feel the strongest sense of community. So - where is it for you? If there’s one site that you’d hate to give up because it’s the spot where everyone knows your name, which site is it, and what makes it special? And is it one of the new Web 2.0 darlings, or perhaps an older and more established internet backwater?
23 Comments Post your own comment
Martin says: December 19th, 2007 11:40am
flickr :)
suresh says: December 19th, 2007 11:55am
LinkedIn: Even thou I dont use LinkedIn like everyday, Still I think I cant give up LinkedIn. Because of the quality of the Network, Its not just another Social Networking site, Very useful for Us, Networking, Answering, Asking Questions, Finding Employers, Employees and Simply knowing People who are in the same Industry. And here is my LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/seosuresh
Twitter is also nice, if we know how to use it wisely and take advantage of the latest happenning and posts from Experts right at that same time.
Digg is good to find something intersting
dawn says: December 19th, 2007 11:57am
I use facebook to keep up with people but I’m really all about my blog.
Khürt says: December 19th, 2007 12:12pm
I wouldn’t exist ( digitally that is ) without LinkedIn, Plaxo, and Ma.gnolia.com
Jeff O'Hara says: December 19th, 2007 12:20pm
My home these days is mostly twitter, but I dabble in facebook & linked-in, flickr, utterz, seesmic.
-Jeff
http://twitter.com/zemote
Chris says: December 19th, 2007 1:21pm
Flickr- http://www.flickr.com/photos/pultzpics/
&
Twitter- https://twitter.com/cpultz
Amie Gillingham says: December 19th, 2007 1:30pm
Of the new darlings, I’ve been hooked on Twitter since February and my use of it fills both personal and professional needs. But I’d say that the rest of my online time is really split between our internal artist community at EBSQ and my live journal communities where I can geek-out with my fellow Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica girls. (can’t believe I just admitted that in public, but there ya go)
David Fauber says: December 19th, 2007 1:42pm
Embarrassing to say, but mine is still somethingawful.com
Y! Fanboy says: December 19th, 2007 2:21pm
Flickr, Del.icio.us, jumpcut … and my own blog(s) :-)
Jamie says: December 19th, 2007 3:05pm
Facebook. I and all of my college friends have been using it since before Facebook opened it up to non-students. Facebook is largely an umbrella of smaller more exclusive social networks (e.g. individual universities) where people actually know each other in the “real” world. I like that.
Anthony Russo says: December 19th, 2007 3:31pm
LinkedIn and more recently Expert-Exchange.com
Anthony
Nick Scheurich says: December 19th, 2007 4:30pm
I’d have to say that my primary social networking tool is Facebook. My reason is—quite simply—that most of my friends can be found there and nowhere else (except for MySpace… but it pains me to even utter that name). I also heavily rely on my Twitter account for keeping everyone up-to-date on my goings-on; I even use it to update my Facebook status. And of course, for keeping friends and family updated in a visual way, there’s always my home on Flickr.
Mari Mann says: December 19th, 2007 5:18pm
http://www.avanoo.com, Flickr, and my blogs.
junger says: December 19th, 2007 5:21pm
LinkedIn … StatCounter … my blogs
Dung Nguyen says: December 19th, 2007 8:52pm
Facebook and twitter :)
Morgan Sully says: December 19th, 2007 9:45pm
I of course use all the popular ones, but I must say that the one I feel the strongest sense of community on is pomoworld.com I was personally welcomed by the community ambassador, there are hot people and they’ve all got some really interesting stuff to say. The forums have seriously meaningful stuff to say about our personal experience of life, each other and our potential as human beings. Maybe a bit heady for the tech-oriented audience if this site, but a refreshing space nonetheless in the deluge of social networking sites these days. It’s also built on Ning for you tech-curious folk reading this.
Blue_Chi says: December 19th, 2007 10:29pm
My blogs and Facebook.
Christopher Johnston says: December 20th, 2007 5:43am
I spend most of my time on Twitter using my phone to send and receive messages. Second is probably Facebook and then LinkedIn. At least weekly I use Flickr, Marzar, Ecademy, and a few of the communities at CollectiveX. A few times a month I might visit Ning, Pownce, and Jaiku. I don’t really enjoy Digg even though I have an account and I’ve been trying to get a Seesmic invite for weeks now.
Greg Rollett says: December 20th, 2007 6:25am
I work a lot in music and concert promotion so Myspace is still king in that ring, but on a professional note Facebook and Twitter control most of my time. (Even though the Google Reader is open all day).
Ted says: December 20th, 2007 8:12am
All about LinkedIn. I’ve reconnected with many old friends from highschool and college b/c of this tool. It has also become a new source of leads for my communications company.
dc crowley says: December 20th, 2007 2:34pm
It’s funny but I guess Jaiku is my home. But I rarely log in. I have a lifestream there, anything I do… video, photos, blogging, twitter, seesmic; It all ends up in Jaiku… er! except Facebook (which I love by the way). But that is Facebooks very worst point, everything in… nothing out!
chris b says: December 20th, 2007 3:36pm
I keep coming back to Livejournal. Even though I’ve never met most of my LJ ‘friends’, I find LJ to have a strong sense of community and mutual support. If there is any truth on the adage “A problem shared is a problem halved”, then LJ is the place to do it.
Lasse Rintakumpu says: December 23rd, 2007 10:59am
Shame to admit it, but definitely Facebook. Once upon time it was LinkedIn, but that was bit hard to sell to my less business-oriented friends.
Facebook has its flaws. For example you have to keep constantly ignoring all kinds of stupid requests from your friends. And I’m not even mentioning privacy here.
But Facebook works as a great social hub. The Events application rocks by making it easy to see who is going and where and when. Plus the whole thing eases making closer contact with your acquaintances in meatspace. That’s the added value.
The real value, however is that it’s widely used, known AND it’s easy to integrate your other networks into it.
Twitter, Flickr and Amazon.com are far more important for me than Facebook, but as these are mostly obscure services (save Amazon) for most of my friends, Facebook works as a great mediator.