As you can’t have not noticed, there are so many social media websites floating around these days! I have more than just a few accounts on such websites. A lot of you do, too. I feel as if I have to have them, too, as both real life and Internet friends alike have accounts everywhere, and I have a need to “keep up” with everyone. Although, most of my accounts are solely shared with Internet friends (and Internet strangers, for that matter). Below I talk about various social media websites I am apart of.
- LiveJournal (bertrand): I wasn’t sure whether this would be classified as social media, but Wikipedia said it was, and who am I to challenge the all-knowing free encylopaedia? Anyway, I’ve been on LiveJournal for over four years now. I used to blog more frequently, but that was quite a long time ago. I still blog every now and then, but this blog and Twitter are updated far more frequently. This blog, however, is much more formal. I’ve made many cool friends through LiveJournal and still enjoy reading their blogs every day.
- Twitter (cortices): I update this at least a few times a week. It was originally created with the intention of reading other people’s tweets (so many LJ friends have Twitter accounts. Remember how I mentioned I feel the need to “keep up”? Yeah.), but have found it quite enjoyable to write my own tweets! A lot of people seem to dislike Twitter, claiming that it is boring, however I have not found this to be the case at all. For me at least, there’s always something interesting to read. It does seem that replies need to be instant, however. As most of the people I follow are halfway across the world, so many tweets are posted while I sleep, fewer while I am awake, and even fewer while I am online, which poses a small problem.
- Tumblr (snowscout): This is another one which I created to keep up with friends on Twitter/LiveJournal. I felt so left out being without a “tumblelog”, haha.
- Facebook: I can only name a few friends who are sans a Facebook account. I was actually a bit late to the party, and have had mine for not long over a year. I don’t actually write many status updates or wall posts, though. Also, unfortunately, there is far too much chatspeak found there. Meanwhile, anything I write is fairly formal, with capital letters and all! Yes, capital letters are that rare on my news feed.
- Google Reader: A “like” feature was recently introduced to Google Reader, which adds a certain “social” aspect to it. I do, however, find the “like” feature quite useless when there is already an “add star” which I use to keep track of posts I enjoy. On that note, I also find the “like” function of Facebook useless. I’m not against the idea, but what they need to do is let you keep track of which posts, photos, etc., you liked, i.e., have a page where you can see them all and reminiscence, or something.
- Flickr (etherised.patient): I seldom add photos, and seldom visit the site. They do offer RSS feeds of your friends’ newly-uploaded photos, which is useful.
- Last.fm (lemony_fresh): Apart from the fact that you are unable to change terrible usernames (made mine back in 2004, and am now supposedly all mature and stuff and hate it!), last.fm is a very fun website. For those who don’t know, you just install the plugin/software and it records every track of music you play. Looking at years gone by in music, and comparing musical taste with friends is fun.
