(perdón por la crítica, pero hay que hacerla)

Comenté en twitter (pensando en voz alta) que dudaba del éxito de UTOI. Puede que haya gente que se pregunte porque pienso de esta forma, así que voy a explicarme. Cuando dije que UTOI no tendría éxito, alegando el fracaso cosechado por otras plataformas similares, @borjaechevarria me respondió diciendo que “UTOI no ha nacido para competir con twitter sino para compartir. ¿Se acabó el mundo después de FB y twitter? Qué peligroso es eso” No dudo que UTOI haya nacido para compartir, el problema está en quién va a compartir, porque twitter, facebook, friendfeed, tuenti, plurk y gran parte de los servicios creados en la web 2.0 han nacido para ello, así que habrá que competir por compartir, por ser la plataforma en la que se comparte.

El mundo no se acaba, cuando se cae twitter nos vamos a friendfeed, plurk…

El mundo no se acaba en facebook y twitter, pero cuando twitter se cae la gente se va a plurk, friendfeed o donde sea (pero sólo cuando se cae) en twitter no se acaba el mundo, pero lo parece por lo histéricos que se ponen los tuiteros cada vez que se cae twitter ¿es peligroso esto? puede ser, la cuestión está en que somos una sociedad-masa y tendemos a usar los mismos servicios, o también podemos usar varios, siempre y cuando alguno aporte algo nuevo y la pregunta que hay que plantearse ahora es

¿aporta UTOI algo nuevo?

Una sola cosa en mi opinión (quizás aporte algo más de lo que no me he dado cuenta), los temas, aparte de eso nada más, porque lo de insertar imágenes y vídeos ya lo teníamos en youare.

captura de You Are

También es cierto que en UTOI tenemos la posibilidad de escribir 280 caracteres a diferencia de los 140 de twitter, si es por caracteres en Rejaw (plataforma de micro-blogging que ya murió) se permitían hasta 1000 caracteres.

¿va a cambiar la gente?

Lo curioso es que, a pesar de todo, aportar algo “nuevo” como blip.fm (para compartir música) o redux que, por cierto, me encanta (para compartir vídeos) no garantiza su éxito, también porque compartir música o vídeos ya podemos hacerlo en twitter ¿no?

Competición en desventaja

¿Quién va ganando?

De todas formas es un consuelo que UTOI no pretenda competir con Twitter porque lo tiene complicado, simpre podamos usarlo para compartir todo aquello que no queramos compartir por medio de twitter porque… ¿por qué? y ahí está la pregunta clave, si desde Soitu consiguen responder a esa pregunta de forma que convenzan a los usuarios de twitter pueden ganar la partida y yo quedarme con un palmo de narices. Otra opción es que UTOI busque un público diferente al de twitter… puede ser, es poco probable, pero puede ser.

Conclusión

El mayor número de usuarios lo tiene twitter, el resto de plataformas de microblogging pueden tener a unos pocos “fieles” y multitud de mensajes replicados de todo lo que se escribe en twitter que es la plataforma de micro-blogging que, a día de hoy, más se usa para compartir lo que sea: música, vídeos, opiniones, etc.

No menosprecio la iniciativa de Soitu con UTOI, pero el pescado ya está vendido y conseguir aunque sólo sea un poco será complicado ¿es imposible? no, ahora bien, es poco probable.

Getting thousands of followers on Twitter seems to be the new fad. Everyone claims to be an expert on how to do it. There are people out there with their get 30,000 followers in 30 days crap. Then there are those who do nothing but spam all day, telling you about their business of marketing. Just the idea that these tricks would work tells me that you guys have no clue on how t build a brand, well, all you can build is your own.

In order to lead you must first follow, and how many people know who to follow in this space, meaning. How many people respond to the millions of blogs out there or the twitter conversions that go on all day long. How many experts really want to help you build your brand, and not help themselves build their brands. This space is about family not who has the most numbers. How many of those who follow you are nothing more than bots, and are you a bot to the people that follow you. Twitter is a community, one that should be based off of southern hospitality not just thank you for following me.

So many people ask, “how do I get more followers,” I ask how do you make friends? Building a community of followers is all about your ability to be yourself, not if a system can help you. Stop worrying about how many people are following you and start worrying about what you are saying. There is no trick to to gaining followers on twitter, only your ability to open up and respond to life. But, if you must know one way to do it is by following those who constantly post. Those who have built a cult following around the ideal of being bigger than twitter. Become apart of their noise, and start making noise of your own, and it is only a matter of time before a circle surrounds you.

If you use these quick follower programs all you are getting is a crowd for a day, why have a crowd for a day, when you can have them for a life time. If you really want to build your brand, build people, find away to teach the things you have learned. Once you have done this, people will always follow you, not because you are to most popular but because you invested into them.

Building followers should not be your goal, conversation should be. People do not want to be looked at as just a number, they want to be looked at as a part of the family. To grow you followers grow yourself, build yourself, people want to follow those at whom they can look up to. Someone they can feel a bond with, cumminites are built off of converstation not silence. Are there ways to build your twitter following, yes, does some of these things work, yes, but at the end of the day, what matters most, is not the numbers you have, but the relationships you build.

It would be very easy to tell you every step you would need to take to take over social media. However, that would not really tell you anything. You can read for months on how to use social media, to develop your business or your brand, but at the end of the day, all you will have gained is a headache.

About this time last year a friend of mine Vincent Hunt, came to me after cycling, and told me about this thing called social media. He told me about all the new people he was meeting and all the things he had learned. Well at first I paid him no mind, but week after week he kept selling the same song. Finally, I went on line and started looking into social media. After a few weeks, I started blogging, and all of a sudden I started getting responses from people all across the world. Then one day I discovered Youtube. Yes, I had heard of Youtube, but I had never thought about posting to Youtube. Lucky for me, this was during the time of the Presidential Elections. I made a few post, and the next thing I new thousands for people were listing and responding. Thus The Fair Response was born.

Yet, I said all of that to say, I learned social media, by not just reading other peoples post, but by getting out there and getting my feet wet. The ups and downs of social media teach you what spaces to spend your time, and what spaces to get in and get out as quickly as you can. I look at social media through the eyes of building equity, the more time you spend developing your brand, the more equity in your brand you will have.

Marketing in social media is not rocket science, it depends all on whether or not you know yourself and your brand. If you have no clue to who you are, then this space is not for you. Now, what I mean is that you must  not be a clone. Yes, you might have the degrees in marketing, and you might be the greatest at building web pages. Yet, this space does not give a crap about the paper the walls at your house. In this space we care about each other. We build each other, and the louder your voice is about the relevant things we go through the greater you will be in this space. Now I guess I will tell you how to market in social media.

1. Research, Research, Research. Then you need to Research some more.
2. Listen to the web, which means understand what the web is telling you.
3. Follow people that are already on the next big thing, this way you know how to stay relevant in the space.
4. Find out your passion, and how it can dwell in this space.
5. Start micro blogging, using twitter, rejaw, kwippy, friend freed, tumblar and other sites.
6. Start blogging, once you have gotten to a level of confidence in micro blogging then blog.
7. As you blog, respond to others in this space, practice this while you are micro blogging.
8. As you speak about others, others will speak about you, which will in turn boost your hits across the web.
9. After you have learned what works for you, start joining every site you can, and learn how to post to one while posting to others at the same time. (ping fm)
10. Find the best photo of yourself or logo you can and put it on every site you join, Then develop a slogan that is catchy and to the point. My slogan is, “don’t just live life respond.”
11. Keep your message the same or spread your message over different ideals, but keep is consistent.
12. This should have been number one, but google your name or business, and see where you are, just like looking up your credit score except you want as many hits as you can find.
13. If you really want to be successful in the space, this step is key, never stop working, never stop learning, because the moment you do, you are already behind.

Add Rejaw to the pile of abandoned social networks like Swurl, Readr, and Pownce:

We’re sad to announce that Rejaw will be shutting down on May 31, 2009. It’s been great pleasure that so many wonderful people have joined and gotten to know each other here at Rejaw. We want to give our wholehearted thanks to everyone who gave us compliments,  suggestions, and criticism- Rejaw couldn’t have existed without your feedback.

I’m disappointed, but not surprised. G’bye, Rejaw. It was fun.

Cuando conocí Rejaw me pareció genial. Una herramienta de micro-blogging que reunía las virtudes de Twitter y de Plurk, tenía algunas pegas, algunos defectos como que el temaño que permitía en los mensajes era demasiado largo y la personalización de la apariencia, etc. De todas formas la idea era buena. Los servidores de Twitter estaban fallando y había usuarios descontentos, así que empezaron a aparecer redes de micro-blogging con afán de robar usuarios de Twitter, pero la conocida red social consiguió superar el bache y siguió creciendo y ahora ¿qué ha sido de Rejaw?

Rejaw sigue existiendo, pero no por mucho tiempo. El próximo día 31 de Mayo Rejaw cerrará y permitirá que los usuarios se lleven todo lo que escribieron en Rejaw en un archivo XML. Se dice que en Internet “hay espacio para todos”, pero quizás no sea así del todo. En el micro-blogging hay múltiples plataformas, pero todas están a la zaga de Twitter: Rejaw echa el cierre, Plurk no es una alternativa sólida (tuvo un primer y último encuentro de usuarios en Madrid y sus defensores han terminado olvidándolo), no hay ningún servicio que haga frente a Twitter:

¿Quién ha hecho los deberes?

Usar plurk, jaiku o pownce en lugar de Twitter es comparable a irse a vivir a una isla desierta… o al pueblo siendo magnánimos. Se habla del long tail, la segmentación y todo eso, quizás si juntamos toooooooooodas las redes de microblogging sumen más usuarios y actividad que Twitter (lo dudo la verdad), pero lo cierto es que, a pesar de todo, seguimos siendo una sociedad masa, seguimos creando héroes y estrellas para luego hacerlas caer.

La pregunta ahora es ¿Hay espacio para todos en Internet? (ganando dinero, quiero decir) y la respuesta quizás no tenga porqué ser optimista. Internet es genial, pero no es la tierra prometida.

Following the outbreak of bacon fever, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service (HHS) have launched an online campaign to help educate people about the potential pandemic. There’s a dedicated TV channel, a widgets library, podcasts, and a Twitter feed.

Rejaw, a micro blogging service that launched last year, has will be closing it’s doors for good on May 31st. Another micro-blogging service hits the deck as Twitter grows larger and larger. Who will be next?

The White House has launched a fresh assault on the social media sphere, launching a Facebook page, a Myspace page and a Twitter feed. It’s good to see Barack is dragging American politics into the 21st century and encouraging it to embrace web2.0.

We’ve recently released a number of new features for users sending media to micro-blogs and status services such as twitter. The main goal was to extend our media delivery platform for users wishing to send (linked) media and to provide a number of customization options to allow users to preserve their brand or identity.Here’s a few highlights of the release

• Ability to customize the landing page to maintain the look of your web site or even twitter page (see example)
• Shortened URL under the http://pi.pe domain
• Support for linking to Photo, video, audio and files (PDF, Word, Zip…)
• Automatic playback of photo, video, audio and link to files
• Now supporting comments from viewers
• These features work with the following services Twitter, britekite, friendfeed, identi.ca, Jaiku, kwippy, Ping.fm, plerb, PLURK, Rejaw & youare.com

The options can be set under the ‘Settings’ menu after logging into pixelpipe.com or by clicking on the ‘Customize page appearance’ link on the footer of your pi.pe page

I hang out a lot on Rejaw and have done so for quite some time. I like it and I like the people who I now concider being my closest social media friends. They are always there to listen and to give advice and no subject is a bad subject. I guess that is what social media wants to be like, even if it it is more likely to be the opposite.

The interesting thing is how Rejaw from time to time can go very silent as if someone pressed a button. A week or so later, everyone is back again shouting away. Sometimes people drop in to leave a comment like “A lot to do at work at the momen. Hope you all are alright. See you soon. Missa you!”. Everyone always comes back sooner or later and while being away, we all admitt we miss each other.

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We all know about that one micro-blogging site that starts with a T but what about the other micro-blogging sites such as plurk, rejaw, jaiku, Yammer and present.ly. Did you you know each service has an iPhone app too? Are you using one the micro-blogging iPhone apps below?

Hot on the heels of our recently announced support for text only posts to status & micro-blog services we’ve just released a new feature that allows you to include media and other files with your post. Since the majority of these services only support short text based posts we’ll publish your post for you and include a shortened link back to the original file hosted on our server. We display your photo & automatically playback video and audio files and provide a link back to the original for other file types.

Here’s a quick rundown on the capabilities and some tips on usage:

Q. What services are supported?

A. This feature is currently supported with our integrations with Twitter, MySpace, FriendFeed, Jaiku, Ping.fm, kwippy, Rejaw, identi.ca, plerb, brightkite & Facebook. More coming soon!

Q. How’s it work?

A. Use any of our massive suite of applications for desktop and mobile to post photos and video to any of your pixelpipe destinations. If the service is a micro-blog or status service that only supports text we’ll automatically create a link back to the file to be included with your post. Here’s an example of a landing page that includes video http://tinyurl.com/88fygo

Q. Can I post to multiple services at the same time?

A. Yes of course, you can send to any or all at the same time and even multiple accounts on the same service. With one post you can update your twitter, Jaiku, Facebook… status with either plain text or text with linked media.

Q. How do I send a document or file?

A. We currently support the ability to post non-photo/video content either via the ‘Quick Post’ dialog on pixelpipe.com or via MMS/Email using your private upload address. Your personal upload address can be found under settings after logging into pixelpipe.com.

Q. What if I only want to send some uploads to these services?

A. We have a feature called “Routing Tags” that enables you to selectivly send your uploads to individual services or groups by simply tagging the item in advance of upload. More on this feature can be found here.

Q. Any tips for usage?

A. If you are a heavy uploader then we recommend disabling automatic delivery to these services and activating them when needed by use of routing tags. You’ll save your followers from receiving individual updates everytime you upload through Pixelpipe.

In the past few days I have used social media for so many things that I think I’m almost starting to take it for granted. It’s just SO convenient and I use it so much that I think that I would be lost if it suddenly disappeared. So for those of you not yet completely immersed in this fantastic new form of communication I present my top five reasons why you might want to consider it!

5) Driving Traffic – Who knows maybe this is how you found my blog! It’s just amazing how powerful social media is for driving traffic to your own media or things that you find interesting. I can’t tell you how many sites I visit daily because my social media community has recommended them. It would really show the power of social media traffic to know how you got here so if you get a moment leave a comment on this entry and just say how you found out about my blog.

4) Getting Work – Since starting our social media initiatives Sterling Cross Communications has received numerous business leads, speaking offers (Which have lead to business), partner projects and actual direct contracts. I believe that in the future this will be our largest segment growth for new business. Yeah, I know this one should have been higher but I like social media for so many other things than just work.

3) Searching For Talent Or Just Plain Advice – When I go to look for a specific talent or I need to know something, social media is the first place I turn. I can’t even tel you how many times I have needed to know something specific or needed a very specific service and have found it in my network. In fact last night I was looking for a PR arm in Ohio and within six minutes I received well over 30 responses! These people are amazing!

2) Posting Media – Posting my photos, videos, blog entries, etc. and being able to share these moments instantly with family and friends. Allowing people to share my life from a distance is very important. My girlfriend lives in Fargo, my daughter and friends live in Calgary AB, Canada, and my parents go between a lake place in Canada and a winter place in Texas so you see how crucial communication is to me. My social media campaigns allow me to feel connected to all of the people that matter in my life and that really rocks

1) Community – My favorite part of social media without a doubt is being part of something bigger and being able to rely on the support of a community. The reach of social media is truely unlimited and I have met some fantastic people that without social media I never would have met. Some help me in business (I hope I do the same for them as well) and some I just like to chat with but regardless of the reason the world seems just a little bit smaller.

If you ever had doubts about the value of social media I hope this helps. Please feel free to add me and say hi! Below is a list of just some of the social media portals I am on. If you have any questions or comments I would love to hear from you.

All the best,
Scott

Myspace
Facebook
Plurk
Twitter
Friendfeed
Jaiku
LinkedIn
Hellotxt
Pandora
Mashable
plaxo
Ping FM
Hi 5
tagged
youare
Pandora
Blip.fm
WordPress
youtube
bebo
yammer
tumblr
technorati
Flickr
ReJaw
Brightkite
Identi.ca
Kwippy
Utterli
Mahalo
poprl

We’ve released support for a number of popular status/micro-blog services as well as the ability to send text only posts for status and blog updates. While this feature is pretty great on it’s own it only gets better when it’s combined with images and uploaded from any of our huge selection of mobile and desktop tools where we’ll link back to the photo uploaded for text only services like Twitter.

Imagine updating your status from iPhone, Picasa, iPhoto, Aperture, Lightroom, Android, MMS/email… and having that update go out to all of your followers on Twitter, Jaiku, Facebook & brightkite all at the same time with a link back to your photo and you’ll get the idea.

These new features and destinations are all live and available for use immediately. We love your feedback, if you have any comment please feel free to get back to us with your thoughts.

New destinations: Jaiku, Ping.fm, kwippy, Rejaw, identi.ca

Services that support text status updates: Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, brightkite, Ping.fm, Rejaw, kwippy, identi.ca

Services that support text blog posts: WordPress, TypePad, Blogger, LiveJournal, MovableType, Drupal and most other Atom enabled or MetaWeblogs

Loving this, bebes!

You can check your user name to see if it is registered on all social media sites, including MySpace, Twitter, WordPress, Yahoo, YouTube, etc!

Check your user name!

Creating a brand is one thing…making sure it is marketed virally is another.  Here are a number of services that you might want to check out!

• 12seconds
• Behance
• Blogger
• Brightkite
• Colourlovers
• Corkd
• Dailymotion
• Delicious
• Digg
• Diigo
• Disqus
• Ebay
• Etsy
• Favtape
• Ffffound
• Flickr
• Friendfeed
• Funnyordie
• Gmail
• Hellotxt
• Hexday
• Identica
• Ilike
• ILikeTotallyLoveIt
• Imageshack
• Isfingawesome
• Jaiku
• Koornk
• Kwippy
• Lastfm
• Linkedin
• Livejournal
• Magnolia
• Meemi
• Mixx
• Multiply
• Myspace
• Pandora
• Picasa
• Plurk
• Posterous
• Pownce
• Rejaw
• Smugmug
• Soundcloud
• Steam
• Stumbleupon
• Technorati
• Tinyurl
• Tipd
• Tipjoy
• Tumblr
• Twitter
• Typepad
• Uservoice
• Ustream
• Vimeo
• Virb
• Visualizeus
• Vox
• Wakoopa
• WordPress
• Xbox-live
• Xing
• Yahoo
• Yoono
• Yotify
• Youtube
• Zooomr
• http://www.jamespot.com
• http://www.twine.com

Adding more as people let me know about them.

Blogging And other Animals

There’s a lot of talk lately about the slow down of blogging in terms of the number of bloggers and blog post frequency.I’ve certainly slowed down my blog posting frequency. I don’t have that mania for a daily post as perhaps I did in the past. I’ve allowed various social networking and micro-blogging outlets to soak up a range of smaller spontaneous thoughts.

To me this relates to my previous post about music formats in that I probably see blogging now as the album format with something like Rejaw or Tumblr as the EP format (macro-blogging?) together with Twitter and others (status updates) being analogous to the single in digital download format. Dubious though my analogy may well be I hope it illustrates that I see this dissipation as all being part of the same offering.

Return to Niche?

Statistics would seem to show that people equally have less time or patience to read long form blogs which may well be pushing blogs back towards being a niche offering (no bad thing in my book) whilst the top 10% cruise through into the mainstream (whereupon, much like fresh faced indie music groups who commercialise their sound and who find then a place in the mainstream music charts they then probably sell their soul to the devil and lose much of their former originality and credibility).

Blogs On the Run

The range of formats is probably changing due to the growth of mobile computing via mobile phones & now netbooks and so the long form blog has spawned other complimentary outlets alongside it which suit the different ways that people access the Internet.In the same way that portable music listening, shuffle mode etc has slightly eroded the experience of sitting down and listening to a music album from start to finish because the technology that delivered it changed along with how people choose and consume music.

Junk Food Or Healthy Consumption?

Or perhaps we’d rather see the rise of micro-blogging as akin to the rise of fast ‘junk’ food.TV dinners for the ‘too busy’ generations.

My point is that it’s all just platforms, formats, vehicles or just another tool. It’s either the evolution of blogging or the slow dilution of a once powerful creative outlet into a series of side alleys and cul-de-sacs.
I can’t quite decide which.

Photo by andyp_uk under this creative commons license

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HelloTxt adds new integrations to its multiple services update application including gTalk and Jabber and social network services Yammer, YouAre, Hictu, Rejaw and Jisko.

A plug-in for WordPress and other blog platforms is in the works, as noted by HelloTxt leader Fabrizio Giordano. A personal Lifestream feed is now available by following this setting: http://hellotxt.com/user/Your-user-ID/feed.

Previously:

• HelloTxt adds Friendfeed, Identi.ca, Brightkite, Plurk support
• HelloTxt integrates app with Facebook
• HelloTxt mobile works just fine
• HelloTxt joins miniblogs with timeline

Voici un bon mois, je postais concernant Rejaw, un potentiel Twitter-killer… Qu’en est-il depuis??

Et bien pour l’avoir utlisé, voici ce qui me plait chez Rejaw :

- Une meilleure interface

- Un vrai micro-blogging, avec 1000 caractères par article, au lieu des petits 140 de Twitter

- La possibilité d’insérer des photos et des vidéos facilement

- Une simplissime différence entre Shouts (envoi à tous) et Whispers (envoi à un correspondant)

- Enfin une interface iPhone, disponible sur l’AppStore.

Par contre, l’inconvénient majeur reste la semi-confidentialité de l’outil, je connais personellement peu de Twitteurs qui passent à Rejaw. De plus, il n’y a que peu d’applications tierces permettant de suivre les posts, mis à part un récent Rejawfox et un Rejaw Radar, exclusivement disponible sur Mac, mais qui n’arrive pas à la cheville d’un Twhirl, par exemple…

Je me pose aussi et enfin la question du modèle d’affaires, tout comme pour Twitter, à savoir, comment les gens qui proposent ce service payent leurs factures en fin de mois… Si j’étais Twitter, je m’empresserais de racheter Rejaw, tant que son public est limité, afin de disposer de sa technologie – c’ est d’ailleurs peut-être le but des fondateurs de Rejaw – et d’améliorer le service aux utilisateurs…

En résumé, j’aime beaucoup Rejaw, mais son manque de fréquentation fait que je ne l’utilise pas souvent… Avis aux amateurs!

If your a rejaw and iPhone user then today is a good day. Rejaw iPhone app has been approved and is in the iPhone app store.

The app is clean and fast. It works just like the site with almost instant Ajax type instant messege posting. If your not familiar with rejaw you send shouts and whispers. Yes it’s another micro-blogging network with less focus on the micro and more focus on the blogging.

See the screenshots below

Since we launched Rejaw, we’ve been posting about new features, new applications, bug fixes, tips for using the site, and other good Rejaw related stuff over on the official Rejaw on Rejaw account. Rather than maintain this blog and that one, we’re going to switch everything over there.

So, from now on, Rejaw on Rejaw is our official communication channel. If you haven’t been there, go take a look!

– Chris

The past few days, I’ve attempted life as a ‘normal person‘. Going out with friends, dates, bars, and today, I even had an ‘average Sunday’ — Sunday brunch, Sunday errands, lazy Sunday in a park, then Sunday coffee with my friends, complete with the Sunday paper.

As I was playing Sudoku, my mind started wandering, and the numbers morphed into icons of various Social Media networking sites I participate in. Then I realized, I may have a problem. I am addicted to the Internet, especially Social Networking Sites. (image via: troller.com, a site randomly found Googling for a visual to add to this post.)

I am signed up for over 20 different services, and the list of new accounts keep growing. Since I’m signed up for an abundance of services, it may seem as though ‘clone’ sites are spawning, but I disagree. It’s quite exciting to see how these ‘clone’ sites integrates and appropriates various features and functions of their predecessors to fit their own formulas. Just like how cars, gadgets, and electronics keep getting ‘better’, I firmly believe Social Networking sites do, as well.

To omit redundancy, I separate everything via purpose of the respective services so I’m not overloaded, overwhelmed, or bored by all these sites. I’ve learned to quickly distinguish which sites I will participate in, or not. sidenote: Dear Louis Gray: I took a screen shot of part of your blog post: “There is No Social Media Overload” and inserted it in my post. Hope you don’t mind . Basically, as LG (Louis Gray) says:

So I decided to share what services I participate in and why I do.
RSS feed reader = Google Reader

• Familiarity. I’m used to the interface, since it resembles Gmail.
• I share and exchange information with my GTalk contacts.
• It’s easy to organize and maintain.

Microblogging identities = Twitter

• My outlet of brain dumps in 140 characters or less. Most of my Tweets sound like fortunes from fortune cookies…
• Habit. It’s easy to update via phone, 3rd party clients, and Twitter is my first micro-blogging service.
• It hones my grammar and organizational skills. Staying under 140 characters or less is not as easy as it seems!

Business Networking Tool = Facebook

• I use Facebook for my ‘adult’ relationships. From business, to childhood friends, old teachers… Anyone I stay in contact with, via annual or bi-annual ‘Hello’ message, Facebook is the place to do it. Everyone and their grandmothers (literally) are on Facebook. Since their site re-design, we have a love-hate relationship. I cannot stand the new site and features. HA

Social Network = Myspace

• I have one just to have… one? It tookva long to perfect the wording of my profile on that darn thing, so I just can’t get myself to delete it. That’s all. lol.

Service aggregator or lifestream = FriendFeed

• The community.
• Ease of posting.
• Exchange of information. Everything from pictures of the day, useless gadgets, politics. tech news, real news… I barely check my Google Reader, since I get the latest news on FriendFeed

There’s one more service I actively participate in, and that’s Rejaw. They’re the ‘newest shiniest clone site’, at first glance, that may seem like ‘another micro-blogging service’, but it’s not. The easiest way to describe it, is: Modernized IRC (Internet Relay Chat). I’ve never participated in any IRC room? Service? Community?, but basically, it’s chatting with other members of the site, since the ‘micro-blogging posts’, are updated real time. And because of the chat like interactions, Rejaw — to me, is a site I can get to know my friends from various Social Sites on a more personal level. So why not just IM? Simple. It doesn’t give me that ‘community’ like feel, where anyone and everyone can participate in conversations. On top of that:

• Media is easily embeddable. With only the media link, a video, image, or mp3, is inserted in the thread.
• Private / public multi-participants are possible.
• And the dev team is amazing. They participate, interact with users, open to feedback, and extremely helpful.

Currently, they’re still adding / rolling out features, so I will definitely do a more detailed introduction to the site, since I love it so much . Add me on Rejaw by clicking this

Anyway, those are the sites I’m active in.
What are yours? And which ones are your favorites? How many do you participate in? Are you overloaded?