tell your friends to get with my friends and we can be friends

**before i get started with this post, i've updated my rss feed. i know that if you're reading this, you've subscribed to my feed through some kinda of rss reader (i personally prefer google reader) because there is no way you'd be just checking back here for updates. with the way that i've been blogging lately, that'd just be silly. so click on that handy button over to the right and subscribe to the new feed. that being said, i'm going to try being a little better with my blogging these days (and it looks like i'm not the only one).**

the internet has kinda exploded lately. web 2.0 is changing the whole dynamic of how people surf the web and use it to connect to people. a month or so ago, i went on a bit of a web 2.0 binge and signed up for a bunch of social networks. if you're on any of these, add me.




FRIENDSTER
i think friendster is the original of the social networks. it was a big thing back when i was in berkeley. it was a little odd at first while people tried to figure out what this thing was, but it kinda took off. i even knew at least one person with a girlfriendster ... that didn't translate well into real life. maybe he should start dating people in the same state as he is (actually, nevermind).
http://profiles.friendster.com/bmasc





MYSPACE
myspace took what friendster started and took off with it. it added the music spin to it, which i think is/was great. i never really like the ability to customize the profiles because some people took it too far and just made things look messy, but a lot of people liked that. friendster may have started it, but myspace is the one that really opened the door for everyone else.
http://www.myspace.com/bmasc





LINKEDIN
LinkedIn took the social networking thing to a professional level. i used LinkedIn when trying to look for my new job, and i know many others who have too. i know some people who have gotten in the door and an interview through LinkedIn; though, i do not think i know anyone that actually got a job out of it.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/bmascarenhas






ILIKE
the music social network. iLike is a good way to share musical taste and stay on top of your favortie artists. i particularly like the concerts section; it's how i heard about the immortal technique concert that i went to last tuesday (great show ... maybe i'll blog about that later).
http://www.ilike.com/user/Brian_M115





MYBLOGLOG
i only signed up for this one because anjali was working on the deal when they were acquired by yahoo. it's supposedly supposed to match blog interests, but i have yet to see much from it yet.
http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/members/bmasc/





GOODREADS
as iLike is to music, goodreads is to books. i only recently signed up for this one and have not played with it all that much. i would like to see it recommend good books to you based on what you like and what your friends like (similar to what whatshouldireadnext.com does).
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1253100





DOPPLR
Dopplr keeps your friends informed of where you are in the world and what trips you have planned for the future. it'd be great if you traveled a lot and know a bunch of people who do too.
http://www.dopplr.com/traveller/bmasc









LOOPT
i'm not using Loopt yet, but once i get my 3g iPhone, i will be. it's a location based social network, which sounds pretty cool in theory. i don't know how well it'll work in practice, but i'm definitely going to play with it.






TWITTER
Twitter has you answer the question "What are you doing right now?" from what i hear from some people, twitter can get pretty addicting. i don't know enough people using it yet for it to matter all that much. one of the best parts of twitter is that you can update your status in a bunch of ways, like twitter.com, twitterfox, digsby, your cell phone, etc etc. my biggest gripe (shared by all other twitter users) is that twitter often goes down. they better fix that before they lose all their users.
http://twitter.com/bmasc





FLICKR
Flickr is a photo-sharing network. i've always been a fan of their geo-tagging functionality (which google is just now getting to).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bmasc/






FRIENDFEED
FriendFeed tries to aggregate all the different social networks into one convenient place. it's a good way to see what people are doing on their various networks without having to check all of then individually.
http://friendfeed.com/bmasc






DEL.ICIO.US
del.icio.us is a bookmarking network. i started using it recently and love it. i am constantly bookmarking websites for later. you can also tag links for your friends, which is a great way to share links. i wish they'd allow you to comment on your and your networks bookmarks though. i have a del.icio.us badge in my sidebar, and once i fix some glitches, it'll have my tags too.
http://del.icio.us/bmasc







MOTLEY FOOL CAPS
Motley Fool CAPS is a way for investors to share their stock picks with other investors. the people over at motley fool use those picks and come up with ratings, weighting people who do better more. i'm doing pretty well in the market right now *knock on wood* and attribute most of my success to reading The Motley Fool Investment Guide (let me know if you'd like to borrow it). i'm currently all-star status, which is kinda cool.
http://caps.fool.com/MyPlayer.aspx?source=ifltnvsnv0000001
(not sure if that link will work but search for bmasc23)








AIM
AIM is not really a social network, but it definitely keep people connected.
bmasc123








DIGSBY
similar to AIM, digsby is not a social network really, but it allows to combine your various IM clients (AIM, yahoo, google talk, facebook chat, etc) into on convenient application. i found digsby because i was getting really tired of how much screen space the ads in the AIM client were talking up on my screen. allowing me to chat with my facebook friends was a bonus (never really did before). it has some other cool features, like notifications from your networks, some really cool pop ups (you can chat directly in the pop ups), and other stuff. i even added this cool widget to the right over there where anyone on the internet on my blog can chat with me (potential to be annoying though).
bmasc








GOOGLE READER
Google Reader, as i mentioned above, is the rss reader of my choice. i don't use the share feature much, but the ability to star things is nice. they've also implemented a good site for use on the iPhone, which is nice ... though i'm not sure how much i'll use it.






FACEBOOK
Facebook i left for last because i think it's the best of them all. my main reason for this is because all the others can be encompassed in Facebook. there are applications for iLike, Twitter, Dopplr, del.icio.us, goodreads, Flickr, and LinkedIn on Facebook. there's supposed to be some layout changes on the way, let's see how those go.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=1245105


of course, with all of these, they're only useful when you a large number of contacts. and yeah, i know there are a bunch more social networks out there, but these are the only ones that i use ... for now.