* Twitter – http://twitter.com/budcalabrese
* StumbleUpon – http://budcalabrese.stumbleupon.com/
* Technorati –
* Mybloglog – http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/members/budcalabrese
* Myspace – I try not to use it much anymore

Facebook- Coming on strong.. many people using it.. simple, easy to the point. Takes a little while to “get” what kind of service they’re offering..

i occasionally visit facebook, but i just can’t get into it

I use del.icio.us every day, but not much of the social features, just to keep track of stuff i want to look at

I also used to use linkedin until I found facebook. Then I dropped linkedin cold.

I find that MySpace and StumbleUpon are the most useful sites. MySpace in particular because there is a huge audience there and it’s easy to find people who are interested in specific topics. I’ve been keeping a blog on MySpace for about 3 months now and have already gained a large number of subscribers, and the people there are very active with leaving comments and being supportive. Facebook doesn’t even come close with regards to audience, functionality, and flexibility.

Great topic!

Facebook – mostly to keep in touch with RL friends, I’ve not found it a particularly useful way to send people to my site but I don’t mind.

Flickr – works really well in driving people to my site, which makes sense since I’m an artist. I try to stay reasonably active on the groups there.

StumbleUpon – I’m still getting to grips with this one but I’ve had a few referrals from there and will probably try to increase my presence there in the future.

Ravelry and the Lime & Violet messageboards – both knitting sites so they’re mostly for personal use but a reasonable number of people from there do visit my sites.

There are only so many hours in the day and having an active presence on a social networking site is quite a lot of work. My experience with social networking sites is that they’ve also got to be fun, otherwise you just won’t bother with them.

When you meet someone in person, you get a sense of who they are and can make a decision on how much credibility to give them. Yes, you can also build up an internet reputation, but 1) it could be a complete facade and 2) if someone has an agenda and a lot of time on their hands they can skew the results.

This really hit a nerve with me when I read your comment because just last night I came across an entry on UrbanDictionary that disparages the community where I live.

Do I care what some 14-year-old twit posts on that vile web site? No. No one is going to go to that waste of server space to get home finding information.

But I do care that the twit’s post is the #1 result on Google for a particular key phrase relating to the community.

Now I’m going to have to spend time trying to bury it in the SERPs.

The ones that fit are:
Zaadz
Gather

The general ones:
Reddit
Digg
StumbleUpon
Delicious
Zimbio
technorati
Bloglog

I write about self-development, purpose, consciousness and peace. I have tried Myspace and a few others like that but I don’t seem to get much in return.

I welcome suggestions

Joseph
http://www.ExploreLifeBlog.com

I should say I’ve been hyperactive with Stumbleupon the last couple of days because I’m angry with it. One reason why I couldn’t use Digg and Reddit was that they were monotone and nasty – funny pics and videos, internet cartoons that make fun of Christian fundamentalists or conservatives, and conspiracy theory.

That last one has exploded at StumbleUpon. I must have seen at least two or three articles in the top pages asserting that 9/11 was perpetrated by the US gov’t.

That kind of stuff just destroys the joy of social bookmarking. It’s one thing to have healthy political debate and even push an agenda. But the ability to flood a site with things that if said in public would make one look insane, and then get credit for such things – that’s scary.

I guess I can’t write this stuff off as meaningless because it exists side-by-side with the poetry commentaries where I strive to cite sources accurately and stay objective in my tone and comments. I believe the Internet is a powerful educative tool, and that scholars are going to have to blog sooner rather than later.

But as long as conspiracy theory dominates filters like social bookmarking, which search engines increasingly will turn to as the web gets larger (I’m pretty sure having your blog entries indexed in delicious helps Google refer your work), anybody who tries to be serious on the net could find themselves in a precarious position.

That’s my soapbox rant, sorry about it, but I felt you should know that sometimes there are really important reasons to get involved on a social bookmarking site. – No, it won’t change the world. But maybe someone will actually learn something. -

I have a pownce account, but I don’t know how i feel about micro-blogging. I think i might switch over to tumblr for all my random linkage.

I do love StumbleUpon and use it quite often.

LinkedIn is very professional, and i use it for all me “work” stuff, from my day job to blogging.

I have not signed up for Twitter yet…maybe soon but if I can’t do something well then I’d rather not get into it at all.

Just started:
*Twitter
*StumbleUpon

Rarely:
*Myspace
*Friendster
*Bebo

As far as how I use Twitter, I actually have 2 accounts. One is my personal account, which I mostly just use for fun and socialization, but also occasionally use to promote my blogs.

The other account is my work account, where I am the “official” Twitterer for the company that I work for. This account is used for promoting our products and blogs, but I also use it to build genuine relationships with people—in many ways, I treat it the same as my personal account, but make sure to keep a bit more of a professional image (no swearing, or posting overly-personal information, for example). I also follow a lot of people who will likely never become customers, simply because they provide interesting perspectives on things that relate to my industry (either directly, or indirectly).

myspace,facebook,Oddpods,Flickr…

The reality of Web 2.0 is that it relies on a small percentage of the population to carry the load. Though I have no objective research I can quote, I seem to recall that only about 2% of the population falls into the catgory of “Maven”, to use the Tipping Point concept and terminology.

My experience is about the same – I am successful at getting a little better than 2% of my wine club members to respond with a review of the wines they order, even after multiple appeals via email and packing slips.

I think a contraction of Web 2.0 options is on the horizon, as the demands and thrills of real life exceed the declining gee-whiz factor of social networks.