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Which Social Media Sites Would You Use if You Could Only use 3?

Posted By Darren Rowse 7th of June 2008 Reader Questions 0 Comments

Here’s a question for the weekend that was submitted to me from Twitter friend philbaumann who asks:

if you were permitted only 3 social sites to work with, which ones would you pick?

So it’s over to you for your comments.

Which would you choose (be it social bookmarking sites like Digg, StumbleUpon or Reddit, or social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace or Social Messaging/Micro Blogging sites like Twitter or Plurk) – and WHY do you choose the ones you choose?

About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Comments
  1. 1. stumbleupon
    2. mybloglog
    3. the magnet on the back of my car, along with my snazzy t-shirts that have my website name on them.

  2. Hey Darren,

    1. Stumble Upon- as I like the basic idea (although I find the navigation to be a bit un-friendly) and it brings a lot of traffic to my blog.

    2. Facebook- I don’t know why but it seems to be working well for me on my English blog as well as my Hebrew websites (I’m from Israel, that explains the Hebrew).

    3. I like Twitter but could live without it. Most of the time it helps me know what you and a few other people I follow are up to.

  3. 1. Linkedin
    2. Twitter
    3. Facebook

    Probably because I am most familiar with these sites so far. I am pretty new to social networking. A lot of my friends are on Facebook, I get a lot from the Answers section on Linkedin and a lot of people follow my updates on Twitter.

    I am open to using more though.

  4. Been thinking hard on this one simply because I’ve just recently gotten back into the swing of things.. PHEW, but there are a lot of them..

    Speaking from the point of view of someone advocating accessibility, especially cognitively along with loads easily because I’m on cheap, cr***y dialup (and not to mention my local phone company could be putting the squeeze on the line as well)…..

    Bookmarking :: Digg is working for me.. Takes a bit for it to digest my proffers, meaning it’s slow to respond, but I can get around it easily without having to fight it to find where I do this, that, and the other on it..

    StumbleUpon :: Downloaded it yesterday.. Already, hm, well, not wild that it had to be installed.. No offense to its creators, but I kinda, sorta feel a little violated.. It’s a “me” thing.. :wink:

    Social Networking :: Facebook is “fairly” easy to load time-wise.. Ease of (cognitively) navigating around, well, is why I don’t visit it any more than I do.. *Do like* that it seems to be attracting all ages..

    MySpace :: Nothing’s changed there.. I was “griping” to the Help desk a couple of years ago about how cognitively unfriendly the navigation is.. Try always to somehow give it the benny of the doubt that it is “me”, but, ummmmm….

    Oh, and the download time, fuhget about it.. I think I get to actually see about 1 out of fifteen or twenty sites whose leads I follow to MySpace.. *Seriously*.. The download time is *SOOO* bad that I get shut out time and time AND TIME again before a page *FINALLY* loads..

    MicroBlogging :: Twitter is who I’m using right now.. (My) memory is one thing I have to work with each day.. *Think* I’ve finally engraved Twitter permanently into it just moments ago as I made a conscience promise to myself to try using it multi-times a day to help get out what I have not been able to work into my blogging and other disability (self-)advocacy efforts as effectively as I might have previously..

    One Stop Feed Promotion :: Once I got the hang of it, was able to quickly load my feeds into FriendFeed.. Checked it a day or so ago and *loved* that it has turned out to be a one-stop place friends will be able to go to catch everything these Fingertips do..

    Tumblr :: Started an account with them.. Just checked it now.. It’s in second for that it is also successfully stalking me across the Net based on the feeds it does allow..

    Who’ll Be My Hero..? :: The fella that lets me add my personal website feeds in, as well.. :hint, hint, HINT:

    Saw MyBlogLog mentioned.. They’re on my go-back-and-figure-out how to weave into what I already do.. In performing Internet searches on some of my favorite keywords, have, giggle, found myself turn up high in the returns because of MyBlogLog.. Cool.. :wink:

    Off to help a friend *hopefully* increase the accessibility of her personal website.. This was fun..

    Cyber hugs from North Georgia.. :)

    PS.. Hey, speaking of Memory.. This is old, *OLD* news to the oldtimers, but every site out there would benefit on some level if you were to instigate a monthly tickler at least on your websites..

    From being online since the mid ’90s, I belong to *so* many I love, but I simply don’t remember as Memory continues to fade.. You send me a tickler of, say, the latest high traffic posts if you’re a message board, into my inbox, and I guarantee I come to visit.. I may not necessarily log in so you can document it that way, but I will have been back to play and catch up on *your* Life if all else is going well in mine at that moment in Time.. Pinky-swear.. :wink:

  5. Oh my what i have realised is that i should teach myself about StumbleUpon & Digg. I enjoy Facebook but from the comments mentioned above i am missing out on a lot!

  6. What a great post! I love reading about what other people are using and finding some new sites.

    My three are StumbleUpon (my fav), Twitter (although it may get edged out by Plurk) and Entrecard (it can be social, right?).

    As far as things go that really don’t have anything to do with my blog, nothing beats de.li.cio.us.

    I really can’t confine myself to three….

  7. I will choose Digg for its popularity, Stumble Upon for its quality traffic and twitter for traffic and instant messaging.

  8. Digg,BumpZee,and MyBlogLog for now…of course with OnlyWire you could bookmark up to19 services at once.

  9. SU first – best conversion & traffic
    Reddit – good traffic
    Digg – almost no conversion + I can’t afford a server to handle a digg effect

  10. 1. reddit
    2. hacker news
    3. del.icio.us

  11. A social site that I think everyone is missing here is YouTube. It’s a site that most of us use several times a day without thinking of it, so it *has* to go in my top three. So here’s the list:

    1. Twitter
    2. YouTube
    3. FriendFeed

    Thanks for the great question, Phil!

  12. Ari, if you only signed up for Twitter when it started and then got rid of it, I’m not surprised you didn’t love it. It’s pretty much all about the people on there, and I’m guessing there weren’t that many there at first?

  13. Myspace ( I know this is sad, but all of my friends are there)
    Facebook (once again for friends)
    Twitter(keeping up with the web culture)

  14. I would have to say Facebook, StumbleUpon, and LinkedIn

    Facebook allows me to stay connected with the people I care about, StumbleUpon because you find all kinds of cool stuff online, and LinkedIn for professional development

  15. great post – thank you! I’m trying so to get down to ONE and instead keep adding more and mroe.

    LinkedIn-business
    friendfeeder-consolidates others
    twitter

    oh, but also flock (which incorporates these) and … digg and
    guess you’re starting to see the problem.

    So glad you’re taking this survey. Will you be revealing your own preferneces in a future post?

  16. This is a no brainer for me.

    Twitter, Plurk, Linked-In

    Those are the ones I’m on the most right now (there are others though, trust me) and seem to be resulting in the best business.

    But then again, that could change in a month or two, who knows what awesome new site is on the horizon!

  17. MySpace – Because I have several family members and good friends there.

    Plurk – Because it’s a great community so far, and I’ve met a lot of really cool people that I’ve enjoyed talking to.

    Digg – It’s still one of the best ways to stay up-to-date on the latest news.

  18. 1) Stumbleupon – for bookmarking and driving some instant traffic
    2) Orkut – to keep up with all my friends who are off the blogging world.
    3) Plurk – the new addiction to keep up with trends and having fun!

  19. Twitter (can I include TwitPic?), Facebook and Plurk.

  20. In no preferential order:

    1. twitter (when it is working) useful, fun and a great communication and marketing tool
    2. StumbleUpon – it is relaxing and total discovery at it’s best
    3. Mixx social bookmarking and submission that is way better than Digg

    Hey Darren hope you’ll publish some kind of stats with so many responses.

  21. Twitter – Short communication
    Facebook – Social Networking
    Linked In – Business Networking

  22. I’m surprised no one has mentioned Plaxo’s Pulse (http://www.plaxo.com). You get your friends and colleagues address details instantly updated, you can link in lots of different feeds and share photo’s etc.

    I use Facebook to keep in touch with some friends and family and Linked in for business contacts.

    But I’ve got to say the top of my list for social networking is my motorbike which always opens up introductions to new people where ever you are and then you follow up with those old fashioned forms of social networking called e-mails and phone calls.

    Great blog Darren and good question philbaumann.

  23. 1. Digg – News, news, and more news!

    2. Twitter – Who wouldn’t? Great for networking an sharing and receiving information.

    3. StumbleUpon – Great for discovering information you want to read/watch from certain niches.

  24. Twitter, twitter and well… twitter! I don’t like that it goes down all the time, but it’s the only site I actively use.

  25. The top three sites I use is stumbleupon, digg and twitter. However I am inclined to increase my network on facebook since allows the users to add applications and connect with the friends.

    With facebook you can use other applications also …. like videos, feeds etc

    Regards,

    Santosh Puthran
    Management Accountant Blog

  26. WordPress, Twitter and Facebook.

  27. Fun post Darren.

    As some people were asking for the data, I took the liberty the do so on my recent post.

  28. For social bookmarking I like to use Digg.

    I have both Myspace and Facebook. I must say though that I like Facebook better than Myspace. There are a lot of spammers on Myspace and the crowd is teen to young adult. I’m in my late twenties so most of my friends are on facebook. However, I hate Facebook apps requests.

    For Social Messaging I like Twitter. There are a lot of bloggers using this app and its easy to stay in touch.

  29. I like Ecademy, Facebook, and youtube if I could ONLY have 3!!

    Dr. Sally Witt
    http://www.drsallywitt.com

  30. I would like to be picked up by Stumbleupon by far. One of my articles that I wrote about concerning the character who inspired Indiana Jones has aggregated over 30,000 hits over the past 3 or 4 weeks, and my blog is just coming up on it’s 3 month.

    Unfortunately, Stumbleupon blacklisted my profile/URL after I submitted too many links from my site – other ppl could still submit my stories, but I can’t any longer. I had no idea there was a cap, and I wasn’t trying to spam, just get my content out there (and hopefully add value to their service). If there was one tip I had to give to bloggers who are just starting out, it’s don’t overuse Stumbleupon! Save your ratings for your best articles!

  31. Digg: Huge Traffic when ‘gamed’ right.
    Stumbleupon: Basically effortless traffic that can be built on, for thousands of visits per stumble.
    Plurk: I don’t know why, but I find this site really fun… and since it’s new I have the potential to reach the top.

  32. my top three would be :

    orkut [ social n/w ]
    digg
    plurk .

    orkut was my only source of traffic before i got a google pr3 . once i got traffic from orkut , slowly i started gaining feedburner subscriptions and its increasing everyday .hope i get a subscription count like yours , darren . oh yeah …. thats gonna take me a lonnnnnnnnng period .

  33. (1) Facebook
    (2) Linkedin
    (3) Twitter

  34. Friendfeed – It is the most amazing content recommendation and discovery service I’ve ever seen.

    Del.icio.us – It works, it’s simple, it gives me a backup of my bookmarks

    Google shared RSS – I know this is not a traditional social medium but yet it is another excellent source of finding and sharing interesting items.

  35. StumbleUpon, Twitter and LinkedIn are my picks.

  36. My top 3: flickr, twitter, and digg

  37. (1) Twitter: to keep up with tech/green/cool news, make new friends
    (2) Facebook: to keep up with old friends
    (3) Flickr: getting more into photography

  38. Tough call…

    1- Twitter.com : love to leave momentary rants
    2- Stubmleapon.com : love the randomness
    3- pcitylive.com : it’s a local thing in panama city so it keeps me in the loop

  39. Of the 135 responses above this one (or 133 if you discount my two earlier ones), how many people are citing social media sites that they initially learned of at problogger.net?

  40. Facebook, because of all the different applications it has, and the ability to connect with others.

    Flickr, because it’s photography

    Tie: Hubpages/Squidoo for driving traffic

  41. Twitter, Stumble and Digg. That’s all I need.

  42. 1) Facebook
    2) technocrati
    3) digg

  43. My website’s forums – because I know the people there are interested in the same stuff I am interested in (entrepreneurialship, marketing, web development, etc.).

    StumbleUpon – because I can easily stumble upon a new site and find like-minded users there.

    del.icio.us – mainly because I learned how to use it when one of my blog articles went viral on there.

  44. 1) Twitter – totally love the concept :P
    2) Facebook – Got most of my family and friends there
    3) :-

    Basically I’m only active most on the above two – simplify :)

  45. Darren,

    1. I use StumbleUpon for their random stumble feature – It’s like opening a box of chocolate… LOL

    2. I use Del.icio.us to store my bookmarked pages – It also has a search bookmark feature that can be integrated to Firefox – useful me, having 1000s of bookmarked pages.

    3. I use Digg for no other reason than it’s popularity :P

    Cheers!

  46. facebook — for my friends that i know IRL
    del.icio.us — because i can keep nice track of everywhere i’ve been
    twitter — for the bloggy friends that i don’t really know IRL

  47. twitter – cool
    friendfeed – recently discovered
    reddit – nice

  48. Linkedin
    Digg
    Youtube

  49. Stumbleupon, Digg and Del.icio.us

    Digg – very simple and you get traffic to your site.

    Del.icio.us – vey nice and quiet good for bookmarking.

    Stumbleupon – it is really really easy, SU generate more traffic than Digg and DEL.

  50. Dropping a quick bug in your ear that Huffington Post (HuffPo) is the first site I’ve seen integrate Twitter into their comment section.. =D

    First time I saw it was yesterday.. As one enters a comment, they’re offered the option of simultaneously actively logging into Twitter through the HuffPo website..

    Outputs as a TinyURL.com link followed by maybe ten, twelve’ish of the first words in one’s remark.. Nice will be the day it feeds off the Twitter cookie already previously saved on one’s computer (just to skip that one additional step of repeatedly logging in)..

    Surf’s Up.. Gonna git..!

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