Thing 11: Social Media

This social media thing is ... interesting. Almost a popularity contest for news, but I get it. It's a way to put more power in the hands of the people. I can see how it could be a time-saver - you can customize the types of stories you want on your homepage, but I can also see how it could be a total time-suck.

After touring all 3 sites, I decided I like Digg the best. One of my friends is on this site (I think - I couldn't find her though), and it just seemed to be the most streamlined. One of them (and I can't think of which) had where you could write your own column on the site, which I thought could be fun, but I have trouble keeping up with my blogs as it is - I don't need something else to fall behind on.

In truth, I think I've been doing this for awhile. Every so often on my blog, I'll post a bunch of links to news stories I think are weird or interesting. I really like the science and technology stories, so those are more often than not the ones I post. True story: One week I found a bunch of news stories that convinced me that all the books I was reading were coming true. I read the Southern Vampire series by Charlaine Harris, and then found an article on the British developing plastic blood. Then, I had just gotten done with Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, and there was an article about this 1,600 lb. hog a boy killed. (I guess you have to be a fan of the books to really get those).

I signed up for Digg, and customized it a bit - though in reality, I think I'll just rely on my RSS feed for news. True, I may be missing something that I could find at another website (or rather that someone else could find at another website), but I just don't have the time for that much news consumption.