Wired For Noise

To end the year I wanted to share some of my favorite online services and sites. If you are blogging for money or fun these are the sites that can really give you a boost. There are so many fun things going on on the web it’s a bit hard to know what’s cool and what isn’t. Not that I’m any indication of “cool”, but I can at least say what is cool to me. Of course your list might be totally different, but these ar the top five things online I think everyone should be rocking in 2008.

1. StumbleUpon

I’m always a bit shocked that more people aren’t using SU. It is my #1 fave for playing online. It works simply. Just sign up and download the toolbar. Don’t worry, there’s no spyware or virus or anything. And it’s a fairly small program. My nearly dead PC can handle it, and it freezes if I open notebook. Once you have the toolbar running you’ll notice a little thumbs up and thumbs down icon. These are awesome. As you’re online like normal you can use these to give your opinion of a site, blog, article, whatever. If you’re reading a blog post and think it’s great give them a thumbs up, if you find a website you think sucks give them a thumbs down. If you are the first person to rate the page a little box will pop up asking you to write a brief review and tag the page. But even if you’re not the first person you can click the little speech bubble a couple icons away from the thumbs down and add your two cents or see what others have said. You can also channel surf with SU. Choose to search through “homebirth” and you’ll be taken to page after page that people have tagged homebirth, and you can rate those pages yourself. There is so much more to do you just have to download it and play around yourself. (Hat tip: check out my profile and friend me!)

2. Social Media

While StumbleUpon is technichally a social media, because it offers so much more it gets it’s own spot. Still there are some good sites. Everyone knows about the big guys, Digg, Reddit, Del.icio.us, to name a few. But there are lesser known sites that are worth checking out too. Sk-rt is my favorite right now. It works like Digg, you submit articles, news stories, or blog posts that you want to share with others and they can vote them up or down if they like them. However Sk-rt is for women only, something that a lot of mom bloggers love. With categories such as family, parenting,crafts, home, and the such you can share things that would normally get mocked in the bigger media outlets.

Another great one is Hugg. Again this site works almost just like Digg, but it’s geared towards environmental issues. This is definitely where to go for all your tree hugging, environmental, hippie news.

And if you are looking for somewhere to hang out andmeet other bloggers Cre8Buzz is the place to go. It’s a bit like MySpace, except without the teenagers and annoying junk that runs rampet there. And unlike MySpace or Facebook they welcome breastfeeding photos. If you’re looking for somewhere to meet other cool bloggers or share important articles online these are the perfect places to do so. (Hat tip: Visit my Cre8Buzz profile)

3. Google Reader

I’m a late convert to the Google Reader scene. Basically you set up an account, then add all the blogs you read to the reader. Then check back in and see who has updated. No muss, no fuss. What made me finally switch over was actually this share feature. Scroll down the right side of my blog and you’ll see a little blue box of what I’m reading. As I read through the feeds I can mark to share any that I really like and they show up here. I love it because it lets me share really awesome blog posts, and I think you can learn a bit more about me by checking out what I’m reading. Of course not everyone likes this feature, and I understand why. I’m just saying that it works for me.

4. Blog Carnivals

A blog carnival is kind of like a magazine that moves a lot. Basically is a grouping of blog posts that all fall into a specific theme. There are tons of different blog carnivals to fit almost anything. And if you can’t find one you can start one. It’s a great way to show off a post that you love. Just had over to the search page and type in what you’re looking for. Have a fun family post you want to share, try the Carnival of Family life. Wrote a post about exercise submit it to the Fitbuff carnival. Talk about living more green visit the Green Mommies carnival. And of course, I run the carnival of SAHMs where you can share posts that deal with life as a stay at home mom, tips, stories, or advice.

It’s fun to not only share your posts but to also check out the carnivals as they are published and read what others have shared. You can find some great bloggers that you might not have heard of before. Making new friends is always good.

5. Memes

So a meme is “a theoretical unit of cultural information, the building block of cultural evolution or diffusion that propagates from one mind to another analogously to the way in which a gene propagates from one organism to another as a unit of genetic information and of biological evolution”

Oh, sorry. Not that kind of meme. Try this definition instead. Basically it’s something fun that you saw someone do, decided to do it yourself, and then someone else saw you do it and did it too, and so on. There are several fun memes out there on the web that I think more people should be doing. Most people know about Wordless Wednessday, were you post a photo and nothing else on Wednesday. And there is the Thursday 13 where you make a list of 13 things, anythigns you want, and post them on Thursday. But there are some other fun meme-ish ones you should be doing too. Wednesday is popular with Works For Me Wednesday, where you share a tip each Wednesday. And there is the new Winter Bazaar that happens every Wednesday too.

There is also the Tackle It Tuesday, if you need some motivation to clean something. The Saturday PhotoHunt where you post a themed photo every Saturday. If you want to give yourself a reason to smile each week there is the Thankful Thursday. Or for you food lovers, healthy eaters, and frazzled moms there is the Meal Plan Monday where you create and share a meal plan for each week. There are dozens more out there, and I’m sure if you look hard enough you will find them all. Or you can always start your own. I’d like to see a “lazy mom” meme started where we all share pictures of ourselves still in our pj’s with messy hair and a a floor that needs to be vacuumed. It might make me feel not to alone.

(photo credits: Zanetta Hardy, Sanja Gjenero, Flaviu Lupoian, Julia Freeman-Woolpert, Michal Zacharzewski)
[tags]blogging, stumbleupon, social media, sk-rt, cre8buzz, hugg, meme, blog carnivals, fun[/tags]

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Blogging For Dummies

Screamin' Meme

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