Be Excellent To Each Other

Talking about the next big thing in t'other thread has made me think about the current big things. We're all a member of some forums and get info and other things through them, most of us socially network on twitter, myface or something like that. Beyond these though, which sites do people tend to stick to for getting new internet stuff?

WTB prefers Reddit to Digg, for example. I have Digg and delicious and Tumblr and Soundcloud and Spotify as my random sources, and I tend not to question why or change my habits. If I discover something on youtube, it's because I've followed a link there or having done so, spotted something down the right. I'd never jut navigate to Youtube and start browsing. Does anyone?

With News sites, social networks, forums etc all covering the same topics, how do you learn about stuff? Particularly now that things trend on twitter before they make the BBC frontpage.

I think I'm just a little concerned that I'm using the entire web arse backwards compared to other, more efficient means. For just about everything google does - mail, RSS, maps, office, calendar, I use google. Security aside, is this daft and what do other people go for?

We're all communicating on this thing and I assume everyone just does as I do. Surely that's bollocks.

Hmm. Well, I use Twitter as my primary guide to what's going on in the world. This place for conversation. Tumblr and blogs linking into google reader for more in-depth information, mostly cookery-based. Instapaper is superb for things I want to keep. My entire recipe collection is my instapaper account.

What else. I have my own domain for mail, use drop box for offline storage and backups of all my photos and stuff. I think that's about it.

>10mins free time
Metafilter has within the last two or so weeks has started replacing boingboing as my favourite site that curates links that are interesting but require some modicum of attention.

<10 mins free time
Reddit for less interesting links but for a shallower attention span. Digg is a fountain of shit in comparison. I sometimes post as lave on there. The posters can be very up themselves though, and it's full of in jokes and the celebration of being losers. Get off the main site and into smaller reddits like /r/science. /r/minecraft, /r/space, /r/scifi then it can be super ace.

Procrastination injections
Twitter is wonderful for getting a gist of what interesting people are discussing. Just be careful not to read it during or around xfactor broadcast in order not to think less of the world.

Science and that
BadScienceBlogs is a brilliant collection of blogs (set up by Goldacre) and is great for more indepth reading. Skeptobot is one of the blogs on their though, and has lead me to compare the drivel I pump out to the other stuff on it, which has in part lead to the complete lack of writing on my part. Something I'm working to change.

Games and that
PodGamer is written by :attitude: (and CraigG and J Nash!) but ignoring the history is the best iOS game review site by a LONG LONG way. Well ever since inverty.com stopped updating... :( I supplement that with reading the RLLMUK and Penny Arcade iPhone game threads and occasionaly visit TouchArcade and slidetoplay if my interest in news isn't sated.

For other games I check eurogamer despite not being able to bring myself to read a review from there for months and check out reddit/r/gaming and reddit/r/indiegaming. I listen to views from forums weighted first from here, then penny-arcade (especially a guy called Lunker who has impeccable taste) then rllmuk.

RSS feedsuml
I really, really need to sort out my RSS feeds. They are full of junk at the moment. I use Gruml once in a blue moon on my Mac and Reeder daily on my iPad (which I rarely talk about but has quietly revolutionised how I consume media).

To be honest, I do even less than you do. I'm not one to be eager to catch things the second they've happened - I'm quite happy to wait until the full facts are out and there's a proper article to read etc. So for that reason, my main sources are the BBC News site The Register for tech stuff.

When I used to work shifts though, I'd run out of sites to surf pretty quickly through the middle of a dull night shift, so I used to be signed up to Fark's members version, Totalfark and that was good for finding new stuff. I've just had to visit fark.com to see if it was still there though as I've not been on it in maybe four years.

Never bothered with RSS feeds personally though - I tend to go looking for news when I want it. I've had a good few stories brought to my attention to this Beex too - you lot save me looking too far.

very much so. I tend to get bored pretty quickly too on the net and seem to spend a lot of time sitting on BEEX waiting for someone to post something.

And I thought you liked Angry Birds