ChuckPalm.com

I can’t believe how hooked I’ve become on all the new social media sites. Beyond YouTube and MySpace, or those that have some entertainment value, I’ve begun to discover real business uses for some of the applications and networks that seem to be springing up every day. I’ve officially joined Facebook, Linked-in, Twitter, Webshots, MySpace, YouTube, Reunion.com and Classmates.com, not to mention Skype, Windows Live and Yahoo, Google, and all the PODCASTS newsletters and blogs I’ve been reading on these topics. There’s not a day that goes by that someone “adds me as a friend” “sends me a tweet” “signs my “guestbook” or other related method of “reaching out” virtually. This amazes me coming from a culture of paranoid privacy concerns and identity theft! Regular readers will remember my post about “hiding in the open” by putting most of my information out to the world, but being smart, and safeguarding things that would expose me to threats, But, I dare say that where people used to either have my cell phone number, or an email address, now have close to a dozen ways to find me, or become my friend. My decision to live my life open and online is one that has proven out, and I think my friends agree.  I’m not a fan of the term “friends” for everyone that is in your list of contacts online…hell, most of these people I have had no previous contact with! I do like Linked-in’s term “connections” but for that list at least, I know most of them personally, and it makes it sound so impersonal! So is there a happy medium? Is there a better way to keep track of all your blog subscriptions, friends, social sites, user id’s,
photos, videos, and other related minutiae? There is a new aggregator called “Socialthing“, but it is early stage, and very limiting. I’m addicted to Web 2.0 and Social Networks. By their nature, they are social proof marketing on steroids.  What about the applications? Is there one way better than another to read blogs or subscribe to  Podcasts? The biggest in the world, by usage and sales, is Apple Tunes.
Personally, I can’t stand the interface. I think it is clunky and difficult to navigate, unlike everything else Apple. Not my choice. I LOVE the new program called  Ziepod. It is a RSS aggregator, which is a fancy way to say it gets your blogs and podcasts for you automatically, and organizes them where you can read them easily. I-Google has some of the same features, but no where near the functionality of Ziepod. Try this, I think you’ll like it better than Juice or Apple iTunes. Now go listen to a great   PODCAST will ya?!?!