Internet Tools You Need

If you know me then you know that I am a huge fan of the internet and technology in general and that there are few times during the day when I am not connected to the grid. And contrary to the popuar belief of some I do not spend the majority of my time online playing games. What I do spend the majority of my time doing is keeping up with a number of blogs and trying to filter through the firehose that is the stream of information and news out on the web. There are a couple of tools that I use to help me manage this flow.

1. RSS Feeds 

RSS or Really Simple Syndication is a web feed format that allows for automatic updates from websites. RSS is generally implemented on most any site that you would want it to be on. This is how I keep up with the 30-50 blogs that I follow on a regular basis. But RSS feeds by themselves need to be loaded into a program to read them and allow you to quickly see all your feeds. This is where a feed aggregator like Google Reader comes in.

2. Google Reader is a web based application that allows you to quickly manage and view all your feeds. There are other desktop based programs as well as other mobile programs that I have used from time to time, but the fact of the matter is that while the Google Reader may not have all the bells and whistles of some other programs it makes up for anything it lacks by it’s simplicity and integration with other Google Services.

3. Twitter – Twitter is a microblogging/social networking service that is exploding in popularity at the moment. If you have ever used Facebook status updates it is kinda like that only people generally post more links, information, pictures etc. ie real content rather than just what they are doing. It is a great way to market yourself or business. Also as more and more people start to use the service the search features and trends become and incredible source of information. 

Twitter is web based though there are a growing number of applications that enhance the service. My favorite at the moment is TweetDeck which runs on the Adobe Air platform (which I love). Tweetdeck has just recently added Facebook integration which is great as well.

Coming soon: Vital Firefox Extensions (you are using Firefox right?)