The world is going social media crazy; no matter who you are, where you live or what you do, it is highly unlikely that your life hasn't been in direct contact with some or other form of social media. The purpose of this post is to give a nice round summary of the various IM's, social networks and social apps that I use. Whether this will benefit you or not is still to be seen.
Facebook: the all-consuming internet eater. Hailed as the
death of workplace productivity and the birthplace of
daylight stalking. Say what you want about it: I think Facebook's here to
stay. Click on the FB logo to be redirected to my profile if we're not already friends.
Twitter: 140-character micro-blogging; who'd've thunk it? It's here to stay.
Hashtags in TV commercials? What is the world coming to. Try listening to the news on the radio without hearing the words 'Twitter', 'tweet' or 'tweeted'.
Impossible! Click on the Twitter logo to connect with me on Twitter.
Tweetdeck centralises all of your social networks, connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Google Buzz
and more. I only use it for Twitter; I find it's
auto username fill-in and
hash-tag memory particularily useful. It's use of
columns is also a great way of organising
different streams of information, and I'd highly recommend it over any other apps I've tried (Echofon, Twitfox). Click on the Tweetdeck logo above to download the desktop client.
Skype: the go-to instant messenger for most of the world. For
video chatting and
conference calling, Skype is number one. I have a few gripes with Skype, but not enough to deny its
solid interface and
reliable operation (bar its
recent fuckup). Click on the logo above to download Skype. Add me: nick.dfrost.
Gtalk, like everything
Google is
clean, simple and
super-easy to use. With Gtalk you are able to connect with a variety of IM contacts. This is my instant messenger of choice at
work and at home. Click on the logo above to download Gtalk. Add me: nickdfrost
MXit: local mobile messenger of choice and my ex-employer. MXit found a niche in the South African market that no one else could and capitalised on it. They are now the
sole means of communication for a large percentage of our country. MXit is slowly
evolving into a social network themselves, so it should be interesting to see how they develop in the future.
Download MXit on your phone by visiting www.mxit.com/wap on your phone browser. To download the MXit PC client, click on the logo above. To download the
best PC Client (in my opinion)
download Daxtop.
So that's it for now. There are a few others I make use of, but I'll leave that for a potential part 2. Anything I'm missing out on? Leave your contributions in the feedback section below.
Good post, and I use most of these myself. To be honest tho, I suspect MXit's heading towards faded obscurity.
ReplyDeleteMaybe. From what I've heard, they're working on a few game changers at least; the release of their API last year should see a wealth of new apps, games, features being created. Hopefully that will keep it fresh and original.
ReplyDelete