Just A Few Thoughts

Lately I've been thinking about social media, and I'm trying to figure out what I want to say about it without sounding like a jackass. I've been using social media for years, and it's interesting to see patterns of adoption.

When I knew I was moving to Lexington, I contacted a food preparation company Allan had told me about, to propose my services to expand their Internet presence, because I read they were hoping to eventually franchise their business. I never heard back; perhaps I went about it the wrong way, or perhaps they didn't think it was important. Whatever, it doesn't matter.

My point is that I did this long before Twitter existed, or Facebook was opened to the general public. My point is that I'm an early adopter. I'm not an über-early adopter, mind you. I joined Flickr a little more than a year after its start, and I thought Twitter was stupid when I first heard about it, so I didn't join that until January of 2008. But, relatively speaking, I'm on it. (Foursquare? Dude, Brightkite has been doing the location-based thing for years, but without all the stupid Mayor crap.)

So it was interesting for me to see how political candidates used social media last year. It's interesting to see how businesses decide to use social media.

And inversely, it's interesting to be reminded that not everyone is like me in this regard. I read about this next thing I'm going to talk about (notice I said "talk," not "write," heh) last week, and thought I might blog about it, but I put it out of my head until I saw this tweet from @dvs earlier today. The link in his tweet goes here, but I read about it somewhere else (and for the life of me I can't remember where). Whatever, again, it doesn't matter. What matters is the gist of it: This post on Read Write Web rose to near the top of Google rankings for the search "facebook login." (But it never got to #1, as far as I know.) Some people who went to RWW were confused and thought it was a new Facebook. And they left disgruntled comments on the blog entry saying as much! 

So what, right? But this means that people don't use the address bar of their browser to go to websites (or bookmark them). They go to the Google and search for it. And this kind of shocked me, Alison, who has ten different website tabs set as her Firefox "home" page.

It makes me want to tilt my head in that way that Kyle (or Stan) does on South Park and say "Reallllyyyy?" 

Now, some of you are longtime readers of this blog, and many of you are bloggers yourselves. A lot of you are like me, and I know this, because we are contacts (and some of you are friends) on other social media sites. Perhaps you already know all about the RWW/Facebook login and are mocking me because I'm posting about it nearly a week after it happened.

And in the defense of those who use the Google, I will admit to Googling when I'm not sure of a website's URL. (Like the website of the food company I mentioned above. I just looked it up a few minutes ago.) But for a website I go to on a regular basis? If it's not in my home tabs or bookmarked, Firefox remembers it and the URL auto-fills in my address bar. 

RWW had an interesting follow-up post about the FB login entry. It gave me something more to think about. 

What about you? How do you get to your most-visited websites?

Comments

[ɹǝƃƃolquǝʞoʇ]

Bookmarks galore. How do people live without them.

I'm also reading blogs for an hour, but that is all.

[Seuss]

I'm with you, Alison. I can't imagine using Google as a launchpad for *everything*. I enter 99% of my stuff through my location bar. Blogs I read through my Google reader, but unless I'm uncertain of a URL or I'm looking for new info, it's location bar all the way!

[Mari]

bookmarks.

although people tell me that bookmarks are dying ... i have no idea.

i'd be lost without my bookmarks - i like that i can type the name of a place in my firefox address bar and it gives me matches from my bookmarks folder. clicky! clicky!

[Linda]

Perfect timing. Bookmarks are everything to me although I will use Google in a pinch. Loved their Super Bowl ad. Anyway, AOL has high-jacked my parent's generation. They think that AOL is the Internet and to them it is. Cannot imagine not learning everything technology has to offer. We need "early adopters' to pave the way!
Linda

[Linda]

PS My parents are in their 80's!

[Kathryn]

I'm 75% via Google Reader and 25% buttons (links) on the home page of my iPhone. (Hmmm, come to think of it, sounds like the perfect recipe for an iPad.) If I'm looking up an unknown, then I use google to find the URL.

[bhd]

I got here via RSS feed. I go to most other sites because Firefox autofills as I type.

I have a lot of stuff bookmarked, but usually only do that if I don't have time to read a link someone sent, at the moment. My bookmark drop down is an embarrassment. It's the digital representation of my physical workspace. A freakin' mess, IOW.

[Margaret]

Huh? I do the tabbed browsing, depend on the automatic fill in of the browser and have lots of favorites. I would be lost without them. However, every time I clean up the computer with one of my new high powered malware/anti-virus software programs, they get rid of cookies and I have to remember all my passwords. Ugh.

[Scott Beveridge]

Google is my servant, save for a handful of bookmarks.

[lolliloo]

I love it all! I'm just happy that we can get the information that we want thru any # of paths. True, Brightkite has been around awhile, but so has 4Square (just catching on here...Mick's Burning Man buddies were using it in earnest last year)and the Mayor crap....that's the fun of it.....especially if you devise clever ways to cheat!