Hello again, my social networking friend!

So, I was making my way through the BST section of the DP forums, as I do everyday due to my lack of productivity (see the PS3 post), and I noticed a site for sale featuring celebrity twitterers, twitters, uh…twits. I’ve been seeing more of these celeb twitter behavior patterns lately, what with Ellen gushing on about all her bazillion followers every night, and Ashton letting the world know every second his wife takes a dump or has a lady cramp, but this was on a whole new level of dumb.

The site was organized so you could pick out your fave famous twit and see what they are up to every waking minute. What struck me as ironic was that these celebrities claim to want privacy, and even tweet about the paparazzi harrassing them, yet they become the attention post whores of the modern era from the comfort of their own home.

And it doesn’t matter who it is, but they all seem to be using twitter as just another form of promotion. One celeb only seemed to post about this cause or that one, while another (ok, it was William Shatner!) wants everyone to watch all his latest Star Trek appearances and then visit his daughter’s shopping website.

Now, I’m fairly certain that if I told you to visit someone’s website through a tweet that I would be ignored as a spammer, but if Capt. Kirk tells you to check it out, then hey! Let’s go!! Right?? I can just picture all the big celebrities endorsing products on Twitter already. Oh, the joy to follow!!

This may seem harsh to you, but I found the whole thing quite boring after 10 minutes. Sure, I succumbed to the burning passion of curiousity and looked around for a bit, just because I NEEDED to know what these famous people had going on that was soooo important that we all had to become their unabashed followers, but after a few minutes it was apparent that this was not a place where the intellect flourished.

All the celebrity twits were either plugging something, like one big spamfest of the rich and famous, or else they were engaging in what looked just like the fast and furious text messaging world of teenagers which, in the case of Miley Cyrus, actually makes sense. Either way, it became all rather ho-hum once I realized that none of these people had anything interesting to say.

It’s too bad. I was kinda hoping Britney Spears would chirp to us about the meaning of life. Now THAT I would tweet, er…twat…uh, whatever!

There are so many websites out their that serve the same purpose as Digg, Twitter, or Pownce.  The question is; which of these websites are actually worth your time?  Of course the biggest sites are your most valuable assets, but there are a few smaller sites that could be useful to you.  Since time is one of the most valuable resources that us humans try to utilize, I’ll explain some of the social media sites that I use and why.  Keep in mind that my views, are my views, and merely suggestions.  If I leave out some social media site that you use, it just means that I don’t use it, and has nothing to do with how great that particular site may be.

• Digg:
  Of course, Digg, the most popular social networking site on the Internet makes this list.  It can be utilized to spread important news to people around the world, bring huge traffic boosts to websites, and meet people with similar interests to yours.  Of course there is much to learn before you can change the world with your submissions, as you can see here.  Aside from my business, and news-sharing reasons for using Digg, I find it one of the most-fun places on the Internet.  Just seeing what people have to say on popular submissions makes me laugh, cry, and wonder about the fate of humanity.

  Level of Social Media Necessity: 10/10 (If you’re going to network socially at one place, and only one place, then do it on Digg)

  • Byproducts and Sites Similar to Digg:
    • Reddit:  Instead of researching, I’m going to guess that Reddit came out before Digg.  Or maybe they were both created at the same time, but that doesn’t change the fact that many articles on the front page of digg, are articles from Reddit submitted a little bit later.  Numerous people have pointed this out to me, but since I don’t use Reddit myself, I wouldn’t really know.  I’m assuming that Reddit will always be #2 to the ever-popular Digg, but they both have loyal users, and similar functions.  If I were to use Reddit, I would use it for the exact same reasons that I use Digg.Level of Social Media Necessity: 9.5/10 (Second choice, if Digg were to blow up for some reason I’d use Reddit)
    • Mixx:  Mixx is one of the newer social media sites, that is obviously inspired by the Godzilla of Social Media (Digg).  Most of the functions, and features are similar, but I prefer Digg.  Despite Mixx being much more feature-rich than Digg, I love the simplicity of Digg’s system.  Or else I’m just to lazy to learn more about Mixx.Level of Social Media Necessity: 6/10 for the average Joe
• Sphinn: Sphinn is basically a Digg for webmasters, so in other words, “this could’ve gone under ‘Byproducts‘ but it’s just so unique”.  So since my site is about social media, marketing, Seo and such, I should probably be using Sphinn to my advantage.  A very wise friend told me about this website, and so I’m going to pretend I’m wise and suggest that you (if you’re a webmaster) use this site to promote your product.  After all, it’s like a Digg where people don’t get mad if you submit your own crappy articles on Black-hat link building tactics. I’ve taken the step of adding a little Sphinn button to each of my posts, but unfortunately the problem remains that I am too lazy to learn more about this website.  In time I will metaphorically have to “Get off of my lazy ass” and start doing some extensive research, but until that time comes I will continue to produce self-mocking post masterpieces.Level of Social Media Necessity: 7/10 (If you’re a webmaster) 2/10 (If you just want to Read stuff that probably shouldn’t concern you?)
• Twitter:  Twitter is a bit of fun, great for updating your followers on what your doing.  The problem with twitter is how hard it is to get followers/friends.  Here’s one of MakiMaki’s posts explaining possible ways to get more twitter followers.  I suppose if you were using twitter the way it’s meant to be used then nobody would be struggling to get thousands of followers.  As far as I’m concerned, Twitter is a dumb way to advertise your site, but a rather good way to update readers on topics like “what the next post will be about” and etc…  I use Twitter, basically because I know a lot of cool people who use it as well, though I’ve found no logical reason to tell people when I’m going to the bathroom like the Twitter Whore.Level of Social Media Necessity: 7/10 (It’s pretty cool…)
  • Byproducts and Sites Similar to Twitter:
    • Pownce:  A feature rich Twitter ‘almost’ clone made by Digg’s own Kevin Rose.  This time I’d actually consider Pownce the more mature micro-blogging tool.  Luckily, Pownce was able to add a bunch of extra features, and without losing any of Twitter’s simplicity.  Though I don’t use Pownce as much as Twitter because, well… Twitter came first.Level of Social Media Necessity: 8/10 (better than the original?!)
    • Plurk:  There was a huge buzz for Plurk not too long ago, and when I could see right when I joined that it could be fun.  Is it a useful tool for webmasters?  Absolutely not, but it’s definitely the most fun you could have micro-blogging.  The layout, and visuals on the site are what really get you sucked in.  Everything just seems to fit into place, and you definitely don’t need guides to figure out how to use it.Level of Social Media Necessity: 1/10 (yea it’s pretty much useless)
      Who do you Turn to When you want to have fun Writing (wtf)?: Plurk

After finally writing all of that down I can officially say I’m sick of writing for the night.  It took me a couple of hours just to write down some of my feelings on a few popular social media site that I (have) used.  That means I really need sleep, or some other activity to help me unwind :O.  Remember, just before I publish this article… If I didn’t list the social bookmarking site you use, it sucks (jk :)).