Online Media Cultist

One of the dirty little secrets of the Internet is that a great deal of the browsing and clicking and reading and interacting are done at the office, on the boss’ dime. And when you’ve hit that post-lunch lull and you’d like nothing better than for your desk to auto-magically transform into a luxuriant cot, scanning around your favorite sites can usually tide you over to when the mid-afternoon caffeine buzz kicks in with attitude.

Of course, there’s no end to diversions online. But interestingly, there are relatively few sites that constantly update. As in, hit refresh and see something different appear. That’s likely why social news sites such as Digg and Reddit have become popular, as you can watch a diverse array of stories getting voted onto the front page and take part in the community-powered action.

One of the indications that my personal viewing habits had entered the “2.0″ era was when I started browsing around Reddit instead of refreshing Drudge Report during idle moments. While I disagree with Drudge’s political slant, it was and remains a great place to find a strange and often striking block of up-to-the-minute news links. However, Reddit’s clean design, interesting selection of stories, and social news features (I maintain that there’s very few things online more satisfying than voting down someone you disagree with) make it a compelling downtime attraction.

For breaking news junkies, Google News is an easy choice, and one of the best places to search for information about a story or issue that may have been covered over the last few days. Getting confirmation on breaking news is usually best served by looking out for what’s usually a red bar running across mainstream media news sites like CNN.com and ABCNews.com. And for those with a taste for the truly tasteless and sophomoric, Fark is a standby, with specially crafted news headers like “New Jersey is all ‘whoever smelt it, dealt it.’ New York is all ‘whoever denied it, supplied it.’”

Checking RSS feeds is a great and efficient way to quickly check up on what’s going on in the subjects areas you’re interested in. I’ve recently made a significant shift away from RSSFwd.com - a nifty little service that sends RSS feeds directly to your e-mail account - to Bloglines, a more traditional RSS reader. Bloglines is great because the functionality is simple and the interface very clean.

Finally, one of the biggest time spenders/wasters of them all should not be overlooked. One of the keys for social networking juggernaut MySpace is that people have an innate desire to express themselves and connect with one another. As social networking tools and companies grow more sophisticated and savvy, niche and themed social networks are developing that are geared toward older (read = above 21) audiences.

Influential tech blogger Michael Arrington announced the “Web 2.0 Companies I Couldn’t Live Without” for 2007 today. The list of 15 web services – including Digg, Flickr, Gmail, Skype, Techmeme, Wordpress, and YouTube – is interesting as a collection in several ways.

My first thought is that while most of these services didn’t exist two or three years ago, they really are indispensable to the daily life of many web users as 2007 dawns. And that’s striking because it shows you what a flattening force technology (and “web 2.0″ as its modern Internet equivalent) really is. I can look at the list and know that I use many of the same information-gathering and communications tools as “influential tech blogger Michael Arrington,” for instance.

If e-mail was one of the Internet’s earliest (and some might still argue only) “killer apps,” I agree with Mr. Arrington that Gmail is just about its perfect web-based incarnation. The ability to tag messages (you can put label a message however you like and have it saved to multiple folders), instant refreshing (messages pop up without you having to do anything), and threaded messaging make it an essential everyday tool.

Two of the selections – Amie Street and Pandora – are music related. I’ve intrigued by a service called eTunes of late, which has kind of an “early beta” look to it but is a really easy way to gather music online and then stream it at will.

While I think that Digg is probably the best current incarnation of the new breed of “social news” sites (though I think the future lies with hybrid models spearheaded by the Netscape, a meshing of an editor- and user-controlled experience), I’m partial to Reddit because of its simplicity and the mere fact that it casts its net to a range of stories that I happen to find interesting. Reddit’s innovation to allow users to vote stories “down” may actually be its worst feature as it encourages active news submitters to vote stories down. However, voting comments down, which Reddit employed before Digg added the feature, is great. Nothing’s more satisfying then clicking a down arrow on someone you disagree with!

While Mr. Arrington uses NetNewsGator and NetVibes to read and organize RSS feeds, I’m partial to a combination of Bloglines and RSSFwd. NetVibes, part of the new breed of “web 2.0 start pages,” is a great product but the prospect of staring at a bunch of boxes crammed with news headlines doesn’t quite work for me in general. That said, I’m nearly awed by what a super-cool product yourminis is.

The other things that I use everyday include Basecamp, project management software put out by the 37 Signals folk, and AIM for instant messaging.

What’s finally intriguing is that there is not one social networking product on Tech Crunch’s (or my!) list. I wouldn’t be surprised if this will change in the next year or two, as companies fall all over themselves developing more sophisticated social networks that cater to an older/more mature demographic and an ever wider array of specific interests and lifestyles.