So, as  a follow up to my rant about the lack of value in most social networks that clog the arteries of the internet these days; I thought it’d be a good idea to follow up with some thoughts on networks and programs that I do like, and why I think they’re cool.

[Networks - The places online for social media]

1. Twitter – Probably not a surprise to most tech folks out there. For those of you who don’t know (geez), twitter offers a sort of ‘micro-blogging’ platform. It’s kinda like blogging for people who don’t have time to blog. With a max post length of 140 characters (not words), you can’t say too much. However, it’s a great way to keep up to date with your friends, or important people, like Tim O’Reilly. 

1.a. Pownce – For all the same as Twitter, but a different network (with more features too). This is Kevin Rose’s (Founder of Digg) Twitter Clone. 

2. Delicious – I can’t begin to say how much I like Delicious. The actual site (again, for those of you who are scratching your heads right now) is del.icio.us. The idea is to have a place online where you can store your bookmarks. That way, you never have to worry about not being able to find that one video online, when you’re at your mom’s house or something.

2.a. Magnolia. – For all the same reasons as Delicious. Magnolia is just a different interface to the same idea as Delicious. 

3. Flickr – Hands down, nobody has online photo sharing down like Flickr. The amount of things you can do to your photos with Flickr is nothing short of obscene. To top it off, the developers are a pretty eclectic group of characters. Call me an idealist, but I like the idea of nutty dudes (and dudettes) writing software that really does something for the world.

[Software - The stuff on your computer that helps _you_ out]

1. Twhirl – I use Twhirl pretty much exclusively for ‘tweeting’ these days. Twhirl runs off of Adobe AIR, a sort of intermediary between a program, and it’s operating system. This means that if you’re running Windows (XP, or whatever Vista variant), Linux (within reason), or OSX; you will be running the same program. That makes for easy support. Anyways, Twhirl is awesome because it doesn’t always give me the ‘too many requests’ errors of twitteriffic, AND it posts to Pownce for me too.

2. Flock – Flock is a browser that’s built on top of Firefox. It makes keeping up with Social Media sites pretty easy. Some of the features of flock (like the top media bar, displaying photos and videos) are equally awesome, and cumbersome. Despite some of it’s shortcomings, Flock is still a really cool app that does a good job of combining a web browser with a social media dashboard.

3. Adium – Now, some of you might not think of instant messaging as a type of social network. No websites, no pictures, no birthdays, no etc… However, IM was really the first type of social network, and it was well beyond it’s time. These days, if you’re not on IM, you don’t talk much to me. Seriously, my wife has to get on IM to chat with me, when we’re in the house together. IM is king, and Adium makes using IM a breeze.