urbpan: (jeckyll pipe)
urbpan ([personal profile] urbpan) wrote2007-11-27 06:37 am

internets

Hey, you guys! A couple questions regarding the web, and your usage of:

Do you have an automatic news thingie that sends you news stories based on keywords or subjects? Which one?

Are you on any other social networking site(s) than livejournal? Why? What's good about the others?

[identity profile] whatisbiscuits.livejournal.com 2007-11-27 12:39 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm on Facebook because loads of people I know are too, and I can spy on photos of people from school, and play Scrabulous, and it hasn't given me a photo limit yet, unlike Flickr.

[identity profile] featheredfrog.livejournal.com 2007-11-27 12:41 pm (UTC)(link)
No news alert - things are depressing enough without ten-minute reminders.

I run frogblog.featheredfrog.com for my longer posts.

OT: Thanks so much for the link to the RatZapper. Got mine last night, and the rodentia population is already decreasing around here.

[identity profile] broken-angel.livejournal.com 2007-11-27 01:23 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm on facebook because it's a good way to
A)remember people's names, especially my employees
B) get a hold of people whose email address I do not have
C) Find out that there are pictures of myself and my friends on the internet and steal them.
D) Kill time at work playing Scrabulous.

I read cbc news and the toronto star along with some comics every day but I don't have anything sent to me. I agree with featheredfrog. That would just be too depressing.

[identity profile] interglossa.livejournal.com 2007-11-27 01:38 pm (UTC)(link)
I use google alerts. You go to news.google.com and select from the left News Alerts which takes you to the interface. In general the google applications like google reader, google notebook etc. are very predictable and have a nice heft.

A lot of the new social networking sites are very balkanized, and I like book sites (I like librarything, goodreads is ok). The closest in concept or culture I ever saw to LJ was tribe.net but they had a lot of internal problems.
grrlpup: yellow rose in sunlight (Default)

[personal profile] grrlpup 2007-11-27 01:51 pm (UTC)(link)
1. no.
2. Twitter, because it captures small thoughts and a few friends' actions and whereabouts throughout the day.
calypso72: Default profile icon (Default)

[personal profile] calypso72 2007-11-27 01:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Google Reader for RSS feeds.

Facebook for social networking - great for finding people you went to school with or have otherwise been out of touch with for a long time.

[personal profile] miekec 2007-11-27 04:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Ditto x2.
I have google reader incorporated into "My Google", http://www.google.com/ig . There are many other gadgets you can add and customize your page. I find that it works nicely.

Other social sites (facebook, myspace) just to check them out, and touch base with some non-LJ friends. Also hyves.net, schoolbank.nl because it seems like my friends/family in NL gravitate to those.

[identity profile] smallerdemon.livejournal.com 2007-11-27 03:07 pm (UTC)(link)
1. No, not on a regular basis, only on a want to know basis.

2. Vox. Easy to upload video, audio and photos. Downside is the busy interface. LinkedIn to have a social work network. (MySpace = obvious why it's annoying. Facebook = the impasse was too great long ago when I was invited because I had to use my work email to get on it and it was pretty unintuitive. Orkut = I have an account but have only glanced at it to be familiar with all things Google.)
Edited 2007-11-27 15:08 (UTC)

[identity profile] wandererrob.livejournal.com 2007-11-27 03:41 pm (UTC)(link)
That's a no on the news.

As for networking, I use Myspace as well. Partly to goof off, but largely as a great all-in-one place to keep track of local bands I enoy listening to. They're all using it these days to post their new music and show schedules. It beats having to go to each bands website to see if anybody's playing this weekend. :)

I do also have Facebook but that's purely a product of boredom at work combined with IT having blocked Myspace. It's not terribly useful for much other than goofing off and killing time IMO. :)

[identity profile] ms-cantrell.livejournal.com 2007-11-27 03:41 pm (UTC)(link)
i'm being dragged onto facebook. it is considerably better than myspace, but i still don't see the point.

and, i get some rss feeds here and into my email inbox, but they're not based on keywords.

[identity profile] sin-agua.livejournal.com 2007-11-27 05:34 pm (UTC)(link)
It looks as though, I, too, am about to be dragged onto facebook, as I've just learned that both my brothers are there, and we don't keep in touch much otherwise, so...it seems slightly less awful than MySpace, which I avoid like the plague.

Husband likes Google news alerts. I get the occasional RSS feed, but honestly I don't need to make it any easier for bad news to find its way to me. ;) I'd rather have to go looking for it.

[identity profile] rootie-kazootie.livejournal.com 2007-11-27 03:52 pm (UTC)(link)
I used to have an auto news alert, the key words was "emergency", it was very dramatic.
LJ is my networking site of choice. I have an anonymous myspace ID that has been idle for years now. It's a fake, or a sock puppet as some people call them.

[identity profile] smallerdemon.livejournal.com 2007-11-27 10:27 pm (UTC)(link)
I used to have an auto news alert, the key words was "emergency", it was very dramatic.

Hhahahahaha... God. That is brilliant.
hhw: (cat and girl and librarian)

[personal profile] hhw 2007-11-27 04:46 pm (UTC)(link)
I had a news alert -- google news search on the name of my then-employer -- that I kept track of in google reader. I subscribe to several rss feeds there, but no alerts at the moment.

oh, wait, that's wrong; I do have an alert set up for a search in a fulltext database I can access through the public library, for new articles by or about an author I'm researching. I get one email a month with the results.

I have accounts at facebook and linkedin that I almost never use. I haven't found or been found by any old acquaintances through either. myspace makes my eyes bleed (and occasionally my ears, when people insist on having music start up automatically).
Edited 2007-11-27 16:49 (UTC)

[identity profile] rinalia.livejournal.com 2007-11-27 05:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Do you have an automatic news thingie that sends you news stories based on keywords or subjects? Which one?

Yes, Google's.

[identity profile] ritaxis.livejournal.com 2007-11-27 05:15 pm (UTC)(link)
I use lj's syndication feature to get all the headlines from reuters and nytimes. NY times is slmost useless. I also have syndications from a lot of "citizen journalist" and science blogs. I wouldn't even try another social networking site unless it was important for some endeavor of mine.

I used to, and will again, participate in a newsgroup focused on "my thing:" usenet, I mean.

News reader

(Anonymous) 2007-11-27 05:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Funny you should ask. We've actually been ENCOURAGED to use an RSS reader here at work, so I use NetVibes. But it hasn't become a comfortable part of my routine -- who has the time to read all of that stuff??

So just the other day, I bookmarked a handful of my favorite blogs (Urban Pantheist among them) and will read them directly.

This gives me an opportunity to tell you how much I enjoy this blog! Mightily. I'm eager to go to Boston again and visit some of the places you write about.

As for social networking, I'm on Tribe (a great community of thoughtful, smart, funky folks) and more recently on FaceBook (which I'd previously thought was only for 15-year-olds).

~Flaneuse in DC

Re: News reader

[identity profile] urbpan.livejournal.com 2007-11-27 11:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks for the kind words!

[identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/purplebunnie_/ 2007-11-27 05:51 pm (UTC)(link)
We just check our regular news sources every day.

Kill me, but myspace. A lot of people have moved that direction, and it's useful for party invites, etc.
(deleted comment)

[identity profile] smallerdemon.livejournal.com 2007-11-27 10:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Hell, if she just creates an account she can crosspost to LJ with a checkbox.

[identity profile] miz-geek.livejournal.com 2007-11-27 11:55 pm (UTC)(link)
I use bloglines for rss feeds, but that's mostly other non-lj blogs, and not specific news searches.

I've got a myspace account, from when I was listening to Penn's radio show so I could be his friend. Haven't gotten rid of it yet - I get updates from a few relatively obscure music groups that way. I'm also on LinkedIn. Found some people I used to work with there.

[identity profile] proreality.livejournal.com 2007-11-28 12:00 am (UTC)(link)
Facebook, Myspace (what can I say I'm in high school...)

NY Times auto alerts me to anything important.

[identity profile] greenminions.livejournal.com 2007-11-28 12:43 am (UTC)(link)
I use the igoogle page for some news stories. You can set up keywords and it will give you a few stories each day on that topic.

I'm on Facebook and Myspace. And I keep my license plate blog on Vox.
Most of my friends are using Facebook more than Myspace these days so I'm using that more. I like the photo tagging of people in Facebook, though Myspace just added that feature too. I like Myspace better in the way you can customize your page layout with a theme and different colors. FAcebook has the networks so you can find people in similar circles, like your college or workplace by using your institution's email address- so that's good if you are looking for cyber friends that have location in common with you.

[identity profile] elainetyger.livejournal.com 2007-11-28 04:04 am (UTC)(link)
Yahoo sends me alerts on Howard Stern and figure skating.

I belong to several email lists, but no other blog/facetime sites.

[identity profile] uneko.livejournal.com 2007-11-29 08:33 am (UTC)(link)
Nope.

I kinda use myspace, but only vaguely. I signed up because my cousin wanted me to and I'd hoped it'd help keep us in touch better. I continue to use it because of said cousin and a few RL friends. I'd rather use LJ.
weofodthignen: selfportrait with Rune the cat (Default)

[personal profile] weofodthignen 2007-12-10 12:31 pm (UTC)(link)
I do wonder why you want to know . . . maybe it will be revealed in a subsequent entry '-)

Anyway, to muck up the curve as I usually do:

news feeds by keywords - no. I read the free local paper if there's one left in the rack. Online news services are comparatively sucky. I am a recovering news junkie and will miss Europe for the rest of my life, so I do check the Geinangerfjord webcam once in a while and sin ce that's on the Aftenposten site, I usually can't resist looking at their lead stories, damnit . . . I have more than one friend who has a news feed for "viking" on the English version of that site, so I usually get such stories via forums and e-lists. And I used to have the Fortean Times and Scientific American RSS feeds here on my f-list but damnitall, the former now requires personal info and the latter has discontinued.

No, unless you count my copious heathen activities, which I doubt you do. I'm feeling more and more nervous about staying on LJ since it is now only slightly less evil than Yahoo, but most of the people I want to read--and to be able to read me if I ever get back to posting discussion-worthy entries--are here, and some of my f-list (such as yourf journal) is recreation, and that includes the comments pages--other blogging sites don't hold a candle to LJ in any of those respects, despite the max exodus/shutdown among my friends. [livejournal.com profile] siliconshaman launched PirateJournal a while back--in an ideal world everyone would move to that rather than scattering to the 4 winds or simply getting deleted by LJ's management. But wild horses wouldn't drag me onto a primarily social site like MySpace or even Facebook; I already made that decision back when it would have been more useful for me to muscle in there as a representative of heathenry.

More than you wanted to know, and with more bile, I imagine. But I read and commented on LJ for considerable time anonymously, and I refuse to journal; being here is already an uncomfortable compromise and self-indulgence. Right now I should be wrestling with a very late translation of the Nafnaþulur from the Prose Edda.

the curmudgeonly M

[identity profile] urbpan.livejournal.com 2007-12-10 05:17 pm (UTC)(link)
I wanted to know about news feeds because I like the idea of stories about very specific subjects (pest control, for example) being sent directly to me.

I wanted to know about other social networking sites because it seemed like a lot of folks were on them, and I wanted to know if they were worth the time. I've decided they really aren't.

I like lj's commenting ability, too. I was on blogger/blogspot for a little while, but I like lj better. The only thing I don't like is how non-members have to be "anonymous." There should be a prompt in the comment form for name/website.