Outside of Facebook I have avoided the social networking game. I signed up there because a few people at work started and then it exploded. Social networking has become a legitimate business strategy and allowing people to connect with each other is a huge advantage.
Still, I played on the sidelines. I knew of Twitter but did not see much use out of it, especially when I was told from coworkers and the Internet that once you start a Twitter account you cease to blog. I held onto my reservations until I did some reading about the iPhone applications Twitterific and Twinkle.
The latter is essentially Twitter with the ability to see who else is on Twitter in your area. This added a very local and real element for the application and one I could see myself using. Moments later I had a Twitter account and both Twitterific and Twinkle installed on my iPhone to give them a test run.
I gave Plurk a run for a few months, got used to the character restrictions but could not get into its purpose. I am not sure if it was the scrolling time line, losing Karma by not having anything to say or something else but it did not intrigue me and I rarely check the site for updates.
There was a surge of people coming from Twitter to Plurk after Twitter became notorious for downtime but the popularity of Twitter and the users on it still make it appealing. I hope the ability to follow people outside of work, see what other Edmontonians are talking about and receive news updates is enough for me to stick with it; all the while without slowing down my productivity here.
Continuing with the iPhone love-fest and things it does, yesterday I used Google Maps with GPS on my iPhone to drive to a new location and it worked like a dream. It took a few blocks to get my exact location but once it was locked on I could track my progress as I drove and it lead me right to my destination. This was a really handy feature and I did not need to refer to my printed out directions once.
If you are keeping track that is iPhone 2 : 0 Everything Else.
