If you spend any amount of time on the Internet then I would probably bet you have be subjected to some form of talk about social networks.  Heck, even here on WinCustomize and JoeUser I regularly talk about the usefulness of such networks.  We have a growing group on Facebook about desktop customization, and several of us use Twitter as well.

With all these current networks, and more popping up all the time, it can be difficult to keep track of them all.  I use quite a few of these networks for both personal and work use, and I wanted to share a few tips on how I manage some of the more popular ones.

• FriendFeed is one of the hottest new sites around, and it’s generating quite a buzz.  FriendFeed lets you keep update to date with the happening of all your subscribed friends, favorite bloggers, etc.  It will pull updates from services like Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, Digg, and a bunch more.  It also allows users to comment on your postings, and see updates posted from your friends as well.   You can see my feed here.
  
• Socialthing! is another website that does a similar function, but I think it has a much cleaner interface.  Socialting! is still an invite only service, and I do have a couple of invites to give away if anyone is interested.
  
• TweetScan is for you Twitter users out there.  It lets you search Twitter, and is a good way to find people with similar interests, or people that are just talking about you.
  
• Twhirl is an application powered by Adobe AIR.  It’s a Twitter client for your desktop, but the cool thing about this is it will also post to your Pownce and Jaiku accounts as well.  It’s also available for both PC and Mac, but my personal Twitter client of choice is Witty.
  
• Alert Thingy is another new application also powered by Adobe AIR.  Instead of Twitter, this app focuses on keeping you updated of your FriendFeed feeds, and it also allows you to post messages to Twitter.

So those are a few of my top choices on how to make managing your social networks a little bit easier.  If you have any tips or tricks, I would definitely like to hear how you manage yours.

I see that many blogs, including my own, use MyBlogLog to track visitors to their sites among other features.  One of the most notable features is the MyBlogLog widget that displays your recent visitors and other info.  I’m sure many of you have seen it on various blogs.  Well I just noticed today that they have updated the widget with a new look and new functionality. 

This was apparently updated in February, but there didn’t seem to be much talk about it, and I still see many people using the old widget so I figured some don’t even know about it.  To get your new widget just log in to your MyBlogLog account and click Widget, and configure and get your new code.

While you are at it, feel free to stop by and join my community as well.

Link: MyBlogLog

FriendFeed popped out of nowhere for me.  I hadn’t heard or seen of it until I saw a blog post from Robert Scoble.  With so many networks out there like Twitter, FaceBook, Flickr, etc. it’s sometimes hard to keep track of all the people you follow.  FriendFeed helps out by displaying what exactly your friends and contacts are doing on other networks.  Once you signup (it’s free), you just add as many of your own services as you like, and there are quite a few, and get connected with your contacts.

The interface is nothing fancy, but it serves its purpose well.  A clean way to view the activity of all the people you are somehow connected to.  I think tonight I got all my relevant services listed, so I think I’m all set now.  Feel free to add me to your FriendFeed list.

Link: http://friendfeed.com/sscott