My 5 Favourite Social Networking Websites

The internet has come a long way since my first experiences with it in the early nineties. When we first got the internet at my house, I connected through a 9600 Kilobaud modem, using something I barely remember called Winsock and browsed around using good ole' Netscape Navigator 2.0. The net has gone from text pages, slowly loading 10k images and fodder for cheesy movies starring Keanu Reeves, to the immense, sprawling and endless trough of news, videos, music, opinion and social connectivity that it is today. One of the biggest changes of the past few years is how ordinary people use the internet to produce their own content and share that content with others using social networking platform sites such as MySpace or Facebook. Being that Facebook is not the be all and end all of social media, I have decided to do a little write up on 5 social networking websites that I think are cool and I use the most frequently recently.

Disclaimer: I am not the king of the interweb. You may have never heard of any of these sites, or you may be a power user at all of them. If they are new to you, great, check them out if you think they are interesting. If not, then good for you! You are a savvier web user than I am. Please don't flame me about it.

Last.fm is a site that's new to me, but a quick Wikipedia search tells you it's been around since 2002! Why haven't I heard of this until now? (Answer: because I am not nearly as hip as I think . . .)

Basically, you join the site and start listening to the Last.fm "radio" which plays songs either by tag (rock, indie rock, classic rock, etc.) or by similar artist. That's actually cool enough as Last.fm will continue to stream music you like, but may not have heard of, for hours while you do something else. Just like a real radio, but no DJ's, no commercials, and less of what you don't like. Plus you can ban things (i.e Nickelback) so you never hear it again.

But Last.fm gets better! Socially better.

It has combined listening to songs you like and sharing the songs you like with friends and other users of the site in one slick package. Like a Facebook for music lovers, you create a Last.fm home page with a picture and an about you section and they fill in the details of the songs/artists you have listened to. It creates charts of your most listened to artists/songs and you can even put your custom playlist on your website or blog (see below and to the right for mine).

You no longer need to wear trucker hats or have an asymmetrical hair cut to prove that you listen to cool bands. Last.fm shows off your hipster taste for you.

CreateDebate IS a new site for sure this time. It even has a beta tag on the logo (which for some reason isn't there when you try to save the image and include it on your blog). You also can easily tell that CreateDebate is a fancy Web 2.0, social-networking-platform site because of its logo. It's two colours with a little image on the left and it has a reflection of the log on the bottom. This tells you that the site is cutting edge!

While the logo may be a little cliché the site concept is really cool if you are a nerd like me that likes debating as much as other things that end in bating.

People join up for the site get screen names, home pages and all that jazz, then they start debating. You can either create a debate, or just argue in someone else's. They spit the page in two, and you argue on one side or the other. You can vote peoples arguments up or down, respond to them to oppose or favour or link to other web pages or even embed a video. You can create a whole network of users and classify them as allies or enemies.

If you want to challenge me to a debate, click here.

Metacritic.com is not exactly the most social website when compared to either of their other four. However, there is a social aspect to it, and it is one of the most useful sites I have found in years. The premise is simple: Whenever a new movie, DVD, album, book or video game is released, Metacritic searches the web for all of the major critical reviews of the release. They then take the review, give it a score out of 100 and add it to the rest on the page concerning the movie, DVD, album, book or video game. Then all the reviews are added up and averaged out, giving the new movie or game or whatever a total score somewhere between 0-100 and giving the reader a good idea of exactly how well it was received by critics.

The social aspect of the site involves users signing in and writing their own reviews. All of the user reviews are then totalled and averaged out as well, so for every new movie, DVD, album, game or book released, not only is there a meta critic score, but also a meta user score – for those of us that don't trust professional critics.

Metacritic is so comprehensive and so accurate that it's now my first destination when I am thinking of buying a game or going to a movie.

If any diggers ever read my blog, they would flame me left and right for including Digg in this list, because as far as the average Digger (read: male techie geek) is concerned, Digg always was and always will be the greatest social-networking news site on the internet. Everyone knows about Digg by now and therefore it needs no introduction.

However, if they ventured out of their internet bubble for a few minutes and asked members of the general population if they use Digg to get news, 90% wouldn't know what you are talking about.

Like most good concepts, the concept for Digg is simple. Users submit articles from anywhere on the web and other diggers either digg (vote) it up or bury it down. Only the most dugg stuff in a short period of time makes it to the front page. There is also a very lively comment section that is often at least as interesting as the submission itself.

There is a whole bunch of controversy surrounding Digg's power users and how much influence they have and about a group called the bury brigade that bury some legitimate stories so they never see the light of day. However, just like elementary school, if you avoid the playground fights there is a lot of interesting stuff being uploaded every day. Of course if you liked playground fights back in school then feel free to get involved!

Technorati is another site that probably doesn't need much introduction to all you savvy websters out there. I have been aware of Technorati for years, but I just started actually using it this past couple of weeks. Considering Technorati is the most popular, most sophisticated, portal to the global blogosphere out there right now, it spot on my radar probably has everything to do with the fact that I just started this blog.

If you like blogs, read blogs, or want to be a blogger, immediately sign up right away. If you are a blogger already, there's a 99% chance you have an account. Technorati is set up in such an intuitive way you are going to find new blogs with interesting articles within 10 seconds of being on their front page. You can submit your blog; favourite other people's blogs and start connecting with a community of likeminded bloggers through the sites well designed interface.

The only problem I have found so far is that the site tends to go down a little too often. So far the frustrations have been minor and I strongly recommend this site to anyone interested in the blog world.

7 Money Management Tips from a Guy Who Just Figured Out How to Manage His Money

Back in my late-teens and early-twenties, I got myself into a little bit of money trouble. At the time it seemed like a lot of money trouble, but now looking back, because the dollar amounts were low, it really was only a little. However, I still learned a lot about managing money the hard way, by messing up and finding ways to fix my own problems. Here is my laundry list of dirty deeds that weren't so cheap:

I skipped out on $1200 bill in my name because I didn't have money at the time to pay; I did the same thing for a cell phone bill totalling nearly $200; I didn't make payments on my $500 limit credit card, which ended up being revoked; and I was always scrambling for money to pay bills.

Eventually, (around 23) I got tired of being broke and in debt and I started to take my financial responsibilities seriously. Here are 7 strategies I have used in the past two years to right the good ship Personal Finances and lead a fiscally sound lifestyle.

Make a Budget

And write it down or document it in some way! This seems like a very obvious statement to those people who are already good with money management. However, if you were like I was 3-5ish years ago, your "budget" was something that was up in your head and was easily forgotten about or misremembered. "Budgeting" like this can lead you into lots of problems when you inevitably overspend. And don't start subtracting things in your head, like "well, if I spend $100 at the bar tonight; I should still have enough for the rent so long as the phone bill less than $50, and oh yeah . . . is this the month when the hydro bill comes or is that next month?". You'll fuck up. Trust me.

The only way to keep your head above water is to keep track of the bills, know when they are due, know about how much they are and ensure you have money put away to pay them; which leads me to my next tip:

Create Multiple Accounts

Once you have taken all your bills, averaged out how much they are, and noted when they are due, total up the monthly amount. For example say you pay $400 for rent, $150 for Rogers (home phone, cell phone, internet, cable), $150 for your student loan payment, $100 for your monthly transit-pass, and typically $300 for groceries, total it all up and you get $1300 per month in bills to pay. Most people get paid twice per month, meaning for this example, $650 per pay period needs to go into a separate account that you use only to pay bills. As soon as you get paid, take out the money and put it into your bills account and don't touch it expect pay them.

When I started doing this, it took a huge load off my mind. Even if I inadvertently spend all the money in my chequing account, I know I am not going to get kicked out of my place or have my phone cut off. Follow this advice and you will always get by, of course if you are looking to do more than just get by read the next tip.

Put Saving Money into Your Budget

For years I thought I never made enough money to save. There were so many things I wanted, and because I wasn't separating my pay into spending money and bill money, I always felt like I was scrambling to balance paying my bills and keeping up a decent lifestyle. Once I started separating my pay into different accounts, saving became a little easier. If you are paying your bills account $650 a month already, what's another $50? Trust me, you won't miss it (if you really are going to miss it, scroll on down to the point about living within your means). Open up a 3^rd account at your bank, or open up an ING Investment account and put that $100 per month away.

One year later and you can walk around with that rest-easy feeling, knowing that not only is your budget balanced and all your bills are paid, but you have money in the bank backing you up no matter what happens (except your bank going out of business due to some kind of global depression caused by sub-prime mortgages – if that happens I've got no answer for you . . . get a thick mattress maybe?)

Live Within Your Means

If you follow these instructions and pay yourself first by taking money from your pay check and putting it into bills and savings accounts right away, you will soon see if you are living within your means or not. If what you are left with is a measly amount of money you couldn't expect anyone fully grown to live on – say less than $100 of spending money for two weeks - then you are living WAY above your means. You should take no more than 60% of your take home pay and earmark it for bills and savings. I mean, you still have to live right? There are clothes to buy, movies to see, dates to go on, beer to drink, concerts to rock and life to live. If you don't have a decent amount of money to just spend as you like, you are going to feel pretty stressed out.

If you find yourself unable to pay bills, save money and still have 40% of your take home pay left to spend, you need to rip out a page from the modern corporate playbook and downsize. Since you don't have any useless employees to lay-off, you'll need to think about scaling back on the lifestyle. Can you really afford the high-definition cable? Can you really afford cable at all? Do you need to move even deeper into the ghetto? No one said it was going to be easy, but cuts need to be made so get out your scissors. Of course, the alternative is to make more money, but since that's pretty much the accepted meaning of life here in North America, I'm assuming you are probably making about as much as you can pull off right now. If you can take on a second job then maybe that's an option, but don't wait for that to happen, cut first, and buy it back later if you can.

Use Cash as Much as Possible

Banks love to ding you with charges every time you use your debit card. They also like to ding you with charges if you use anyone else bank machine to get cash. It's annoying but they are the ones who make the rules, so unfortunately, we are the ones who need to play by them. I try to take out a decent amount of cash at the beginning of the week, from my bank's ATM so it's free, and then spend that as much as possible without using the debit card.

Not only does this save on service charges, but there is something more psychologically impactful with actually spending paper money. If all you need to do is push a few buttons to buy something, it kind of feels like you didn't spend any money. When you have to hand over the hard earned cash, it really hits home.

Use Credit Sparingly and ALWAYS MAKE PAYMENTS to Anything You Owe

Credit cards are great to use in emergency situations when you don't have the money, (i.e. the dog needs an operation, your car needs repairs and without it you can't get to work). They are also great to purchase things on the internet that you already have the money for, or to use at places like restaurants, or for car rentals when you already have the money, but paying buy credit card is easier. Once you have made the purchase with your credit card, you need to go to your online banking website and transfer the funds as soon as possible.

Anything else will just get you in trouble. You will eventually have to pay it all back with interest. Why prolong the process? There is no getting away from debt. Once you owe it, you owe it forever until you pay it off. When you die, they will come after your kids! If you are like the old me, when you get a letter in the mail that you know says you owe money - more money than you can likely afford right now - you get this feeling that tells you it would be better to just not open the envelope. Just pretend you never got it.

This is wrong. This is the worst thing you could do. If this is something you have a tendency to do, then please:

Pull Your Head Out of the Sand

If you are facing a tough financial situation, do not ignore it. Trust me. This bombs your credit rating. And yes, your credit rating ends up being extremely important. If you attempt to ignore or run away from a debt too many times, you could very well end up not being able to get a home loan, a car loan, a business loan, a student loan, a job, an apartment or any sort of even the most basic credit cards (let alone any sort of fancy black/platinum card that says "yeah I'm rich").

If you owe any money that has gone to a collection agency, you need to call your creditors right away and make some arrangements to pay. Then you need to actually pay. Every single payment. On time. If you are having trouble doing this, see tips number 1 and 2 and apply the same strategy. If you still think you can't afford to make payments to your debt, see tip number 4.

Biting The Bullet: 5 Reasons Why Arguing With Unruly Clients Will Get You Nowhere

I came across this list on Digg this morning; it's from a blog called Freelance Folder, which looks like a fantastic resource for those "independent" types who can't handle real jobs ;-) Despite the fact that I am not a freelancer, I do work in a sales office and deal with my share of pissed off customers, and I can tell you these are all very good suggestions.

The 5 reasons from the website:

Time Away From Your Other Clients

Breaks Up Your Concentration And Creativity

Anger Spills Into Your Family Life

It Won't Make You Any More Money

The Client Gets A Kick Out Of Making You Mad

Check out the original post here.