Sometimes, news on the web is noticeably slow - especially in the weekends. It's ironic in a way, considering that millions of articles get written everyday and many go unnoticed. To address this need, here are six social media sites to help you find more great content.
This is a guest post by Corvida, from the social media blog SheGeeks.
]]> StumbleUpon
Whether or not you're an avid StumbleUpon user, whenever news is slow and you're dying of web boredom, StumbleUpon is a great site to visit!
One way to optimize what you stumble upon is to add people who are active users of StumbleUpon, and who are stumbling your topics of interest. To do so, you can use StumbleUpon's search tool. Type in any keyword, or even a brand, and you'll get plenty of results to featured sites tagged with your keyword.
StumbleUpon Search
Afterwards grab the StumbleUpon toolbar, which is available for both Firefox and Internet Explorer. Once you have the toolbar installed, simply select the 'friends' channel in the 'Channel' area on the toolbar and click the 'Stumble' button to browse through your friends stumbles. From there, you're guaranteed to find at least three new articles or web services.
StumbleUpon Toolbar
For some, Twitter may be just a bunch of noise. If that's the case, you're not following the right people. Some of the most avid web surfers are also using Twitter and it's not uncommon for great content to be passed along or 'retweeted'. Keep an eye on your followers for links, especially when news is slow. Someone is bound to tweet something interesting and newsworthy before the day is over.
Friendfeed
Early adopters of web services share some of the best content out there. This is content that may be a little harder for the average user to find. Friendfeed is a prominent new social aggregation service that quite a few early adopters are using - not only for aggregation purposes, but also for sharing great content that they find.
By using the highly recommend Greasemonkey script that allows you to filter Friendfeed by service, you can cycle through what's being streamed from blogs and Google Reader Shared items to find some great content.
LinkRiver
LinkRiver can be your personal Techmeme, because of the many articles that are being shared on it by the users of the service. Here, you can find some of the hottest articles being shared today or this week by 90% of the LinkRiver community. The "LinkRiver Popular" section is a great place to start your search for more content. There are more than a few gems in this section that can get you through a slow news day.
LinkRiver Popular
Techsted
Techsted is a relatively new memetracker. However, it's doing a great job of not only finding great content from the biggest networks out there, but also from various "B-list" sites and bloggers. A great thing about Techsted is that it's not limiting itself to strictly tech content. You can also find content about the latest topics such as deals, launches, announcements, how-to's, questions, SEO, web design, and more. All of this can be conveniently found on the Techsted Dashboard, a new section of Techsted that's reminiscent of the Alltop website.
Techsted Dashboard
Social Bookmarking Sites (Del.ico.us, Diigo)
Last, but certainly not least, social bookmarking sites can be a great source for finding content on a slow news day. Sites like Diigo and Del.icio.us feature everything from recently bookmarked sites to the hottest bookmarks at the moment, all conveniently located on their homepage. No need to add any friends or even sign up, although doing so can help your hunt for more content tremendously.
If you happen to have friends on these sites, pay attention to what they're bookmarking. Just like with StumbleUpon and Twitter, if you're following people sharing similar interests then go through their bookmarks. You'll never know what you'll find until you do. After all, isn't that the point of these services?
Optimization Tips
These 6 services are great additions to any network and valuable resources for everyone. For better optimization for most of these sites, remember to:
- take advantage of the search feature
- use keywords or tags when searching
- add friends or people with similar interests (if possible)
- check the site's homepage regularly
With these four rules to optimize your search results, you're guaranteed to get through those slow news day blues!
This is a guest post by Corvida, from the social media blog SheGeeks.
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