A Tour de Flake

In a world where communication technology is ever-changing, adapting and improving, it is hard to keep up with the latest and greatest.

Well, that could have been said a few years back but no longer can we use that as an excuse. I introduce Pageflakes, a dynamic part content aggregator, part personalized homepage that can place all that you would want to know about a subject right at your fingertips- well your digital “fingertips” that is.

So to all you social network nuts or even the social networking confused I say, “Your Welcome.” I have created a Pageflake that is a home base for all the valuable blogs, academic articles, and news that I have discovered through Diigo, Delicious, and onward. Think of the Text, Tweet or Talk flake as a hub for information regarding what is going on in the world of interpersonal communication today. Whether you want to know what is the new, hot techie trend via Mashable.com or the effect that social media trends are having on parents and teens, no problem. The content is sent straight to this one page.

Now at first glance, my Pageflake could look confusing or overbearing to someone who is new to Pageflakes. I myself found exploring a flake to be fairly confusing at first. Because of this, I am providing you with what I will call a “Tour de Text, Tweet and Talk;” in essence, a walking tour of my flake.

So grab your walking shoes and cameras and let’s head out into the content aggregator abyss.

UNIVERSAL SEARCHES

Here I provided two universal search flakes pre-loaded with search phrases. For the universal blog search I entered the phrase “online networking trends” as a default search terms. After many combinations of the words social, networking, media, communication, trends, etc., the chosen combination brought up the most salient blog resources. For my universal news search default search I chose “social networking trends” which brought up pertinent news articles that explore new findings regarding social networking sites.

Watch your step: A lot of what is brought up has to do with more of the business side of social networking, such as marketing or advertising, but nonetheless gems can be weeded out amongst the pile.

MY BIBLIOGRAPHY

In addition to providing links to purely online web content, I have included an annotated bibliography that includes fourteen additional academic peer-reviewed sources that pertain to interpersonal communication trends.

A Must See Scenic Stop: My favorite source that I came upon via research was danah boyd’s article titled “Facebook’s Privacy Trainwreck." boyd (yes, purposely lowercase) is a well-known scholar that I have studied in many of my communication classes so to discover her thoughts on Facebook’s effect on communication and privacy was really exciting. Don’t miss out on that one.

My selection includes a large amount of newspaper articles as I found them to be the most straightforward and simplistically insightful regarding social media trends. While searching, I found many research journal reports regarding social effects but they were a little too scientifically-dense. After reading about “placebo group N200” and “25% yields” (both which I have no clue what they are referring to) I decided to include the resources that readers (and myself included!) would find the most clear and interesting.

RSS FEEDS

Here you will find up-to-date RSS feeds from ten of my favorite social networking and technology sites that the web has to offer. I have included a spectrum of blogs that explore topics ranging the latest Facebook privacy update to TechMama’s social media tip of the day (Can’t forget those Techmama’s!). As a heads up, some of my sites tend to be a little technology heavy, but that does not mean that sources exploring interpersonal trends are not there. Interlaced between a post on the latest iPhone application and Dell’s latest notebook PC is - eureka! - an article that explains how Facebook is changing the job marketplace.

Status' Tourist Tip: For blogs with more analysis into the social effects media trends have on society visit the Social Media Today feed as well as Trends in Communication feed.

MY SOULMATES’ BOOKMARKS

And for all of you that were wondering how things are going between me and JJ, you have no need to worry. Things are still going strong in my relationship with my social bookmarking soulmate, JoannesJacobs. It is still a match made in bookmarking heaven. Since JJ has provided me with some intriguing and informative web resources via his Selicious blog list, I have included an RSS feed on my Pageflake that provides a few of his latest tags. Therefore, the flake is not solely filled with content that I personally have found exciting but content from my fellow social networking friend is included as well.

THE FINAL STOP

As the tour comes to a halt you have only one thing to do: dive in! Explore the different RSS feeds, news results and article references that my Pageflake provides. I am sure you will find something you find interesting. And perhaps you will Tweet about it…or text your friend about it…or who knows, even talk (Gasp! A real phone call!) about it.

-Status

Direct link to the Pageflake:
http://www.pageflakes.com/texttweetortalk/