ping.fm, Tumblr, FriendFeed and getting microbloggy with it

I've been twittering much more recently, in no small part due to downloading Snitter.

The latter is a brilliant interface for Twitter.

As a result of that network, I've been turned exposed to any number of new (and exciting) social media services. Each service has made its mark by allowing the user to aggregate and mix multiple feeds from blogs, podcasts, photo services and video networks.

ping.fm, which allows the user to update multiple presence applications at once, just makes my life easier. Many thanks to Chris Brogan for the invite.

I'm trying out Tumblr, after getting tumblr envy one too many times.

Joining FriendFeed has allowed me to aggregate them all together and to subscribe to and comment upon other blogger's shared feeds.

I'm uncertain whether adding more services will save me time in the end or add needed precision to winnowing the important bits and bytes from each day's information glut.

I was impressed with the ease of sign in. Online interface design has come a long way in the past ten years. 

Tagged, tagging and tags

Somehow, I managed to get through November without posting. I have a draft that was never quite published, after a trip to Maine for an acappella reunion, and memories from a week in Maryland that deserve some time and thought. For the moment, however, I have been "tagged" by Grateful Girl, the significant other of a great friend. So... I'll use that as the impetus to get back on the personal blogging horse.

Tagging, in my world, is nearly irrevocably associated with folksonomies and tag clouds. For those that are unfamiliar with that sort of jargon, that term refers to user-assigned taxonomies, a phenomenon assessed and described with eloquence by David Weinberger in his excellent Everything Is Miscellaneous. Here, the tag is more of a throwback to the hoary days of 2002, when bloggers tapped each other to pontificate about the most recent Internet meme.

It's fun, it's friendly and I'm glad to play along.

Here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 5 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
5. Don’t break the chain!

1. I adore "pickle pottage sandwiches" -- stoned wheat thins, peanut butter and dill pickles - though I have them infrequently.

2. I tried to literally cross the Rubicon as a teenager and left a Teva embedded in the river back after my classmates pulled me out of the muck.

3. The first television show I ever watched was a Bugs Bunny episode, courtesy of Warner Brothers. I think it was Duck Season, and I wouldn't see TV again for years.

4. I won a pesto challenge at Star Island when I was 19 by drinking a full tureen of creamy sauce in a go, nearly two quarts. I earned a stomache ache, bragging rights for a week and five large raspberry rickies at the snack bar. Even trade, IMHO.

5. I own not one but three cast iron crepe pans, along with more than a dozen other cast iron skillets, pots and sauce pans. Go figure.

And with that, I hereby tag the following folks:

Matt
Brian
Jack
Beth
Gimpadelic (who, even if GG tagged him already, might benefit from the additional impetus.)