stedavies.com - communications consultant

Copypunk aka Clogger aka Milton Hicks (Second Life) aka Head of Creative Media Services at LEWIS PR (nice new website) aka Jon Silk, loves a meme. And was the instigator in July of last year on the ‘My Top 5 Social Media Tools‘ meme which spread across the PR blogosphere. Drew’s compiled a list of what others’ top five were from last year and it’s interesting to see the ‘tools’ that people value and use in their day-to-day job.

It’ll also be interesting to see if anyone’s preferences have moved on since then too. After all, the online world moves at 200mph… or does it? Last year mine were WordPress (what this blog runs on), Bloglines (how I read my feeds), Firefox (great browser), Google Analytics and FeedBurner (for stats and data) and BrandPulse (a very expensive monitoring tool).

This year hasn’t changed that much I’m afraid. The first three, WordPress, Bloglines and Firefox were all there last year. And the two new editions aren’t really tools as such.

1. WordPress. WordPress is a state of the art semantic personal publishing platform. It has too much functionality, too many plugins and, being open source, there are too many developers and designers cranking out useful addons and beautiful designs to make any competitor come close. You know the Apple cult? Think of WordPress as the blog platform equivalent.

2. Bloglines. I believe there’s no better RSS reader out there. And I’ve used a lot, including Newsgator and FeedDemon. Why is it so good? Well, it’s not a desktop reader (which puzzles me why anyone would want to use a desktop reader anyway), which means I can read my feeds from any computer with an Internet connection. But that’s not all, thanks to Bloglines Mobile I can read also read my feeds anywhere I have a phone signal. Bloglines is my door to thousands of opinions and insights.

3. Firefox. Read this post to see why it’s one of my favourite social media tools.

4. Last FM. Not a tool at all. But it helps me work better so I guess it is a tool in that respect. Kinda. Last FM is an awesome Web2.0 music station that has revolutionised the way I discover new music. I have my own personal radio station playing only the type of music I like without the adverts and without the annoying DJs. Excluding Chris Moyles because he’s not annoying, he’s a legend.

5. Facebook. Again, not a tool but it’s a social media platform that allows me to keep up to date with all my mates and colleagues. I really think it’s a fantastic way of maintaining relationships that can’t be maintained in the real world due to geographical constraints. Okay it’s not as good as in person but it’s better than nothing.

So there you have it. Nothing much to report from Davies Towers this time around.

Bloggers I’m tagging (and I know some people hate memes so please don’t think I’ll be offended if you don’t respond) are David Brain, Ed Lee, Paull Young, Ewan MacLeod and Melanie (Mel) Seasons.