TOP 10 SITES I CANT SURVIVE WITHOUT

In the last 5-10 years, these cunning social networks have sprouted up like mushrooms and have managed to manipulate and infiltrate the cyber scene. Here are some examples:

1. TUMBLR. Blogging for Lazy people. I was EXTREMELY hesistant to add this one, but it is so easy to add someone, and reblog or like their stuff. It is a haven for wannabe fashionistas, but also home to simple gems like these:

2. TWITTER. Or microblogging. Can you speak your mind in 140 characters? People got so addicted to Twitter… so much so that they hooked it up to their phones, connected to facebook and other social networking sites. When natural disasters struck, we got news faster than CNN, BBC and other big media outlets. It took them three days to figure out what was going on in the Philippines during one of the strongest typhoons in recorded history in 2009, that it rained extremely hard for days and flooded streets up to more than 4 storeys  in some areas. American Idol alumnus Elliott Yamin was caught in Chile when it got hit by a  7.1 magnitude earthquake. He was tweeting events in real time as they waited for clearance to fly back to the US. I was able to research a bit about the robbery near my area via Twitter as I saw the dozen cop cars closing up the street. I was the third person to tweet about it, too.

3. CRAIGSLIST. So maybe it is older than 5 years. but here is where I post all my things and sell most of it. The bigger ones are always harder to dispose. It is not restricted to tangible, but also trades, tickets, job openings, bandmates, orgy partners (so i’ve heard) ideas, even gags.

4.  EBAY. I once sold a 3rd hand Takamine guitar on ebay for more than what I paid for it. Nuff said.  Amazon is also a site for really good deals, but individuals cannot resell on Amazon, unless they have a store.

5. FACEBOOK. From communities like friendster, myspace and multiply comes this new breed that has everything that will waste your time. status updates people can comment and like. A sharing link for everything your contants post. Games. Videos, Photos and Note-posting (and liking your friends posts) is encouraged. GAMES. For people who hate having to write people individually just to update them what is going on in their lives (engagement, marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, new job), this is perfect! People are lazy correspondents.

6. LINKEDIN. My hubs deletes most of his facebook contacts to protect his privacy , however, he prefers staying connected to them via a professional network. Enter LINKEDIN and its Facebok, Multiply-like structure in which you see your connections. It also has that status update thing (which I think is lame).

7. WORDPRESS is a great tool. mainly cause you can fix it with HTML. You can plug in existing themes to give your site a look. its so pro, you can put up a website using wordpress and it would still look great! (I miss the community I made in Multiply though)

8. YOUTUBE – everyone’s online resource for how-tos, music, entertainment, viral videos. If you are a regular on Youtube, you, my friend, have your finger on the pulse of neo-global culture! (ok i made that phrase up. hah!)

9. SCRAPETORRENT – is where i get my torrent files. Hurray for free shared media!

10. GOOGLE – we know Google’s great. Google’s changed the way we think, and everybody knows this. We’ve gotten so lazy because, we have now coined a phrase “google it” when trying to remember about someone, or something, or if we wanted to learn something new about someone or something entirely.

In the last 10 years, it has developed Google Maps (which gives you accurate directions, time frame, bus schedules from point A to B to C, etc), Google Talk, Google Buzz, Google Reader and recently Google Voice, which for me serves as an alternate number in which I can actually BLOCK undesired callers and telemarketers. Of course, Google Mail is the best free mail server, with very vigilant spam prevention and ‘Download All Attachment’ functions, interconnectivity with other google apps such as Google Reader, Google Documents, etc etc.

Plus, I really love it when they change their GOOGLE logo to match every holiday that comes up. A few weeks back, it was PACMANs anniversary, and the screen had a built-in mini pacman game that sucked everyone right into playing for a few minutes at least. Great strategy Google!

That’s pretty much all I can think of now, mainly because they’re all I use. The forums, online banking, online shopping sites are worth a mention, however, I can do without those. Maybe.

What are your top 10 sites?