The Quiet Road

Justin imagines me to be knowledgeable and interesting on this kind of thing. Hey, he said it, don’t look at me. It’s another fricking blog meme though, so I don’t feel quite as chuffed as I would’ve done if by “this kind of thing” he’d meant “theoretical physics” or “lovemaking” or “energy policy” or “being a bloody great guy”.

So instead of requesting a treatise on any of those subjects, he instead expects me to list my “Top Five Social Media Websites”. Kind of a curious request really as I’m one of the least “social” people you’re likely to meet (assuming I deign to meet you). That’s not to say that I’m quiet, shy or introverted in person. Far from it. I merely find the vast majority of people exhausting to be around. It’s not, as JWL said, “You wanna save humanity, but it’s people that you just can’t stand”. I don’t dislike people. I just find them difficult.

And not all people either. Just most of them.

But despite that, I am a regular user of some social media websites (is it just me, or does the phrase “Social Media” sound like a highschool class taken by kids who couldn’t hack the hard sciences?) This blog, for instance. And the U-Know! messageboard (though I’m far far less active there than I once was). So yeah, I’ll take this meme out for a spin. And in return Justin can begin fretting about which piece of pointless web-flotsam I decide to bat his way in the near future.

In no particular order (and duplicating three from Chicken Yoghurt)…

1. WordPress. Let’s face it, there’s no finer blogging tool. I wrote my own blogging software in ColdFusion for my first online journal and it was adequate for my purposes. Then I switched to blogger for my next one, and found it seriously inadequate. Little things I could do with my own software; like listing the most recent comments by date in the sidebar or managing categorised lists of links; couldn’t be done in blogger. So for my third blog, I decided to update my own CF application. And then I discovered WordPress. As I say; there’s no finer blogging tool.
2. YouTube. I discovered this site when someone (Gyrus I think) emailed me the link to The Indian Beatles. I spent the better part of three hours at YouTube that day. It’s a wonderful site… like the internet in general it’s filled with dross and weirdness, but with a bit of perseverance you can unearth some real gems. It was when I typed “David Bowie” into the search that I realised the true depth of YouTube. I mean, the video for Hearts Filthy Lesson? Yes!
3. Last.fm. This is a lovely little site. You download a plugin for your media player and it uploads information about what music you’re playing, building up various charts based upon your listening habits. The site also has customisable streaming radio stations and all manner of other interesting bits and bobs for music fans. If you’ve got a lot of music ripped to your hard-drive, then you should have a Last.fm account. Incidentally, something weird happened with my old Last.fm account. HERE is my new one.
4. U-Know! This is my online political messageboard / forum of choice. It’s part of Julian Cope’s Head Heritage website though unrelated to his music. The site has four message boards covering the various aspects of Copey’s activities… Unsung (music), The Modern Antiquarian (sacred sites and the like), The Village Pump (general chat) and U-Know! (direct action and politics). I was once a regular on several of the boards, but these days I’m more of a lurker, occasionally compelled to add an opinion or two. As with all public forums, the occasional troll or asshole shows up and there’s quite a bit of politically naive idealism but – by and large – it’s frequented by groovy folk (i.e. people I broadly agree with). Also, Merrick edits the U-Know! section and Holy McGrail is the webmaster of the whole Head Heritage site… both excellent chaps.
5. I’ll split my last choice between four sites; none of which I use very much but all of which I respect greatly for one reason or another. There’s Wikipedia of course. Though unreliable when it comes to any vaguely controversial subject, it’s still a useful resource and the idea is fantastic. Then there’s Flickr. Great site, but I don’t take anything like enough interesting photos to make much use of it. Urban75… again, not somewhere I visit very frequently, but it has a lot going for it. And finally, the daddy of them all… Indymedia. Great great site, let down by a tendency towards intolerance of dissenting opinions by many of the contributors (I recall insisting that the invasion of Afghanistan had nothing to do with oil pipelines, and getting roundly savaged for being off-message). Still, a fine idea that works well from time to time. Indymedia Ireland is here.

I’m not going to tag anyone else with this meme. It’s pretty damn geeky and I don’t know too many geeks (Gyrus and perhaps L are the only two bloggers I read regularly that have geek / nerd credentials). But if there’s a great ‘social media’ site that I’m overlooking here, I’d be interested to hear about it in the comments. Though if anyone does want to keep the meme alive, then obviously knock yourself out.

Update (noon, 30-7-06)

Doh! What an idiot! Despite wasting half a day with it earlier in the week, I completely forgot one of the most amazing “Social Media” sites of recent years. Check out the Remix Area at Brian Eno and David Byrne’s My Life In The Bush of Ghosts website. One of the seminal albums in recording history, the re-release is celebrated by allowing people to download all of the multitracks for two of the pieces on it (under the Creative Commons licence no less). These can then be imported into any multitracker software (an old version of Cool Edit Pro being my multitrack software of choice, but there’s lots to choose from) and remixed. I’m talking proper remixed.

The finished article can then be reuploaded to the site where others can listen to it. There’s already a huge number of genuinely amazing remixes up there, but why not try your own?