I have been trying to limit my web browsing. I am on the edge of information overload 
– so many websites, so many links, so little time if I expect to get any work that I’ve promised to do for clients done. My business success depends on my ability to get work done so that my clients can be successful. So, as much as I hate to, I have decided to limit my web-time to only 10 sites.
So for the past few weeks, I kept a log of all the sites I visited and what sorts of stories were catching my attention. I found that I could actually get to the same story in three or four different ways, so I started looking for the aggregators that seemed to pull together most of what I was interested in.
It’s been hard, tracking where I’ve been and what sites actually give me value in exchange for my time. I can’t afford to be wasting much time. So here’s the list I’ve come down to:
For information and news on the world of Social Media, I find I can learn just about everything I need to from three sites, Social Media Today, Mashable, and The Rise to the Top. Some of the content is duplicated, but each has a different enough spin to make it interesting. The Rise to the Top’s David Siteman Garland is quickly becoming one of my favorite resources. I love his tagline, the #1 Non-Boring Resource for Growing Your Business. And he’s not boring. I get a lot of good take-aways from his information, he’s entertaining and engaging, and he seems to be able to condense information into easily digestible bites.
For straight-up news, I rely on CNN. Oh sure, I glance through the sports news on other sites, but CNN has most of what I need. I try not to spend too much time there, but I have a couple clients in the health care arena and they are always on the look-out for news and spins on health insurance reform and the like, so I feel like I need to stay on top of things.
For connections, hands down for me it’s LinkedIn. I love to browse the discussions in some of the groups, throwing in a comment here and there. I probably don’t participate as much as I could, but I love to send private emails to people after I’ve read their questions and really try to help them succeed. For me, LinkedIn is one of my most valuable connection tools and is absolutely vital to my business success and the success for many of my clients.
Because it’s too much to keep track of my Tweetstream, I rely on Hootsuite to filter out the noise. It’s the place where I can categorize people and information to make it easier for me. I don’t see all the Farmville, Mafia Wars and “so-and-so just connected with so-and-so” updates unless I want to. I can browse my different social media networks, submit tweets and updates, find people to follow, respond to people’s posts – all from one site. It’s a great tool. The more I use it, the more I like it.
But I do still browse on Facebook and want to be connected to my friends there. I find it’s a place where all the different aspects of my life can merge. There’s the friends from high school, there’s the colleagues from companies past, there’s new friends to be made, there’s events and activities that I don’t find out about any other way. Even though I can get all the information I want from Hootsuite or my email inbox, I find I still like going out on Facebook and commenting on people’s links, reposting videos, and the like.
And finally, I have to keep my two “guilty pleasure” websites in the mix – BravoTV.com and Popcap Games. Come on, admit it, you are curious about the REAL real lives of the Housewives, too. I find I am fascinated by just about every Bravo show. I never would have believed it, but I actually like the back stories of the Top Chef Masters or Patti Stenger’s blog. And Popcap games – when I need a break, there’s nothing like a free game of Chuzzle or Zuma’s 
Revenge. They are fun and best of all, Free. And I don’t have to announce to the world that I just achieved level 15 and need my friends to build me a barn.
So I’m curious to know, if you had to limit yourself to only 10 websites, what would they be? Please leave your comments below.
Here’s to your success,
Trina
