Starting today, I’m going to start a series of reviews, accompanied by screencasts, of reviews of social networks, social bookmarking services and social media sites on the Spring.  You can see my initial list there which I’ll be modifying as this series goes along.

Listal is a social networking site where you can find people who share your tastes in movies, books, music or games.  Lists and collections are shared via a simple url like (in my case) http://springnet.listal.com and they give you widgets to plug in to your blog or website.

The site stands out for it’s tight integration of tagging, friends, finding others, forums and messaging.  The “explore” feature is hot, it lets you scan through reviews of movies, tv shows, books, games, dvds, and music. 

• Xo Laptop 2.0: OLPC XO Laptop 2.0 Has Dual Touchscreens, Looks Amazing and Future-y
  At OLPC’s Global Country workshop today, founder Nick Negroponte unveiled the next-gen XO Laptop, and it totally blows the original away. Wow! Dual touch screen!
  (tags: notebook laptop olpc cool springnet *****)
• Pixel Qi - About Us
  Dr. Mary Lou Jepsen was previously the founding chief technology officer of One Laptop Per Child. Notably Mary Lou invented the laptop’s sunlight-readable display
  (tags: olpc laptop child notebook screen xoxo springnet ****)
• Movavi Online Video Converter
  Free Online Video Converter No software to install. No ads to interrupt.
  (tags: video converter springnet *)
• Tim’s Quicktime VR Panoramas : QTVR
  @timpatterson picked a digital camera, an inexpensive Fuji FinePix A205, and decided to get back to creating Quicktime VR panoramas for fun and he has a Google Map of all my QTVR locations in Austin!
  (tags: map mapping austin texas twit twitter qtvr springnet ***)

• Bare Bones Software : PRODUCTS : YOJIMBO
  Yojimbo makes keeping all the small (or even large) bits of information that pour in every day organized and accessible. It’s so simple, there is no learning curve. Yojimbo’s mechanism for collecting, storing and finding information is so natural and
  (tags: mac organizer productivity app software springnet **)
• Internet Marketing and Social Media: Dosh Dosh
  One of the best ways to promote your website or business is to work together with others . . . twitter @doshdosh
  (tags: blog blogging daily social socialmedia socialnetworking twitter @doshdosh strategy springnet)
• Tag Galaxy
  Holy Cow! This is such a cool flickr visualization, a spinning globe that shows whatever tag you pick
  (tags: flickr visualization photos pictures springnet *)

• Do-it-yourself SEO and SEO Project Management | SoloSEO
  @mdjensen ’s seo page. Michael is from St George Utah and is an entrepreneur and twitter tool maker. SoloSEO.com CityMarketer.com AppliedContent.com TweetBeep.com LiveTwitting.com for events like SXSW and TweetAnswers.com
  (tags: @mdjensen twitter seo sem blog blogging marketing springnet ****)
• Digital Voodoo — Social Media strategy and intelligence applied to marketing.
  Strategy + Tactics - Dave Evans network of best-of-class partners helps define and implement new applications built around a socially-aware launch strategy that you can measure. twitter @evansdave
  (tags: twitter strategy blog)
• http://yesyes.penalicio.us/
  really inspiring “about me” page @yesyes on twitter
  (tags: about twitter webdev springnet *****)
• End of Silence
  Austin blog with a great Austin linkroll
  (tags: austin blog blogger springnet **)
• optimal experience
  This guy has some great ideas like an “Austin startup district and a wordpress fest in the park. And he walks to Will Wynn randomly.
  (tags: austin blog blogs entrepreneur friends people startups twitter @johnerik springnet)
• Tweet Clouds
  # 78612
  # add
  # american
  # amp
  # app
  # application
  # apps
  # april
  # archive
  # austin
  # austincast.com/blog
  # austintexas
  # belmont
  # best
  # big
  # bike
  # blog
  # bookmarks
  # broadcasting
  # catching
  # cedar
  # channel
  # chat
  # check
  # coffee
  # come
  # communit
  (tags: springnet twitter cloud tweet)
• MediaWiki - MediaWiki
  MediaWiki is a free software wiki package originally written for Wikipedia. It is now used by several other projects of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation and by many other wikis, including this website, the home of MediaWiki.
  (tags: wiki software app springnet *****)

Twhirl - Twhirl is a popular desktop client based on Adobe AIR so it requires the AIR download. You’ll find AIR useful for other apps also. Twhirl has a lot of cool features including multiple Twitter accounts, connect to Friendfeed, post image to Twitpic, post to Pownce and Jaiku simultaneously, and search using Tweetscan. I use it on my Windows Vista sidebar along with . . .

AlertThingy! provides a connection to twitter, friendfeed, flickr, tinyurl and allows cross commenting. It’s better than it sounds and is used as a twitter replacement by many who want to make more sense out of twitter and narrow down their focus on specific people and topics.

TwitterCal - This service allows you to post events from your Google calendar to your Twitter accounts.

Twitter Digest - This tool allows you to subscribe to a message stream from a Twitter user of a group of users on the web or through an atom feed.

Summize - A Twitter search engine, contender for the top app in this category.

Flaptor Twitter Search - A simple Twitter search engine which generates an rss feed. Also provides trends, comparisons.

del.icio.us twitter tags - what people are bookmarking about twitter lately

TopTweet - This site provides you updates from the top Twitter personalities.

Twitter100 - Allocates a box to each of the people you follow on a single page and displays their latest tweets.

Quotably - Shows Twitter user’s conversations in a threaded conversational style making it easier to follow.

Tweetburner - Tweetburner lets you track what happens with the links you share on Twitter.

TwitterLocal - This shows you all the tweets on a google map from your local area and generates an RSS Feed of tweets.

TweetCloud - Let’s you make a tagcloud from a twitter user, also indexes del.icio.us

Tweetpeek - You can create a group Twitter feed with Tweetpeek.

Twitku - Mashup of Twitter, Jaiku, and Pownce public timelines. You can also post from its interface.

TwitterNotes - You can create notes on TwitterNotes using Twitter and tagging your notes.

• Bare Feet Studios
  @roxannedarling Bare Feet Studios LLC is a small, curious, tech-savvy company based in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, owned by Roxanne Darling and Shane Robinson. We participate in and advise on New Media and the Social Web to connect people and solve problems.
  (tags: blog blogs business webdev twitter springnet *****)

• Disqus | Hello, springnet!
  Boost your blog community by installing the DISQUS comment system Disqus makes your comments more interactive for readers and easier to manage for you — all while connecting your community with other blogs. “no one needs you” - Leo
  (tags: blog blogs comments springnet ******)

I have to admit to being a comment poor blog.  And I’m remiss in not putting akismet and disqus on here sooner.  Tonight akisment gave 32,000 plus spam comments a beating.  They’re gone.  Room now for your comments and disqus should make things a lot more interesting.

I got turned on to the disqus comment system by Shey Smith on his most excellent blog, http://sheysmith.com and got really motivated to install it when I heard Leo Laporte and Amber Macarthur rolling in the aisles over this on their net@nite podcast broadcast live today.  It helped push me more that Dave Winer, grandaddy of rss and blogs, is using this as well.

Disqus brings video comments, along with a community of commenters, better comment formatting, and much more.  And the wordpress plugin install was as easy as could be.

I stumbled across this blog on my friendfeed account a few days ago and it’s been a daily read ever since.

It’s http://sheysmith.com

Today he’s talking about tomorrow’s twit out and friendfeed and social networking.  He’s doing an amazing job on this blog and it’s become a daily read.

And he turned me on to disqus!

Disqus was the topic on today’s net@nite with Amber and Leo and at first glance it’s something you don’t need, as Leo observed.  But, on closer examination, it’s a great comment system for blogs that integrates video and ties comments in to social networks.     And best of all, it connects you to a community of blog commentors like Shey Smith.

• The 70 coolest free applications in existence - Seopher.com
  some of the best free apps and online services on the net for web developers. great list. recommended. from Steven York’s blog about making money online, blogging, marketing, seo and web development
  (tags: app apps free opensource productivity list useful work springnet *****)
• Remote Access and Desktop Control Software for Your Computer
  Over 40 million devices connected worldwide for remote support, access & backup. cross platform remote access. recommended.
  (tags: remote access cool mac osx remoteaccess sharing vnc webapp springnet *****)
• Blogging 2.0 and Professional Blogging
  The reality is that Web 2.0 is finally catching up to blogging. The walled gardens of singular blogs are making way to social interaction across multiple platforms. @shey thanks to tim shey for the pointer to this on his blog
  (tags: blog blogs web2.0 writing blogging2.0 springnet **)