Aggregators-Socialization Skills...and...

I got gmail so I could post an email address in folks comments without it being spam hell (so far) and getting lost in my home junk email but also because it so it is easily accessible away from home. I didn't expect much.(other than spam) But you know what? For the first time in years, I am getting email from people I know only vaguely from the internet. I have had long conversations with a woman with Crohns. I have talked to a Florida gardener who happened to have moved here from Maryland. I have had correspondence with a baby mommy just about dumb baby stuff. (Yes, I know LJ and the redhead are both baby mommies but they are both rather like family so it isn't quite the same thing.)It is incredibly refreshing to have personal email in my life that isn't Chase telling me to pay my bill.

Being more social online has also helped me at work. I am more social I guess because I am remembering that someone outside the closed family that this board is to me and outside my own family think that I have something to say.

If it hadn't been for tickle and working out the whole bloglines thing I probably would have not figured this out. Or Blogher.

It actually has helped at work as well because I can find answers to my web design questions without a search or remember the answer. I can share more information with people who need to know the latest research without actually consciously hunting for it. All that, one place. Yeah it is a lot of reading but no more than the newsletters+search engine research and definitely not as much time as it takes to be fully a member of a community or to become one and deal with the social rules that are in place in such a thing. I am too busy to actively participate in a book board, a mommy board an IBD board, a community development board. I am not too busy to read and occasionally comment on feeds that are handpicked to suit me. So there you have it, why blogs are faster even with vast info because I can build the perfect board and the perfect newspaper and a research tipster all in one ad free place. At least that is the way I see it. If I wasn't looking for it, nah, wouldn't add it except that I am glad it slugged me so I took the time to discover that I needed that kind of community.