A year ago I blogged about the 25 sites that were on my Firefox bookmarks toolbar. These represented the 25 sites that I used the most in my day in day out online life.
I thought here now one year later I’d refresh this post showing which bookmarks were removed from my toolbar over the past year and which ones were added. I’ve also added comments on each link.
Links removed in the last year.
1. My Welcome Mat on Zooomr. The welcome mat on Zooomr was not providing me anything useful really. Instead I’ve streamlined my Zooomr links down to two, my Zooomr Social Stream and my Zooomr Zipline.
2. My Zooomr Sets. I had a lot of problems with my Zooomr sets so I stopped maintaining sets there and maintain them at Flickr now.
3. Magnolia. I stopped using Magnolia for bookmarks after some weird thing happened with the site and I could no longer add new bookmarks there.
4. My Magnolia Mini Marker. Same deal. Since I don’t use Magnolia anymore I don’t need this.
5. Google Docs. I just find that I don’t really need to use word processors and spreadsheets much anymore. I use Zoho now instead of Google docs but I don’t use it enough to give it toolbar real estate.
6. Twittersearch. Although I still post to Twitter occasionally I’ve largely stopped following it from twitter or using Twittersearch.
7. Involver. I was going to try and use Involver for my events, but it was a private beta thing that my friends couldn’t get into without an invite and upcoming.org just seemed easier to use.
8. Statsaholic. I kind of gave up on Statsaholic after their Alexa data kept getting disrupted. I’m also much less interested in traffic stats on sites these days.
9. Newsgator Online. I switched my RSS reader to Google Reader.
10. Sitemeter. I dumped Sitemeter this year. Google Analytics gives me most of the same information without having to pay for it.
11. Zooomr Blog. Not much activity here. Most of Zooomr’s updates go in the Zipline these days.
Links added in the last year.
1. Flickrleech. The best way to get a birds-eye view of a Flickr user’s entire photostream and the best thing ever done with the Flickr API. Also the best way to search Flickr.
2. SmartSetr. The best way to manage your sets on Flickr.
3. Google Reader. Using it now as my RSS reader. Replaced Newsgator Online.
4. FriendFeed. The social networking aggregator. Definitely one of the best new sites in the past year.
5. Zooomr Zipline. My new landing page on Zooomr. A great place to network with other Zooomr photographers.
6. Pownce. I like Pownce a lot more than Twitter. Probably because the community feels smaller and less clichéd and photos are more prominently featured than on Twitter. I also love the mp3 sharing functionality in Pownce.
7. Hype Machine. Where I go to discover new music most on the web.
8. Google Maps. I’m creating a map of all of the places in the world that I want to photograph. This is a brand new project started last week so there are not many places on it yet. I hope to add hundreds of places in the next year though and do a blog post about this at some point in the future.
9. Reddit. Love to regularly review stories on Reddit.
10. Upcoming.org. I use this for my events site now.
11. Netflix Queue. Canceled my DirecTV and signed up for Netflix this past year. Absolutely love the service. Better programming for a lot less money. If you want to see what movies I’m watching you can add me as a friend on Netflix here.
12. Tiny URL. Sometimes big urls don’t fit well with Twitter, Zooomr Zipline, etc. This site turns your large url into a tiny one.
13. Photography Voter. Like Digg for photography stories.
Links on both last year and this year.
1. Flickr Recent activity. The place where I go to see all of the activity on my photos on Flickr.
2. Zooomr Social Stream. The place where I go to see all of the activity on my photos on Zooomr
3. Twitter. Using it much less but still post directly there occasionally.
4. Facebook. Getting really bored with Facebook but still go there a few times a week. Mostly just to add new friends who’ve added me.
5. Google Analytics. Use this to track traffic stats and referral information for my blog.
6. DeleteMe Uncensored. Still a place that I hang out most on Flickr. Flickr has it marked as an adults only group so you have to join the group if you want to see it and you have to have your account enabled to see age 18+ content.
7. Thomashawk.com. My blog still gets a spot.
8. 30 Boxes. Still using 30 Boxes as my calendar. Like the version that they built for the iPhone this past year.
9. Techmeme. Still one of the best places to go on the internet for tech news.
10. Digg.com. Still a great place to find new stories.
11. Technorati Page for thomashawk.com. Still like to follow other bloggers who are linking to my blog.
12. and 13. Blogger and “Blog This” bookmarklet. Still using Blogger for publishing. I’ve thought about moving to WordPress many times in the past, but in the past year the Blogger service has gotten remarkably more robust and I decided to stick with Blogger for now.
What sites are on your toolbar? Are there sites that you just can’t live without day in and day out. Any new ones I should be trying out?
