One of the best ways to stay up-to-date and informed is to ensure that the content you "must see" is always front and center.
In April 2009, I asked, what is your homepage?, and in thinking about how Sunday tends to be one of those days where people actually have the time to deep-dive into some of the meatier content of the day, I’m curious what are the spaces, sites and environments that you have to see the second you click on your browser?
Here are the tabs that always up when I start Google Chrome (my current web browser of choice):
- All Things Digital. The Wall Street Journal created this semi-portal for – as the title suggests – all things digital. The quality of content here is excellent.
- Facebook. While some are considering abandoning Facebook, it’s still my primary online social network, and I use this area to review comments and get a general feeling (via the newsfeed) as to what is going on with my connections (both personal and business).
- Google News. I love the way that Google keeps you universally logged into everything. Google News has fantastic personalization tools. It is, without question, one of the most informative places to keep yourself up-to-date with what’s going on in the news of the world, in your neighborhood and in your industry.
- Google Reader. This is my NORAD of the Interwebs. Google Reader houses all of my news feeds, unifies most of my news alerts and acts as my general first-step hub to the Internet. I love the fact that I cab read my content offline, and the may ways in which I can customize both how I consume content and how I can share it with the world.
- Hacker News. This is a semi-new one courtesy of the folks at Y Combinator, and it seems to be getting a lot more press attention over the past few months. It has a simple layout, but it’s a great resource for a quick glance of what’s happening in the tech space.
- Mashable. When asked by brands what one source should they be following to stay up-to-date on everything Social Media, Web 2.0, Digital Marketing, etc… the answer is always Mashable. The quality of writing is not on par with the Wall Street Journal or New York Times, but the quantity is – without question – there. Anything and everything happening online can be found at Mashable.
- Muck Rack. The site describes itself a whole lot better than I can: "What if you could get tomorrow’s newspaper today? Now you sorta can, by tracking the short messages on Twitter written by the journalists who do the muckraking for major media outlets. Muck Rack makes it easy to follow one line, real time reporting."
- The New York Times’ Media & Advertising page. I stumbled on to this page and realized how great of a resource it is. Anything within The New York Times‘ network that falls into the advertising and media space is aggregated here. Sometimes the content is just as up-to-date as the stuff you’ll find in Advertising Age or AdWeek.
- Six Pixels of Separation. Natch.
- TechMeme. One of the better websites for all things technology and new media.
- Twitter. The main way I stay connected to Twitter is actually TweetDeck (the application) and via Twitter for the iPhone (formerly Tweetie). That being said, I do like the official page open in case one of the third-party applications go down or are acting wonky.
- The Twitter Tim.es. This is a nifty little website that uses your own Twitter login to create a real-time customized "newspaper" based on the people you are following and the content they are mutually reading, sharing and retweeting. Think of this as a "trending topics" website based solely on the people you find interesting.
What does your homepage and tabs look like?