Featured on “First Five”

I was honored when I was asked to contribute to the First Five Tumblr which asks “What are the first five websites you visit every day?.”

In August 2007 I described my daily blogging routine on this blog by consciously looking at which websites I visit daily and why. In 2007 my morning routine was as follows: I opened Thunderbird for my email and then Firefox as my browser to visit my startpage Netvibes which I used for my feeds, then I would look at my blog’s statistics through a WordPress plugin, and then I would look at the MyBlogLog sidebar widget to find out more about my blog visitors and I would end with a confrontation with my latest blog post which would immediately prompt me to write a new one. I’m very excited to revisit and reflect on my daily routine five years later by providing my First/Top 5. The first thing that strikes me is that my routine has changed significantly because I usually check my phone first (Twitter, Instagram and email) before turning on my laptop. I submitted the following five (ok, I secretly submitted six) websites:

1. Twitter
https://twitter.com/
Twitter is one of my favorites and I use it for different purposes. Personally I use it for chatting and entertainment, and professionally I use it to keep up-to-date with new blog posts and articles in my field (New Media Studies/Software Studies), to remotely follow conferences and to connect with scholars in the field. @silvertje > https://twitter.com/#!/silvertje

2. Google Reader
http://www.google.com/reader/view/
I use Google Reader to keep up with all my website and blog subscriptions. I have neatly categorized everything so that during busy times I can mark the LOLblogs and Design categories as read and focus on the blogs and articles in New Media Blogs, Software Studies, Search Engine Blogs and Academic Journals.

3. GetPocket (formerly Read It Later)
http://getpocket.com/
This is currently my favorite service to save articles to read later. While I have collected more articles to read ‘later’ than I will ever be able to read I do try to read a few every other day. The service stores webpages and blogposts in a clean readable format which also makes it a good anti-cluttering reading tool and all saved articles can be accessed through multiple devices (phone, tablet, web). I send articles from multiple social media platforms to this one single location using one of the smartest services on the web: If This Then That: http://ifttt.com/. IFTTT allows you to create task ‘recipes’ for combining web services and eliminates the technical knowledge of writing scripts to combine APIs.

4. Screenshots of Despair
http://screenshotsofdespair.tumblr.com/
While this Tumblr is in my Google Reader it deserves to be highlighted. It describes itself as “a tumblr cataloguing online messages that evoke feelings of despair.” It looks at the other side of the ‘Happy Web’ where we Like and Friend by focussing on interface messages that make us feel sad, lonely, estranged, abandoned, worthless and confused.

5. Read/WriteWeb
http://www.readwriteweb.com/
One of the oldest and best blogs on anything that is happening on the web. While it keeps me up-to-date with what is happening in the industry I usually quickly skim through the articles announcing a new product, feature or startup as I prefer the longer reflective articles on the state of the web.