• On Viddler I save videos that I like, that I want Derek (our Community Leader) to see, or that I want to promote to the front page.
• On Flickr I save photos that I like, would like to paint or draw, or want to find again easily.
• On Twitter I save tweets that I like, would like to read later, or that I think are notable in some way.
• On Tumblr (no permalink?) I save posts for the same reason I do tweets. Reading later.
• On Google Reader I star things I want to read later.
• On Facebook I like things that I agree with but have no comment on.

And that is about all of the services that I use on a regular basis or that I favorite things on. With my recent addiction to Instapaper I like less Tumblr and Google Reader items but I still do occasionally.

What about you?

In nearly every Twitter application, and on the site itself, you may favorite a Tweet with minimal effort. On the site you click the star, in Tweetie on Mac I have to secondary-click and select favorite, in Twitterrific on the iPhone I tap the asterisk and tap favorite. Those are the applications I use to interact with Twitter – so your mileage may vary.

Since Twitter is a literal stream of links (Fred Wilson, an investor in Twitter, remarked that its true value was in the act of passing links) I’ve come across a ton of valuable links from those I follow on Twitter. This can cause a lot of distraction, however. If I followed every single link that I found on Twitter, read them in their entirety, and continued my day … I do not believe I’d ever accomplish anything.

So that is why I use Twitter’s favorite feature to help me save links for reading later.

I still use it to save my favorite Tweets from those I follow. Tweets that are funny, memorable, mark an occasion, or the like – still make it into my favorites list. But mostly I’m using this feature to create a list of things I’d like to read later rather than at the moment they are posted.

This post could stop here because your favorites are easy to access on the site. Whenever you want to catch up on the links posted by those you follow – you could just log into Twitter.com and click on your favorites and do some reading. However I’ve found it much more efficient to subscribe to the RSS feed of my favorite Tweets and have that fed into Google Reader.

I check Google Reader a few times a week. I fly through my subscriptions and, in general, star the items that I want to read in detail, comment on, write about, or save for some particular purpose. As I’m going through my main subscriptions my favorite Tweets pop up and I’m able to then catalog those links appropriately, with some context, or just star them for later to read.

Not only do I rarely miss a valuable link posted by those I follow on Twitter, I get to read those links when I want to – rather than when they’re posted. Value without the distraction.

Oh, and I’m serious about most of these. Darn serious. Seriousness level = 10.

Favorites. It is time. Dare I say, past due? I can not even begin to count the number of times I’ve seen a post on Brightkite that I’ve wanted to save for later, acknowledge its greatness, or simply file away into a list of great Brightkite objects. Anything and everything should be favoritable. I know one of the new terms on the Webz is “likes” – and you can use that if you’d like too.

Flickr preferences like Twitter preferences. The granularity of the Twitter preferences is one of the reasons I was able to begin using Brightkite painlessly. In The way Brightkite fits I wrote:

“Brightkite will update Twitter with any of your activity on Brightkite, but again, there are layers upon layers of options.  Remember I said that you don’t have to switch away from Twitter if you use Brightkite the way I do?  Here is how I have Brightkite set up to notify Twitter.”

“Layers upon layers of options” is not an understatement. You get to choose precisely which actions on Brightkite will notify Twitter, the way your Twitter messages are crafted, and more. Somehow, I need these types of options for sharing photos on Flickr through Brightkite.

I don’t mind if every single photo I post on Brightkite goes to Flickr. For me, it is more a matter of the metadata saved with the photo on Flickr that is important. I choose my titles carefully on Flickr. If Brightkite has its way it simply saves the current location (no matter how messy) as the title. Sometimes this works, othertimes it doesn’t.

What can I say? I’m picky. But Brightkite, usually, allows me to be my picky-self. So, you’ve spoiled me. Your fault Brightkite. You’ve created this animal.

Messages on the Web site like messages on the iPhone. The way that direct messages work on the iPhone is, in my opinion, a lot nicer than the way they are styled on the Web site.

Fix Childs, PA. This really isn’t a “wish list” type of request – because something is obviously fubar for my hometown of Childs, Pennsylvania on Brightkite. Posts, check-ins, photos, etc. are showing up from all over the world. No idea how this happened but it started a while ago.

Odd request: Move these two check-ins and one post. So now we’re getting really nitty – but my friends and I went to Goal Line Sports Bars (which I’ve now created a location on Brightkite for). I’d like the check-ins and posts found here (by myself and CamouflageNoise) to be moved to this location.  I suppose, at the end of the day, I’m asking to be able to move posts and/or check-ins myself via the Web site. So if this situations arises again, I can do it myself.

Hashtag support. If someone uses a #hashtag make it clickable to a post search for that hashtag.

Automatic wall creation. Walls are awesome. No doubt about it. However, if someone does a search – say for No Reservations – I think that it’d be nice to click 1 button and have it create a wall for you with the results of that search. (This is sort of related to the #hashtag support, because for me if I’m following an event, it would be nice to be able to go from a friend’s post to having a wall created for that event with two clicks).

A desktop application. Right now I’m using Fluid and the iPhone web application for Brightkite. But the iPhone web application is, in a matter of speaking, not a good solution to this problem.  Perhaps there is a Brightkite desktop application that I am not aware of that rivals the likes of Twitterrific or TweetDeck but I do not know about it.

Forward /username URLs.  Ooops!

Viddler video. We’ll talk.

I have said it before, I like Brightkite better than Twitter. But, is the above too much to ask? Thanks Brightkite.

Fanboy button – carocat_1983

Is it possible to not like something only because someone, or a group of people, like it? If one of your friends came to you and said “I love Product XYZ you absolutely have to try it!” would you be turned off by their enthusiasm for it?

Recently I’ve had a conversation with someone who reacts exactly in that way when they see someone, or a group of people, like something too much. They refer to these people as fanboys or zealots and are turned off by anyone showing too much enthusiasm for any one thing.

Personally I believe everyone is a “fanboy” of something at some point in their lives. Perhaps you have a favorite television show, car manufacturer, software application, band, or actor – no matter what it is that you choose to like, you like something. Can’t we all just learn to be happy for one another when we’re happy to have something we like?

Have you ever felt put off by a “fanboy”? If so, please explain. If not, what are you a “fanboy” of recently?