Last year, talked with you about two social sites I was using, Twitter and Facebook. Today, wanted to talk about some other social networking sites that I also use.
First up is DeviantART (DA) – a community designed around sharing your artistic creations, which they call Deviations. I have had a page on DA for a few years which initially I used for sharing the anime themed wallpapers I once stored on Studiotaku. Eventually those wallpapers were all removed by DA staff though due to the content I suppose. After that, I decided to upload a few DD Rin pics to it and left it dormant.
A couple of weeks ago, Figure.fm comrade coffeebugg mentioned in the blurbs there the possibility of connecting to some DD owners, I decided to revive my page and began uploading more of the DD photography to share. It seemed like a good opportunity to connect with more people with similar interest to my own.
My plan is to upload more of my DD and figure photography on DeviantART. Currently uploading some of my past photos to DA page now. Once I have caught up, I’ll be uploading to Flickr and DA simultaneously. Uploading to DeviantART is a bit more involved than Flickr, so only going to upload my favorite photos (especially if its a big set).
You can check out my DeviantART page here. If you like what you see, feel free to favorite the stuff you enjoy or add me to your DeviantWatch list.
Next up is Google Buzz. Think Google Buzz is best described as social networking tool for sharing links, photos, videos, status messages and comments organized in “conversations”. What is great about this tool is that it integrates into Gmail, allowing you to stay up-to-date right from your inbox.
I learned about Google Buzz reading tweets from Muza-chan and Danny Choo. Curious to see what the buzz was all about (pun intended), I checked it out. Buzz has a lot of features I like, for instance I can ‘connect’ it to my other sites so that updates to those are reflected on my profile page. So tweets I make in twitter, updates to my website, photos I upload to Flickr all show up on my Google profile page.
But the key feature I love about Google Buzz is that I can follow everything from inside my Gmail inbox. In fact, a lot of the setting for Google Buzz has to be done from inside Gmail interface. Also, like Gmail, activity on Buzz items are listed in a ‘conversation’ format so its easy to follow what people are saying about different things.
You can check out my Google Buzz profile here. Welcome to follow me, I’ll do the same.
Last site want to talk about is Tsuki-board, an online figure database and community site. What initially attracted me to this was its online figure database, which allows me to record exactly what I have in my collection. Very convenient service that I enjoy a lot. But after exploring the site a bit more and diving a bit deeper I discovered it also has a large community of figure collectors.
I came across this site when I was exploring Ayu’s blog and saw the link to her profile there. First thing I did there was started bombarding the database with searches, adding figures to my online collection. After that was eventually done, started to ‘flesh out’ my profile there. Added my site feed to their aggregator so site updates would appear on my profile and their main page. And added twitter so people could follow tweets from my profile page as well. It was after exploring the site more I found the community aspect of it. Started to share some of my photos on the site and joined some of the groups.
I love collecting figures. But part of the enjoyment in figure collecting is in sharing them with other figure enthusiasts. I have shared some of my figure photography in the past, but I haven’t even scratched the surface as I have many figures I haven’t even taken out of the box yet. Looking at some of the great pics from other collectors has inspired me to try to do some more figure shoots soon.
You can check my Tsuki profile here. Maybe have a suggestion on figure you would like to see me photograph next? Post it in the comments or send me a message, may make it happen!
Tsuki specializes in figures, but there are other discussions there too. One thing about all these sites is that they allow you to find and interact with people that have similar interest to you. I would highly recommend that if there is something you really love to search for communities where others with same interest gather. Share and learn from each other experiences, as you’ll find it to be an enriching experience. Social networking has allowed me to meet and interact with people I normally wouldn’t have met. And I have learned a lot of things from many of the comrades I have met.
