Mashable

Today I thought that I’d write about Mashable.com. It was recently reported that Mashable had become the U.K.’s number one blog. For those of you not familiar with the site, it is very useful for news on what is often referred to as Web 2.0 and social networking. It has also gotten some work of mouth about an almost daily posting of lists of resources that can be used for a variety of things under the sun. These lists are often selected by Digg users, and bookmarked by many people on Del.icio.us, and other sites. The site has a social networking built in to it as well.

It really like the news that they post about Web 2.0. I have the site bookmarked and often have it open. When I opened it up this morning I noticed a story about how Google’s OpenSocial (information from the Google Operating Systems) is going to work discussing a demo that they had seen of Hi5. Here is another about Bebo joining OpenSocial as well. Mashable is also reporting that MySpace is working with OpenSocial. It would certainly seem that Google will have a big impact on social networking. I’m sure that we’ll be hearing a lot about this in the coming days. Here is another story about the New York Times launching a competitor to TechMeme.

Mashable posts some incredible lists of resources on a variety of things almost daily. I don’t really know how many lists they have posted but it is a lot. They recently did a list of 5000 things resources that you can use to do just about anything online. Some other recent lists have included: places to get free and legal music, free graphic programs, resources for U.S. politics on the web, sports social networks, tutorials for the web-minded, Photoshop tools and resources, icon and graphic generators, and tools for working with fonts are all some of their recent lists. They have indicated that they working on the way that the lists are presented and archived so that it will be easier to find what you’re looking for. While anyone can do a search in Google, the creators of the lists tend to spend hours putting them together and many of them are quite useful. When they post a new list, it isn’t usually too long before they till someone Diggs them (is there a verb to describe the Digg readers recommending an article on the web?) and they get bookmarked a Del.icio.us and the like. Next time you’re looking for an application or web site to do something, have a look at Mashable and the chances are that they have a list of resources that will be of assistance, you will probably find some of their lists when searching elsewhere. I’m looking forward to the new archive or site search that will make it easier to find all these great lists.

While I’m not sure of the number of readers that have joined Mashable, many are using the social networking capability to varying degrees. When I looked a few moments ago, there were 1103 pages of members listed. In your profile you can link to other social networks that you belong to link MySpace and Facebook. In addition you can link to videos that you have at YouTube and pictures that you have a Flickr and Photobucket. If you would like to add me as a friend here I go by the handle FutureX, please be sure to tell me that you saw this in my blog.

So weither you’re looking for news on Web 2.0, applications and resources for your current project, or just want to do some social networking, you just might find what you’re looking for at Mashable.