MediaWeek has released their 2009 Digital Hotlist that covers just what has been happening in the world of the web and technology.

1. Facebook – up from #2 on the list in 2008. This site is larger in population than most of the other countries in the world. I used to think Facebook would be replaced sometime by something cooler, not so sure now.
2. Hulu – I’ve been using this more to get some free entertainment. I’ve spoken with a number of people who are debating getting rid of cable/satellite and just relying on sites like Hulu and others for their entertainment fix.
3. Twitter – I think maybe I liked it more when there were less celebrities involved in twitter, but I’m still addicted to this 140-character micro-blogging tool.
4. Google – it’s Google, what else needs to be said?
5. iPhone – I still don’t have one, trying to figure out if I’m upset about it. Is there an app for that?
6. Huffington Post – lots of left-leaning news is getting more popular these days and they’re expanding their topic base to more than just politics.
7. Bing – it’s not a search engine, it’s a decision engine and lots of people have decided to really give it a try and have liked it.
8. Wall Street Journal web (www.wsj.com) – do what? a newspaper that’s still making money online and off? What are they doing right? It appears everything.
9. Federated Media – keeping advertising interactive and relevant, all those eyes watching the other 9 sites are worth a lot of money.
10. Addicting Games – I’m not playing many games these days other than Bubble Breaker and Farm Town. Maybe I should join the millions of other users having fun here.

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My wife and I are both on Facebook (she’s probably more active on it than I am) and I’m on twitter quite a bit. We have two kids and our oldest is always looking over our shoulder to see what we’re saying. Both sets of our parents are also on Facebook as well and sometimes it’s kind of a challenge to remember that and think about what you’re posting. It’s not that there’s anything we’re trying to hide, most of the time it’s just trying to avoid the trouble of explaining something.

Now there’s a website where you can share your own challenges of having your parents and other family members on Facebook reading your updates.

Visit Oh Crap. My Parents Joined Facebook to see how sometimes your updates are read and interpreted the wrong way and then let the discussion and explanation begin.

Many of the stories are funny because they probably hit a little too close to home for most of us. Yet there are others where I read them and I’m very thankful my parents aren’t as bad as that person’s.

Are your parents on Facebook? Have a story to share? Visit Oh Crap. My Parents Joined Facebook and let’s share in each other’s misery and family dysfunctionality.

And if you haven’t seen it, here’s the Verizon commercial.

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The Farm-Town.com website has put together a great collection of tips and tricks so you can learn how to do a little bit more with your farm than just grow some crops and raise some animals.

Taking advantage of the angled perspective of the farm layout and some forced perspective you can make structures on your farm look like they’re really more than what they are. As you see in the example image above, someone has built the Ohio State Buckeyes stadium on their farm.

There are loads of pictures of some great work on Farm Town farms on the Farm-Town.com website in their Farm Town pictures section.

If you’re not interested in making a work of art from your farm, there are plenty of other tips and tricks on the website to help you make the most of your Farm Town hobby.

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It really reminds me of the old game I used to play called SimFarm by Maxis Games. In fact, I’d say some of the code is probably reused for Farm Town.

If you’re not familiar with the game you have a farm that has different plots of land available to you. You have to plow the fields, then buy seeds for various crops and plant them. You can work your own farm or work on other people’s farms. Many times doing work on other people’s farms is more profitable for you than working on your own farm.

Different crops are worth different amounts and take different amounts of time to grow and reach maturity to harvest. In order for things not to be a complete time suck you have to schedule things that will give you the opportunity to get in and out and get as much done as possible quickly.

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I’m still working on some in-depth feature improvements. Texting isn’t new, unless I can get it to really work this time then that would be an improvement. The discussion about what’s new with social networking stuff included a twitter icon and YouTube, but still working on what’s involved in that change.

A WordPress application is new. Being able to publish to a WordPress blog could be interesting. Tried to install the app though and there was some kind of error. Will try that again later.

Some other cool applications related to images are abundant: flickr, Photobucket, MyPhotos and even Picnik for editing all of those images. The list of applications starts to remind me of the early days of Facebook.

Still can’t figure out why they’re showing the twitter icon. Let me know if you figure it out.

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The information available reminds me of the type of site I configured for ClaimID awhile back (and I need to update!). You put together a collection of all the sites you’re active on, in coordination with your contact information and other details about you like where you’ve lived, where you live, who you’re working for and who you’ve worked for in the past.

Your contact information can be restricted to just your contacts in your Gmail address book, distribution groups in your address book, or independent groups you setup yourself through the site. I think they should also add the different groups you may be associated with in Google Groups.

There’s portions of it that also remind me of the types of information you’d share on both Facebook from a social/personal perspective; as well as the professional side you’d share on LinkedIn.

Given that it’s a Google page, you can bet it will be indexed well and come up in search results for the keywords you’ve used in your profile. Depending on the amount of information you share, you may get that Facebook effect of reconnecting with people you haven’t talked to or perhaps even though of in forever.

Image Source

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Photo from stock.xchng

There’s a very helpful article on the PC Magazine website on How to Delete Accounts from Any Website. The article runs through the process of getting rid of your profile on one of 23 different websites: Classmates, Facebook, Friendster, LinkedIn, MySpace, MyLife, Amazon, Audible, Blockbuster, eBay, iTunes, Netflix, PayPal, Blogger, Twitter, Flickr, Photobucket, YouTube, AOL/AIM, Apple MobileMe, Google, Windows Live, and Yahoo.

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Snagit of Digg.com New DiggBar

You can click on the image above to see the full-version and notice the new Digg bar that they released that makes it easier to Digg articles that you’re reading and spread them to other social networks as well.

My challenge is that when I see the article on Digg, I click on link to the article to read it outside of Digg before I decide to Digg it again. Now, with the Digg bar, it nicely appears at the top of the original page and let’s you see lots of details about it. I can Digg it, post it to my twitter or Facebook account, or email it to anyone else I may want to share it with. All very nice and useful. If you don’t like it appearing, you can just click the close “X” on the far right and be done.

Perfect implementation. Perhaps even better is it’s not a new toolbar or something else you need to install. It just appears when you click on an article that’s already been Dugg. Nice and clean. Almost self-explanatory. Perfect.

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Just how powerful is that Facebook addiction of yours? Maybe taking a look at it from the eyes of these two guys.

This was one of the popular videos that was shared among some family members this holiday season. The video is from the Rhett & Link team of online comedy geniuses. They’ve got loads more videos on YouTube if you’re interested.

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Image: Screen capture from ElfYourself.com

One of the most popular posts ever on Uncover the Internet was the post I wrote two years ago now about a little site called Elf Yourself.

Well, now it’s back but the elves are still taking some dance classes it appears. It’s become a holiday favorite and in 4 days you can participate in the fun yourself.

They’ve even got the Elf Yourself application available on Facebook as well. One of my favorite past times is blocking applications on Facebook but this is one I’m going to have to let through.

Image: Screen capture of Elf Yourself Facebook App on Facebook

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