I know I've been going on and on about the new site. But it's only because I'm excited about it. I finally have a way of aggregating me on my own terms. Since I'm not a professional blogger, I guess it makes sense that the site at least improves my online experience to make it all worth my time. How it has changed my web routine was one side effect I wasn't expecting. What I mean by "web routine" is how I spend most of my daily time getting my value out of the Web.

Late last year, my web routine was MySpace and Bloglines. I got a lot of enjoyment out of MySpace for a while, but after taking a break from it during Thanksgiving, I realized my time was better spent other ways and just deleted my account (which, by the way, is how I recommend to stop using any social networking site). Then on a whim, I tried Google Reader and shortly thereafter I transferred my feeds from Bloglines. From there, I made an iGoogle page and that was pretty much my routine for a while.

But some things were missing. For one, I felt like my website wasn't as dynamic and interesting as my MySpace page had been. It also seemed like I had a lot of me scattered all over the Web, if that makes any sense. I had a Flickr account, a Netflix account, etc. So tried pulling everything in with the power of RSS. I didn't want a bunch of "badges" just pasted on the site. Primarily because it breaks the style of the site and the page load can be affected by hitting someone else's servers. And on sites that don't have feeds, I made the extra effort to "brand" the profile with the screwtheman.com URL and logo.

Just for giggles, I joined Twitter. I was hoping it would recreate the status update function I used to get on MySpace. I also thought that it would be a way to keep my site always changing since I just don't do a blog post every single day. It definitely meets those requirements. What I wasn't expecting was the social value I get from it. It offers just enough social networking to satisfy my desire to peek into other people's lives (let's face it, a lot of social networking is about platonic voyeurism) and interact with people publicly (also a virtue of social networking). But it's not too much like Facebook or MySpace. It's an ancillary online experience that doesn't try to be everything to everybody. My hope is that once the greed machine starts churning over there at Twitter, Inc that they keep things lightweight. Make it a narrow and deep experience by adding power user features like keyword tracking. In other words, look into improving the existing experience and making new, separate products rather than globbing on big unnecessary features that nobody really wants.

I realized once the new site was up, I didn't go to the iGoogle page any longer. It was actually in the way as my brower''s home page. My current routine consists of checking on my page since I pump my friend's updates to there. Then I go on to Twitter to throw up some twooshes and read up on others. Finally there's almost always a Google Reader tab up to keep up to date on my feeds.

I think trying new technologies that people are talking about is a great way to evolve your Web Routine. You just have to be willing to do a trial and ditch things that don't improve your experience. You'll be surprised how refreshing and fun it can be to use the Web in different ways.