I am familiar with instant messaging through my AmericaOnLine (AOL) account, and I use it only occasionally as I sometimes find it intrusive when a message pops up when I'm in a hurry and in the middle of something and so therefore don't want to 'intrude' on anyone else in the same position. And yes, I know I can ignore it, but then I feel I'm being rude. To me, "Instant" Messaging implies "instant answers" and that is not always feasible, especially in a work environment.

Flickr and YouTube are great sites enabling the average user to share photos and videos. I personally would not use them as I have strong concerns regarding Internet privacy issues. These concerns also carry over to just about every other aspect of Web sharing, including these blogs themselves, social bookmarking and the variety of available online tools and applications!

I found the task of adding information to a Wiki page to be not as user-friendly as other web-based areas, which is probably a good thing. I don't have a lot of confidence in Wikis as a reliable source of information just because of the fact that literally anybody can sign on and put their two cents in!

The RSS feeds are a wonderful resource for keeping up-to-date on all your favorite topics. I've added the New York Times Book Review to my page here.

It's been an interesting challenge setting up this first-ever blog of mine!