I realised today I haven't used my house phone in a while. The thick layer of dust is at least three months old. If people want to contact me, they do it by mobile, email, social networks, MSN or most recently, Skype. Not a good sign for telemarketers....

I'm normally fairly good with people's birthday yet I missed a friend's yesterday. I only discovered it today when I opened my diary and realised the reason I forgot is because she doesn't have a Facebook account. I've come to rely on this tool but also many other aspects of social media. It hasn't just given me more channels to communicate but has now become a main source of information and entertainment. The way I contact people and stay in touch with them has changed with Facebook. The way I watch my favourite television shows has changed with YouTube, which has also opened up infinite hours of UGC. Similarly, the radio is streamed via podcasts. The daily read of a newspaper has changed with my RSS Subscriptions where I choose what I want to read. Interestingly, these changes are all free. No wonder Generation Y is so reliant on social media....

I find tools like Google Trends and the recently launched Facebook Lexicon interesting. They're cool for a about twenty seconds while you run some quick searches but I have to wonder how useful they are? Sure, it tells you how much buzz is being generated around your keyword search but you can't tell if it's good or bad. There's no context what so ever around the results therefore making these tools rather useless. Unless someone can think of a practical application for them?...