Twitter allows me to follow the news and, almost more importantly, to follow the people following the news. For example, I know that I can trust people like Robert Scoble and Chris Pirillo to stay on top of technology. I know people like Chris Brogan, Jim Kurkal and Gary Vaynerchuk are going to show me what’s new in social media. For better or worse, I trust them.

On YouTube I can catch any TV “moments” I may have missed. Jennifer Lopez fell on stage? Let me YouTube that. They did a remake We Are The World? Cool. I’ll watch it online. The only thing I use my TV for these days is to DVR The Office and a couple other shows, or to watch my Netflix movies.

Then there’s LinkedIn. I probably use this the least of all social media sites. Why is that? Because it’s a bit too serious and boring at times. Besides, I’m friend with a lot of the same people on Facebook, and I can just as easily follow what they are doing (including changing jobs) and interact with them easier on FB.

However, LinkedIn is still the BEST way to maintain an online Rolodex of all the people I’ve worked with, and all the people I’m networking with. It’s also the best place to house an online resume complete with references that are easy to validate. I also ometimes use the Q&A section, groups, and some of the other features.

Email isn’t really what I’d call “social media” per se, but it is my preferred digital in-basket. I use it to capture blogs, Tweets, articles, videos, and pretty much anything I want to take a closer look at when I get have more time or am sitting in front of my computer.

It’s also my permanent archive of a vast amount of information. Thanks to Google, Gmail has the best search in the world, so I can usually find anything I want in less than 30 seconds, and usually less than 5. I’m not joking. I can find ANYTHING, going back years. Even work-related stuff because I either used Gmail or forwarded a copy of my work email in order to keep things easily “searchable.”

Outlook 2007 definitely improved it’s search, but often the search index gets out of sync and you have to reindex. That’s scary after you’ve switched over to the Google method of taggging and using one big Archive folder. I found myself frequently jumping over to Gmail to find something work related because Outlook was having a “bad day.”

Lastly, there is Facebook. Oh, Facebook, how I love thee. And hate thee too. I’ve never been more social in my life. I know more about some of the people I went to high school with than I do about some of my closest friends–only because my friends are not on Facebook (yet). I follow some of my favorite brands, I am meeting new people and extended family members, and I can share a little bit about myself as well.

If I feel like sharing a little more, I can write a blog post like this one. On my iPhone. In bed. Yep, that’s where I am at this exact moment. Later I might be at Momoya Sushi, or an Apple store. I’ll let you know via FourSquare, which is shaping up to be the next Twitter, especially when more businesses get on board and start giving away instant discounts (20% off anything in the store) and free stuff (a round of drinks, appetizers, gambling chips) whenever you “check in.”

The inspiration for this blog post was actually something I saw while waiting outside the women’s restroom at the mall. I jumped onto Facebook and read a post from President Obama about the recent health care and education reform he had just signed into effect. OK, so it probably wasn’t the “actual” President, but someone in his administration.The bottom line is they are making excellent use of the social media tools that are available. This screenshot from my iPhone pretty much says it all:

Google Search results for "Tony Pinto"

OK, so it’s not an AMAZING feat of strength, but it has been a goal of mine for some time. It started about a year ago when I first noticed the domain www.tonypinto.com was available. I was lucky enough to buy it for less than $10 bucks!

Then I created this Wordpress blog, started Tweeting as @tpinto3 (had @tonypinto at one point, but lost it), and began to comment on other blogs, with links back to my site. I also created a Google profile that links all of my social media, including Facebook, LinkedIn and Foursquare.

The journey continues, but I’m just glad now that whenever somebody types “Tony Pinto” into Google, they find me right up at the top.

Can you say the same for yourself?

Any questions?

A good friend and fellow IT consultant at Sureteq had been encouraging me to get a Microsoft TechNet subscription for quite some time… so I finally did.

For those who don’t know, a TechNet subscription allows you to download full versions of ANY Microsoft software for “evaluation” purposes. The theory is, the sooner the IT community goes out and tries this new software, the sooner they will feel comfortable rolling it out into their organizations. It’s a good model.

The subscription also comes with two Microsoft troubleshooting tickets (which more than covers the cost of the subscription) and access to forums and other valuable resources.

There are two types of subscriptions: download only and DVD. My recommendation (for newbies) is to skip the DVDs and just go with the download only option. You’ll save a couple hundred dollars by downloading and burning your own ISOs.

OK, so this post was supposed to be about Twitter, right? Well, it is. And here’s why…

In the past, I’ve always done a quick Google search for promo codes whenever I purchase something online. Sometimes you get lucky, assuming the forum you found isn’t too dated. Most of the time, you have to try quite a few codes before you finally find one that works.

Yesterday I discovered that Twitter is a great way to search for promo codes because the results are nearly REAL-TIME. That means the older stuff if filtered out. As soon as someone posts something that works, it’s almost immediately available in Twitter’s search engine.

Here you can see I searched for “technet promo code” and actually got a promo code from Microsoft TechNet France. I don’t care what language it is, those 7 magical little characters (TNWIN7L) saved me $100 bucks!

Find online discounts using Twitter's search

After Tweeting about my good fortune, a friend turned me onto this site: CouponCabin.com. It looks like a great resource, and there are many others like it.

Try searching for other discounts on Twitter and share whatever you find in the comments below. As for me, I’m off to install Windows 7…

12/1/09 update: Got $50 off an annual subscription to Lynda.com, the BEST online training resource for creative professionals.