While Mr. Arrington uses NetNewsGator and NetVibes to read and organize RSS feeds, I'm partial to a combination of Bloglines and RSSFwd. NetVibes, part of the new breed of "web 2.0 start pages," is a great product but the prospect of staring at a bunch of boxes crammed with news headlines doesn't quite work for me in general. That said, I'm nearly awed by what a super-cool product yourminis is.
The other things that I use everyday include Basecamp, project management software put out by the 37 Signals folk, and AIM for instant messaging.
What's finally intriguing is that there is not one social networking product on Tech Crunch's (or my!) list. I wouldn't be surprised if this will change in the next year or two, as companies fall all over themselves developing more sophisticated social networks that cater to an older/more mature demographic and an ever wider array of specific interests and lifestyles.
Article comments
1 - Matthew T. Sussman
800-Free-411
Never heard of it
Amie Street
Never heard of it
Ask City
Never heard of it
BlueDot
Never heard of it
Digg
Can definitely live without it
Flickr
Couldn't live without it
Flock
Never heard of it
Gmail
Can certainly live without it
NetNewsWire
Never heard of it
Netvibes
Never heard of it
Pandora
Never heard of it
Skype
Vaguely heard of it
Techmeme
Never heard of it
Wordpress
Use it all the time
YouTube
So that's how it is ... complete a relatively obscure list with the biggest time-wasting and awesome website. Oh that's low, even for you, Mr. Random Tech Blogger Person.
By the way, I like how he explicitly says that Wikipedia just barely got cut off the list. HUH?
2 - Matthew T. Sussman
Addendum:
Flickr
Could live without it were I not a Blogcritic
3 - Eric Berlin
I think the interesting is which web products are "essential" for each of us now, Suss. One of the amazing things about the web (and technology in general, really) is that it has the capacity to create essential products/services.
4 - Phillip Winn
I went without Flickr for more than a year, ceding my account to my wife. Then I got a new camera. Booted her off my account, made all her photos private, and have started uploading pics daily again. Ha!
I knew of all of these except for Ask City, but I only really rely on about six of them -- and I tend to prefer reddit, too.
5 - Matthew T. Sussman
Oh, and if Digg's on there and Fark isn't? Flawed list.
6 - Johnny
Wiki: college professors advice students not to use wiki, because the info is unreliable. I agree, wiki is a big waste of time, anybody can post anything, why that would be of interest to intelligent public? wiki: stay a way from!