I use to visit a lot of sites each day, and now I don’t. Why? Well, I really don’t have a real reason why. I guess I could chalk it up to being lazy. The fewer sites I have to check, the more time I can spend on them (and the less bookmarks I have to click!).
Digg (http://digg.com)
This is probably my main tech news site these days. I use to be a regular visitor to Slashdot.org, but lets face it news is posted on Digg far faster than on Slashdot. Not to say that /. is a bad site or anything, it’s just that I prefer to see what’s interesting right now, not what was interesting 4 or 5 hours ago. For those of you that enjoy the /. comment flame wars, the Digg comment system is just about the same… though I’ll admit, the recent update to the Digg comment system sucks.
Neowin.net (http://neowin.net)
I’ll admit, I visit here more for the forum than anything. Neowin’s forum is huge as well as highly active. My favorite sections are The Media Room and The Gamer’s Hangout… enjoy a TV show? I can almost guarantee that you’ll find others discussing it. The thread for Heroes (Season 1) had 156 pages and 2,335 replies, while the thread for Lost (Season 3) had 292 pages and 4,371 replies. Now, that’s what I call discussion topics! Sure, there is more to Neowin than games and TV shows… that’s just the sections I spend most of my time in. They’ve got areas devoted to Linux users (I should be there), Windows Users, Mac Users, and even those of you still interested in hardware, modding, and overclocking.
Mashable (http://mashable.com)
I started visiting this site a few months back, but only registered as a member last week. This is probably the best site around for information on Social Networks. To keep things active, they’ll also throw in “popular news” here and there. It’s basically like Techcrunch, but without all the skewed charts and graphs and a little less Web 2.0.
Engadget (http://www.engadget.com)
This is still one of the best places to visit for anyone who enjoys technology. There is a reason that “gadget” is in the name.
iGoogle (http://www.google.com/ig)
Though not a tech news or community website, Google is still important to me… especially the iGoogle. I use Google Bookmarks to manage my bookmarks, this way things are synchronized no matter where I am or what browser I’m using. Firefox at home? Opera at work? Easy access to my bookmarks right from Google. It also give me the ability to monitor my personal (Gmail) email from work. While I cannot access my mail directly, I can still see what mail has come in and from who. With the ability to add various other “gadgets” to my page, I have quick access to weather, news, RSS feeds, and more. Not to mention Google Search. It’s basically my one-stop-shop for everything I need. No wonder it’s my homepage.
There are still a number of other sites I visit on a regular basis (d3bruts1d.com, OperaWatch, FilePlanet, and even MySapce to name a few). Now that I’ve listed my “Top 5″ websites that I visit, which sites would you call your top 5?