Inspired by Michael Arrington's 2009: Products I Can't Live Without, here are my vital tech products of last year:

• iPhone 4S — specifically the 8 megapixel camera, iCloud, and Siri. I take a LOT more pictures now. iCloud has saved me a couple times when I had to hard reset my iPhone while on the road. Siri has allowed me to move several apps off of my homescreen, including Phone, Find My Friends, Reminders, Notes, Clock, Weather.

• iPad — to save money, I limited my traveling and stopped paying for the 3G data plan. The iPad became more of a household device that I'd use in bed or on the couch. I also started using it as I stretch before my morning runs to make the stretching routine more enjoyable.

• Google — Chrome, Gmail, Reader, Voice

• Flipboard for iPad/iPhone — still, by far, the best way to stay up-to-date with Google Reader, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and now Tumblr.

• Trillian — Replaced Adium as my default chat client because of its seamless chat syncing and chat logging in the cloud. While chatting, I could easily switch to a different device and not worry about missing any IMs.

• Instagram — started using this even more when I got the 4S (8 megapixels, baby!)

• Tweetbot — the best Twitter iPhone app out there; its push notifications replaced my Boxcar app

• Facebook

• Instapaper — because I was overseas for 10 weeks in a country with spotty internet, I started downloading articles and blog posts to read offline. Also kept me amused on my 16 hour flight.

• Tumblr

• Skype — absolutely necessary for sharing intimate moments with someone that you can't be with physically.

• Dropbox — came in really handy when I constantly needed to share large files with my friends.

Honorable Mentions: Backblaze, Find My Friends, PostMate for iPhone (shameless plug), Slingbox

Heating Up for 2012: bitcasa, iTunes Match, Siri, Voxer

Cooling Down: BlogTV, Foursquare, Path

Dismissed: Adium, Boxcar for iPhone, Mozy, TokBox, Twitter for iPad, Hootsuite

Last year I attended two reunions -- one with my childhood friends and the other being my High School reunion. While I've done a pretty good job of keeping in touch with my childhood friends, most of my high school friends I hadn't talked to since graduation.

But if there is one thing that I have in common with both groups of friends, it's Facebook.

It came up several times in conversation. Friends would tell me how much they loved my status updates.

"Mel, I saw your status about a bee attacking you while you were peeing. HILARIOUS!"

"Mel, I love your food pics! Keep posting those!"

Sweet! I'm e-popular at my high school reunion, hahah. But not all of it was positive. One of my friends came up to me:

"Mel, I don't fucking understand half of your status updates. What the hell is 'RT'? And what's up with the '@' signs? And what are the #'s for?"

At the time I was pushing all of my Tweets from my personal account straight to my Facebook. I spent 15 minutes trying to explain to her the concepts of retweets, hashtags and @mentions...but she ended up even more confused and walked away.

So that's when it hit me. That is when I realized that even though most of my Twitter followers are my personal friends on Facebook, the two are very different audiences. Or rather, different social graphs.

The reality is we have a social network for just about every possible social graph these days:

• Personal friends? Got "˜em on Facebook.

• Colleagues and business contacts? Got "˜em on LinkedIn.

• Friends that enjoy my food pics? Instagram (for me, anyway)

• Local friends that wanna know where the party is at? Foursquare.

Even with Twitter, I have two very distinct accounts. One that is for professional topics and the other for personal tweeting"¦kinda like having a Facebook Profile for personal friends and a Facebook Page for fans.

It's something that I started doing because I realized that most of my personal friends don't have an interest in my professional/geek side. The few friends of mine that are interested? They'll follow both of my accounts. And the few times that a tweet overlaps both social graphs? I'll tweet it on one and retweet it on the other. Or I'll just tweet the same thing on both.

@AndyBudd once asked, "[is there a right way to tweet?](* http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2011/03/is_there_a_righ)"

My response? There is a time and a place for everything -- the wisdom comes from knowing when and where.

Before you start whipping me with "it's my Twitter account, I can tweet whatever I want!" ask yourself this:

Do my Facebook friends really care about #FollowFriday?

Do my Twitter followers really care if I check into a gas station to fill up gas?

Do my Twitter followers really care to click a non-descriptive "Photo: http://tumblr.com/asdfghj"?

There are so many damn social graphs, some of us don't know what to do with all of them. But, these graphs are separate for a reason, so we should treat them as such.

If a person is really interested in your location, they'll follow you on Foursquare. If they're really interested on your Tumblr posts, they'll follow you on Tumblr.

So disable all that cross-site auto-posting stuff. Be selective when cross-posting on Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter, and Tumblr. Realize the context of who are you talking to, why the follow you and what you are sharing with them. Or simply, before sharing anything on any social network, just ask yourself:

"Who would care about this?"

Back in 2006, when I was sporting a nifty little Sony Ericsson. I had this desktop app called BluePhoneElite that would push notifications from my phone to my computer screen via bluetooth.

It was great! When I got a text message, I'd see an unobtrusive growl notification pop up. When someone called me, same thing; a casual little growl notification to nudge me and then fade away.

It was elegant. I could keep my eyes on the screen and not have to pick up my phone every time it beeped. And the notifications would only show up on my screen when my phone was nearby.

Fast forward to today.

Phones are way more capable. We have a hot new category of mobile devices in tablets. And with the announcement of iCloud, Apple clearly envisions consumers having more of these multiple devices.

We are now living in era of real-time information and always-connected mobile devices. Push notifications will continue to grow more and more a part of our lives.

So when you combine these two trends of push notifications and multiple devices, what do you get? I bet it's something like this:

• Text messages only beep on your phone.
• New emails beep on Sparrow, your iPhone and iPad (but sound different on each).
• IMs only beep on your Mac.
• @mentions beep on both your phone and Mac but not your iPad.
• Farmville beeps your iPhone and iPad but not your Mac.

Why do we have to look at different devices for different notifications? Why do we have to deal with different alert tones on each device for the exact same notification?

There has to be a better way. Something more elegant, like BluePhoneElite, but with that iCloud magic. Something that takes into account what device I am currently using. Maybe something like:

Proximity-Aware Push Notifications.

On Monday, Apple unveiled their new location-aware app, Reminders, which let's you assign locations to your tasks:

Say you need to remember to pick up milk during your next grocery trip. Since Reminders can be location based, you'll get an alert as soon as you pull into the supermarket parking lot.

Proximity-awareness is a similar idea. But instead of having your location defined as calculated GPS region, it'd be defined by where you are in relation to your other devices. Or specifically, where your mobile device is in relation to your primary computer.

Examples:

• When you get a new email and your iPhone is not within 5 feet of your Mac, the notification is only pushed to the iPhone.
• When you receive a text message and your iPhone is close to your Mac, the notification is only displayed on the Mac.

You get the idea.

A system like this means when we're at the desktop, we can keep our eyes on the monitor. When we walk away from the desk, we bring our notifications with us. (Hell, just for kicks: when we walk away from the desk, make our screensavers and lock screens go up as well.)

You see, with push notifications, we have signals that facilitate interactions in our digital lives. A few years ago, things were simple: new text messages beeped on our phones, new email notifications beeped on our PCs. But now we are in an age of information overload with multiple devices and too many social web services.

Push helped us keep up with important messages. But now we need help keeping up with the push notifications themselves. We need something smarter system.

And proximity-awareness is the perfect place to start.

Karol: The show starts at 7pm, right?

Mel: Yeah. I'm heading there 5:45ish with Marlo.

Mel: Ness, are we supposed to save seats for you or you guys gonna be backstage the whole time?

Nessa: We're in the first act, so we'll sit with you guys after intermission.

Krystal: Save two seats for Karol.

That is a texting conversation I had with my friends on Saturday with the group texting app, GroupMe. We actually started playing with the app a couple nights before, but Saturday we finally saw its true value.

GroupMe as a Utility

As shown in the conversation above, GroupMe comes in super handy when going out with friends. Simple situations like, "Hey, I just got parked. Where are you guys?" can be easily addressed with GroupMe.

Without a group texting app, how would you solve this situation?

Twitter? You can, but you'll easily piss off your mutual followers because you're spamming their timelines with a private conversation that doesn't concern them.

Call/Text people individually? Messy and inefficient. Plus, it leaves the possibility of someone accidentally getting left in the dark.

With group texting, you're in touch with everyone that needs to be informed. Everyone is on the same page. Everyone is in sync.

GroupMe as Entertainment

During the concert, GroupMe switched from being a utility to pure entertainment. In a setting where it's rude to talk to each other while the performer is on stage, GroupMe gave us the freedom we wanted.

(Okay, texting each other during a performance isn't exactly the most polite thing to do either, but hey, at least it's discrete.)

Because the chat is private and everything goes directly to everyone's phones, the experience is a lot more intimate than Twitter ever could be.

What about Beluga, Disco, Fast Society, etc?

One thing that made GroupMe stand out to me over its competitors: it's compatible with Google Voice.

Personally, I am a very, very loyal user of Google Voice. It's the only number that I give out. I am absolutely addicted to how I can type out & send text messages from my computer. And so far with all of the competing apps I've tested, GroupMe is the only app the lets me use my GV number.

This is important to me because when friends install GroupMe and the app scans their Address Books, I will actually show up as a suggested friend.

With the competing apps, I simply couldn't use my GV number; I was forced to use my cell phone number, which is the number that nobody has.

Closing Thoughts

With just one full day of using GroupMe in the real world, I can tell this app has serious potential for my nights out with friends.

Will it go mainstream? I hope so but I'm not sure.

There is always the possibility that Facebook might integrate their Messages 2.0 feature with Groups, Places, Events, etc. And we all know how Facebook has a knack for making early adopter ideas into mainstream hits.

Google has the opportunity to come up with something too. They have all the pieces: Gmail, GTalk, Google Voice, Disco for iPhone...I'd LOVE to see them integrate all of those technologies into one seamless experience.

Hell, Apple has the same opportunity as well, with Facetime, iChat, and iPhones. It'd be like adding that Steve Jobs magic to RIM's precious BlackBerry Messenger.

But those are all pipe dreams of mine; 100% speculation on my part based on zero insider information.

In the meantime, I've got a group of close friends on GroupMe. The cool thing is, if I want more friends to get on this, I don't even have to wait for them to install the app -- I can just add them to a group.

Even if the app never catches on with the rest of my friends, I've already got my closest friends on it.

That's good enough for me.

This isn't exactly breaking news...but man, Instapaper is a REALLY GREAT app.

For months I was hesitant about forking over $5 for this app. I constantly said to myself, "I already have Flipboard and Reeder...do I really need another reading app?"

A couple weeks ago, I said, "screw it" and finally bit the $5 bullet.

What happened? Instapaper quickly became my most-used app on the iPad.

I should note that I am addicted to RSS feeds. As of now, I follow 528 different feeds. So anything that helps me get through those feeds faster, I immediately fall in love with. In the past, that's been Firefox's tabbed browsing, Reeder for iPad, and somewhat recently, Flipboard for iPad.

A typical morning at the desktop, I will:

• load up Google Reader.
• go up and down the list with the "j" and "k" shortcut keys.
• when I find something I want to read, I open it as a background tab and continue skimming through Google Reader.
• once I finish going through Google Reader, I read each one of the background tabs.

Now with Instapaper for iPad, I have a similar routine while on the go:

• load up Flipboard.
• swipe through the pages, skimming through all of my Google Reader feeds AND Twitter feed.
• when I find something I want to read, I'll read it right away or send it to Instapaper.
• once I finish going through Flipboard, I load up Instapaper and read each article there.

And that's not all.

In the States, I spoiled myself with 3G plans for both my iPad and iPhone. During my recent 10 week trip to the Philippines, I didn't have that luxury for either device. But that was okay because Instapaper absolutely shines with offline reading.

Every time I was about to leave the house, I'd have several articles waiting for me. Hell, for my 16 hour flight back to Los Angeles, I queued up almost 100 articles. And when I came across an article that I wanted to come back to later, I'd file it under a folder like "Reblog Later", "Tweet Later" or "Watch Later".

Now that I'm back in the U.S., I really don't need to start up my iPad's 3G plan again. With Instapaper for iPad, I can enjoy my RSS feed reading list anytime, anywhere...with or without internet.

So thank you, Instapaper. Before I bought you, I had no idea how important you'd be to me. I was so hesitant on spending $5 for you...but you ended up saving me $25/month.

asked by @TheRayson.

Here we go:

Wake up.

Check notifications on Boxcar (iPhone). Notifies me of new @replies, followers, DMs, and emails. Also notifies me of breaking news about Apple.

Check text messages.

Catch up on my feeds with my Flipboard app (iPad). Tech News then links/pics from Twitter.

Check personal Twitter account on my iPad. (It's easier to skim through these since I've viewed all of the Twitpics with Flipboard already)

Promote with the @btvfam account. (Lots of the YouTubers like to promote late at night. I'll (re)tweet the morning after to give the information a little boost for the day.)

Catch up on Tumblr and other feeds with Google Reader at the desk.

Facebook.

Respond to text messages via Google Voice.

Respond to emails.

Take off DND from AIM, Skype.

Check professional Twitter account. If there's any breaking news that has been tweeted, I've probably already read about it from the news feeds.

I use Growl notifications on my Mac to passively update me with incoming tweets. Otherwise, I'll catch up with Twitter every few hours.

I also tend to load up a ton of background tabs on my browser for things to check out when I have time.

Inspired by Michael Arrington's 2009: Products I Can't Live Without, here are my vital tech products of last year:

• Google -- Chrome, Voice, Gmail, Reader
• Apple -- iPad, Magic Mouse, MacBook Air, iPhone
• Twitter -- Twitter for iPad, Hootsuite, TweetDeck
• Boxcar for iPhone
• Skype
• Tumblr
• Flipboard for iPad
• Foursquare
• Facebook
• BlogTV
• TokBox

Honorable Mentions: Adium, Mozy, Dropbox

Heating Up for 2011: Mac App Store, AT&T MicroCell

Lost That Loving Feeling: Firefox, Google Wave, Netflix, Hulu

Inspired by Michael Arrington's 2009: Products I Can't Live Without, here are my vital tech products of last year:

• Google -- Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Reader, Voice
• Mozilla Firefox
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Skype
• BlogTV
• Apple - iPhone + Push Notifications, iTunes
• TokBox
• Adium
• Wordpress

Honorable Mentions: Mozy, Dropbox

Heating Up in 2010: Foursquare, Tumblr, Google Chrome, Google Wave, Netflix, iPad

Lost That Loving Feeling: Blockbuster Online, Delicious, Digg, Flickr, MySpace

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why the iPad will be a game-changer.

The experience of flipping through a magazine is like having a entire website -- and not just any site but a beautiful, graphically-rich, totally interactive site -- in your hands. With ZERO downloading.

These days if you want to do research on something, you'll be clicking around, waiting for the page to load, clicking around, waiting for the page to load...etc. Rinse and repeat. But with entire book/magazine publications download in full, onto one device...you can experience the same thing with zero loading time between pages!

And it's not just magazines we're talking about. Imagine textbooks for colleges. Imagine being able to zoom in on a 3D model of a string of DNA. Move it around 360 degrees. Get a real good look at it and then zoom out. All of this and more, in your hands, with zero loading time.

You have kids? Just fire up an interactive book and let 'em knock themselves out. I know what you're thinking: why would I give my kid a $500 toy?? Just search up "baby games" for iPhone...you'll be surprised how popular the iPhone/iTouch is for kids.

Honestly, after watching this video, I'm really jealous of programmers and interactive designers now. Because this new concept of rich, truly-interactive digital pages is gonna be a LOT of fun...and it's the way of the future.

From http://forums.macrumors.com (via Garry):

iPoop... iCry. I was so hoping for something more.

Great just what the world needs, another freaking MP3 player. Go Steve! Where's the Newton?!

I still can't believe this! All this hype for something so ridiculous! Who cares about an MP3 player? I want something new! I want them to think differently! Why oh why would they do this?! It's so wrong! It's so stupid!

All that hype for an MP3 player? Break-thru digital device? The Reality Distiortion Field™ is starting to warp Steve's mind if he thinks for one second that this thing is gonna take off.

1. Not revolutionary. Big capacity mp3 players already exist. With Creative Labs' entrance into the firewire arena, future nomads will have similar specs and better prices.

2. A bad fit. This product is outside Apple's core competancy - computing devices. When many are calling for a pda, they release an MP3 player.

3. Without a future. This Christmas you will see mp3 players be commoditized. Meaning that the players from Korea will be way less expensive tha iPod. The real money is in DRM and distribution (ala Real Musicnet). If Apple were smart they would be focusing on high gross revenue from services rather than a playback device.

To you non-believers of the iPad:

• It's the software, stupid. Yes, out of the box, the iPad is just a giant iPhone (minus the phone). But wait a year for developers to write applications that'll take full advantage of the iPad's capabilities. The iPhone is a huge success and it took a full year before developers came up with some really awesome apps/games. Imagine what they could do with a bigger screen and stronger processor.

• Enterprises are starting to support iPhone technology. Isn't it expensive to transition an entire enterprise to Mac? Yes, but you wouldn't have to because the iPhone/iPad are increasingly building in support for today's most popular enterprise solutions. Are you a Blackberry User? Blackberry's are backed by Microsoft Exchange to do their push emails...and that is fully-supported by iPhone/iPad, out of the box.

• Medical fields, small businesses and universities can benefit from the iPad. Anyone that uses a clipboard or does paperwork -- college students, nurses, secretaries, etc -- imagine them with an iPad, having full access to any resource they need via the internet.

• It'll get cheaper. Remember, the iPhone was introduced at $600. Now you can get one for $100. When the iPad gets cheaper...watch out, world. Lemme ask you this: would you rather carry around a backpack full of $500 worth of textbooks or one light-weight, sub-$400 device that holds everything?

• It's for everyone. The iPad is to laptops the way the Nintendo Wii is to XBOX/PS3. Of course, the serious worker/gamer will need a real computer/console to do what they want. But an iPad/Wii is just so fun, so simple that anyone in the family can use it.

• Don't doubt Steve Jobs. Love him or hate him, he's one of the most influential pioneers and visionaries of our time. When he launches a product like this, he envisions the entire experience, top to bottom -- hardware + software + content. Steve has been working his ass off with major publishers to bring all of their books, magazines and newspapers to the iPad. This will take a while -- just as it did with the music labels, TV studios and movie studios -- but it'll happen.

Why is it that there are hundreds of iPod competitors out there with better hardware and specs, yet the iPod remains dominant? Good marketing? My ass. Yes, Apple has awesome marketing, but that alone won't keep a product dominant for nine f'ing years. What will keep you dominant is the seamless and constantly improving entire experience. Apple always works for the perfect marriage of hardware, software and content.

The iPad is a brand new category of product. It's easy to dismiss it right now but that's only because there are no applications out there that fully take advantage of its capabilities.

With the same formula that was used to make the iPod and iPhone into dominant forces, it'll take a couple years but Apple will surely (re)invent a new class of computing.