In all honesty I can tell you that the internet never once made me more productive.  Sure I can use it to find out things and research topics with great speed, but while I am doing that I always catch myself venturing off on another topic.  It is quite possible that it is just my ADHD that forces my brain into thinking about 800 different things at once, thus browsing the web for useless stuff when I shouldn’t be.  But the thing is that I cannot help but think I am not alone.  No, I think the internet has some kind of power of me and others that makes productivity decrease and procrastination increase.  To prove it, here is my typical work day…

• 8:00AM – Arrive at work.  Must find coffee, ahhh coffee.  Log into computer, sign in to IM, look at work emails, and then ignore work emails.
• 8:15AM – Check Facebook to see new notifications and morning status updates…
• 8:45AM – Freak out because the daily report should have already been finished.  Start daily report.
• 9:15AM – Oh, someone repinned my pin on Pinterest!  Go check it out….
• 10:00AM – Try to figure out how I got stuck on Pinterest for 45 minutes and realize the daily report still is not finished.
• 10:15AM – Finished daily report!  Hooray!  Now I reward myself with some celeb gossip and news.
• 10:45AM – Celebrities are nuts, oh Facebook time, yes!
• 11:30AM – I wish lunch time was now, I should look at some delicious recipes for dinner tonight.  Browse food blogs and recipe sites.
• 12:15PM – Yes!  Lunch!  I should totally get some work done while I eat this tasty meal…oh but it is hard to type and eat.  I can scroll through Pinterest though!
• 1:45PM – Crap.  I have nothing to show for today so far except for three awesome recipes, about fifty new pins, and I am more than current on my celebrity news stories.  I will get work done.
• 2:00PM – Finally I have something done for today…one project down.
• 2:15PM – YouTube why must you have funny videos.  Watch the Kevin Bacon Logitech commercial four times in a row.
• 2:30PM – Remember the work emails were never addressed.
• 2:45PM – All work emails answered, but what about my personal emails?
• 3:30PM – Personal emails answered and inbox cleaned.
• 4:30PM – What just happened to that hour and why have I only done like three productive things today?
• 5:00PM – See ya tomorrow office!

Clearly, I should have found a job that does not rely entirely on internet use…

In 2011 there were some great technological advancements.  There were also some fun tech toys and gadgets that we all found ourselves drooling over and waiting in line for.  My two favorites of 2011 would have to be Siri, the iPhone’s personal assistant and the Kindle Fire.  Sure I love my iPad2, but the Kindle Fire is pretty awesome itself.  I don’t get to choose what the top trends for the year were though.  That decision is based on numbers.

The infographic below shows the most used and loved technology trends of the past year.  Cloud based computing, tablets, geographical location apps, and mobile sharing all made the list.  Is there anything you think is missing from the list?

In 2011, new Facebook sign-ups reached an all time high, even as Google sought to up the ante with the introduction of its own social network, Google +.  Google took advantage of some of the most glaring mistakes in Facebook privacy by introducing Circles as a way to control which contacts can view the things you post.  It also offered a lot more space for writing, too.  You could post a War and Peace sized piece of your mind without hitting a limit.  Not long after this, however, Facebook spruced up its act by including many of those features in its own way.  Here’s the current state of things with Facebook privacy:

I had to figure out if I would really utilize the amazing new features that the iPhone 4S has to offer.  Like the impressive 8 megapixel camera.  I am always taking pictures, and an increased quality would only better.  I wasn’t sold on Siri (the assistant on the iPhone) at first, but watching the advertisements and more have convinced me that I am in the market for an assistant on my phone.  There’s a lot more to the phone of course, so find out what is making me make the switch to an iPhone.

RIM is also extending its enterprise customers one month of free technical support. Technical support can be a costly expense to Blackberry users, so this is a valuable service offer.  Even people who are already on existing, current tech support plans can enjoy the benefits of a free added month of service.

While this is all very well and good from RIM, the fact remains that its competitors continue coming on stronger than ever before, and the timing of the outage couldn’t have been much worse.  It was the same week that Apple’s iPhone 4S came out, with iMessage (Apple’s own BlackBerry messaging-like service that does the very same thing, and then some.)  There’s also Android to consider — the mobile operating system from Google that can run on several different smart phone hand sets.

Here’s a look at the numbers and how they were shaking out for RIM last year:

By making these controls available and obvious, Facebook hopes to compete with Google+, it’s current rival for social networking and media sharing sites. Facebook, traditionally against the idea and concept of “social grouping,” has always leaned towards making information more accessible, to more people, with greater ease.  Allowing these controls and some rumored new grouping options would add to Facebook what Google+ users have been lauding as a clear advantage of Google’s social network over Facebook’s.

When Google+ was introduced in June, ( it has since amassed 29 million worldwide unique visitors in July,) it allowed users to build “circles” of contacts for their content right out of the gate.  This let users put various people into circles and set specific privacy levels for what they could see when updates were made, or at least, to what circles a given update would be visible.

Facebook claims it is just responding to user requests for features by making the accommodations, but many speculate this is a decisively competitive move aimed at Google+ in hopes of steering transitioning social networking users back to itself by offering similar features to those found at Google+. By mimicking the top cited Google+ feature attributed to having the most people leave Facebook and sign up there, Facebook is sure it can remain competitive.

Chris Cox of Facebook said that making these privacy control changes now is critical to Facebook’s continuation, but emphasized that the changes were not made in response to any threat posed by the new social network from Google. “We are launching this now because it is ready,” he said.

We’ll soon know whether Facebook’s plan is a winner or not.  What do you think?

About the Author: Jamel Diggs enjoys writing about the Internet and Social Networking, and is currently spreading the news about the importance of having a reliable  home alarm to help protect against crimes in neighborhoods around the United States.

Netflix last month decided to unbundle its unlimited video streaming option from plans with disc rentals.  This is part of their strategy to cut down on shipping costs by trying to get as many people as possible on their streaming services instead of ordering discs through the mail.  Starting on Sept. 1, these new changes go into effect, and users who want both streaming plans and the ability to rent DVDs will have to purchase two plans instead of one combined.

The nice thing about the new Netflix is that titles availble on DVD only will no longer show up when customers are browsing their apps.

Netflix is rumored to be working on developing a change that would do away with household sharing of  video streaming and would instead require each individual user to pay a separate monthly fee. This is not expected to go over very well with customers, either.

In our opinion, Netflix is making itself less and less attractive and setting itself up for a fall.  Competitors that didn’t exist four or five years ago are gearing up for battle against the streaming video giant, and several look to have promising chances.  Amazon, Hulu, Vudu, and others could seriously give Netflix a run for its money as users defect en masse in protest to the company’s sudden and radical restructuring of pricing and features.

For a while after that, browsing remained a single minded and technologically monopolized endeavor for about two more years, before the onset of alternative browsers like Opera, versions of Mozilla’s open source Web browsing software in an array of titles, and much later, Apple Safari and Google Chrome.  Did we really need so many choices?  What is the difference at the end of the day?

Enjoy the following infographic and you will see the history of the Internet’s Web browsing software usage, and where we currently stand.