1. Mashable “The Social Media Guide”

Mashable’s website is a great source to keep up with the latest news and developments in social media: http://mashable.com/ However, I very seldom visit it, I prefer several of their other ways of communicating which are through their RSS feed (http://feeds.mashable.com/Mashable), Twitter (http://twitter.com/mashable), Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/mashable), Buzz (http://google.com/profiles/mashable), or the good ‘ole email updates (http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=Mashable&loc=en_US).

2. The Next Web “Best of the Web’s News, Views, Startups and Culture”

The Next Web is another great source for updates on social media and the internet in general. The community around it doesn’t seem to be as robust, but they usually have an interesting take on what’s going on. You can follow them at their website (http://www.thenextweb.com/) or through their RSS Feed (http://feeds2.feedburner.com/TheNextWeb), FriendFeed (http://www.friendfeed.com/the-next-web), Twitter (http://twitter.com/TheNextWeb), Facebook(http://www.facebook.com/thenextweb), or email (http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=295309&loc=en_US) as well.

3. Read, Write, Web

This one’s a distance third on the list, but they still occasionally have some unique content or insightful commentary. Visit their website (http://www.readwriteweb.com/) for the latest, or follow them through their RSS Feed (http://www.readwriteweb.com/rss.xml), Twitter (http://twitter.com/rww), Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/ReadWriteWeb), or email(http://www.readwriteweb.com/newsletters/index.php).

Those are definitely the top three that I would suggest but I would also like to mention two more:

Gizmodo (http://gizmodo.com/) While Gizmodo is mainly a blog about technology on the hardware side of things, there’s a lot of content about social media and online culture. Also a lot of hardware now is driving social media, especially if you look at how GPS systems in smartphones enable the onslaught of location based services.

Your Friends: Once you make the plunge and get social media working for yourself and/or your brand, you’ll find that many contacts in your new digital social circle will be more than willing to share the latest news and give their opinions on the direction the technology is headed. And if you’ve got questions, they’re the people you want to ask. It’s a great reason to get a conversation started.

By simply staying up to date with these resources you’ll be doing a lot for your social media know-how. You’ll probably even to start feel like an early adopter! And for those of you who are already in the early adopter category, how do stay on top of it? What resources am I forgetting?

Todd Jackson, product manager for Google Buzz, called it “an entire new world within Gmail.”

On the other side of the aisle, Facebook is allegedly working on an email client that it is calling Titan. This news has come amidst yet another “Facebook facelift,” with the social networking site releasing more changes to the home page, specifically within the toolbar, with Messages, Notifications and Friend Requests now drop-down menus on the left-hand side of the screen.

There is a strong Internet buzz that Titan will kill off Gmail, especially since it is rumored that Titan will be able to be configured with any email client. With over 400 million users, it does seem that Facebook can’t really go wrong with this move. You can already search the web with Facebook. You’re connected to anyone who you want to be connected with. You can update your Twitter account through your Facebook status update with a special app. So if you incorporate email, would you have any other reason to leave Facebook.com?

I’m actually pretty excited about the changes within Gmail; however, I am a little skeptical about any true success. People are looking for the “next Facebook,” not another Facebook. We’re looking for something different that fits our needs in a better way. For a long time, we thought MySpace fit the bill just fine until Facebook one-upped them. If Google/Gmail had something truly innovative, then this would be an entirely different blog post. But they’re not one-upping anyone here – they’re just copying Facebook and hoping that the Google brand will encourage people to switch over.

What Google does have going for it is that the company has a strong track record of responding to consumer needs and desires. With that history alone we can expect several versions of Google Buzz to update our Gmail accounts over the coming months. And there are unique features that have been announced, and I’m sure there will be many more to come. For example, Buzz will be location-enabled on your phone, so it will know where you’re at without even being told. Ignore the creepy factor, and that’s pretty neat. But I’m not entirely convinced that those features will be enough to persuade people over to the Google-verse.

Who knows? Maybe two years from now I will be eating my words and Facebook will be as irrelevant as MySpace is, with Buzz leading the way. I do think Google is on to something with Google Wave, so perhaps they’ll end up mashing together Wave + Buzz + Gmail to create something that will end up eating the Internet.

The first wave is scheduled to start today; hopefully this won’t be on such a limited-basis release as Wave was. I also can’t find a date on when Facebook’s Titan will be released, though I’m thinking that will be sooner rather than later in an attempt to stay ahead of Buzz.

The best news about all of this? With some of the best online sites duking it out, we all win.