Most of us don’t think of our browser as a social media tool. I can assure you that after going through this list of Firefox plugins, you’ll take it more seriously and if you’re running another browser, you might want to take this one for a ride.

What’s beautiful about Firefox, besides the underdog story behind it, is that it’s open source and it provides with an insane number of tools developed by programmers all over the world allowing you to personalize your experience.

One more thing I will mention before starting this list is that I’m not suggesting in any way that you go and download a dozen of plugins, see what works better for you and stick with a few. Here we go:

1. Yoono

Yoono is a powerful tool that sits on your browser as a sidebar and you can turn on and off as desired. You can access and manage your activity on different networks including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Flickr as well as IM services like Google Talk or AIM.

2. Bit.ly Sidebar

The Bit.ly sidebar simply rocks (I’ll admit I’m a big fan of Bit.ly…). You can trigger the sidebar from any website and share content on Twitter without ever visiting the actual application or Bit.ly itself. It also shows you a quick snapshot of the stats if the piece of content has been previously shared by other Bit.ly users and gives you the option to post on Facebook or email it.

3. Subscribe with UberVU

UberVU is an application that helps you track conversations on different networks. It is a great listening tool that everyone should include as part of a social media strategy. The team at UberVU has recently launched this bookmarlet that gives you a quick view of the reactions that post has generated and lets you subscribe and receive alerts via email. Use it to track your own content and be on top of the conversation.

4. AddThis or ShareThis

You have seen the ShareThis or AddThis buttons all over but you can also install the plugins to add them on your browser with the same functionality. Just another comfortable way of sharing content to several platforms without leaving the site.

5. DiggBar

Of course if you’re a Digg user, the toolbar makes it easy to digg content by just clicking the button. The latest version displays the count and button on the URL bar to save space but if you find it annoying you can turn it on and off.

6. StumbleUpon Toolbar

Similar to Digg but with its own toolbar on the browser, I find the StumbleUpon plugin every useful to save content I want to read later or just bookmark websites. It is also great to submit your own content. You can “stumble” without going to the site, a feature that I don’t use much to be honest.

7. Share on Posterous

One of my favorites since I use Posterous to share content from other sources (Awesomeness Around The Web). The “Share on Posterous” plugin opens a little window on the side of the browser and grabs the information displayed on the page including different types of media formats such as photography, also giving you the option to edit and add your own comment. There is also a similar plugin if you prefer Tumblr.

8. Read Later (InstaPaper)

InstaPaper is as simple as its tagline, “A simple tool to save web pages for reading later”, one click (truly just one step) to bookmark content to comeback later. What I love about it is that it eliminates the clutter around the content for a minimalistic approach to reading.

9. Facebook Toolbar

The easiest way of not going to the actual site, while most of the options are a navigation you can also share content and update your status from the toolbar.

10. Hootlet

From HootSuite, it not only offers sharing to several Twitter accounts, Facebook profile, fan pages and LinkedIn but you can also schedule your posts without going to the platform. Quick and painless.

11. Facebook Sidebar Chat

This is something that you need to setup by yourself on Firefox since it’s not a plugin, it takes the Facebook chat from its original location to the sidebar, a good way of leaving the site while keeping the chat alive. If you are interested in the setup, you can get a little step-by-step screencast here.

12. Firebug

Among other things, I use Firebug to measure blog loading times, after all your blog is an essential part of your social media and loading times can really affect your performance. The cool thing about it is that you can get an easy-to-read breakdown of how long each single item on the page is taking to load so you can improve. For example, how the ShareThis plugin takes forever and it’s about to get replaced on this blog… sorry.

13. Delicious

An oldie but still useful. Again, painless bookmarking. Use it also to bookmark your own content, Delicious has proven to be a good source of traffic back to your blog.

14. TwitterBar

The TwitterBar provides you with a quick option to send a Tweet, it sits in the address bar. Just type and click the icon.

15. WiseStamp

WiseStamp is a plugin to help you create a nice email signature including icons to your Social Networks and even a RSS feed that displays a link to your latest blog post. It works with web-based email clients like Gmail.

Share Your Favorite Plugins…

There are plenty of tools out there that you can implement to your Firefox browser and I have included a few here, now you can share your favorite ones in the comments section of this post. Tell us about your experience and how you use them…

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As I promised in the post “7 Ways To Stay Connected To Facebook (Without Going To The Site)“, here is a mini-tutorial on how to move the Facebook chat to the Firefox sidebar. Make sure to view the whole post as I added the information you will need to copy and paste to create the bookmark (you will need it).

Here is the information you need…

As the title of the post says, this tutorial is for the Firefox browser, you should give it a try if you don’t have it. Download it here.

The link you need to add as the “Location” for your bookmark is http://www.facebook.com/presence/popout.php. Don’t forget to check the box to have it load on the sidebar.

Elsewhere

Visit SocialMouth’s Screenr profile to watch the rest of the mini-tutorials.

If you have any ideas for new mini-tutorials just suggest them on the comments.

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If you are becoming more and more active on Facebook, you are probably starting to notice that going to the actual website is not always convenient or, that you can’t always be connected to it.

Yes, some people are always connected to a platform one way or another because that is where the community lives or where the prospect hangs out. Fortunately, there are many applications being developed around these social websites, some of them are bringing these communities to a common place on the web or even to your desktop or mobile device.

So let’s review some of the tools you can use to stay connected to Facebook without even going to the site:

1. Desktop Applications

One of the easier ways to connect to Facebook without actually going there is by using the Facebook for Adobe AIR application. There are also third-party apps that have a lot more features built in. Read my post Your Social Life In One Place: Your Desktop to learn more about Nomee.

2. Mobile Application

The last version of the Facebook application for iPhone has been said to be one of the best ones ever featured on iTunes and of course, it is also available for other platforms as well.

I think the success for the iPhone app in particular is due to the universal navigation made into the main page, the experience it’s really getting closer to the real thing. The application is obviously free and if you haven’t experience the iPhone version, I suggest you do.

3. Firefox Toolbar

If you are using Firefox, with a couple of clicks you can install the Facebook Toolbar, which includes status updating, sharing options and quick links to different section on the site.

4. Sidebar Chat

The Facebook Chat must be one of the most annoying chats ever. Some people (me included…) choose not to use it but if you do, you can make it a little bit more human-friendly. If you use Firefox, which you should, you can place it on the sidebar by simply bookmarking it. This is a great tutorial from HongKiat: How To Place Facebook Chat On Firefox Sidebar and I promise to put together a little video later this week.

5. Twitter Clients

I know, I said Twitter, but both desktop and web-based applications like TweetDeck, Seemsic or HootSuite have recently expanded their efforts to Facebook integrations and they keep improving and adding features. Soon, we will never visit the actual site again…

6. Ping Your Status

Services like Ping.fm let you update your status for several networks at the same time, you can configure whatever services you want to connect from a very extensive menu of possiblities. Other more recent applications such as HelloTxt are also available and if you pay attention on other sites, Facebook is being updated from anywhere online…

7. Brizzly

Brizzly is definitely the most recent innovation on how to manage your Facebook account, it displays your activity in a stream fromat and you can view the news feed or your wall. The application also handles your Twitter account which makes it pretty cool because you can manage both of them from one place.

Brizzly has been making a lot of noise lately, maybe it’s time you take it for a spin. Follow this link to signup (it includes an invite code).

Last Word

I’m always chasing simplicity in everything I do. When it comes to these little gadgets I have one rule I try to follow, if it makes my life easier then I’ll consider it but if it adds more steps to my process, complicates my day or they are just clutter on my notebook… I drop ‘em for good.

The point here is to provide ease on your social media activity while you stay connected and some of these tools really do the trick.

Are you using something else to stay connected to Facebook? Share your secrets in the comment section…

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Microsoft has made its Windows 7 “Release Candidate” version available to download. While this should be good news for the company, it already started generating negative feedback all over the web, a place where news like this spreads pretty quickly.

What’s the issue this time? When you upgrade to Windows 7 and you select the “express install”, it will change your default browser to… guess? Yes, Internet Explorer. Of course you have the option to select “custom install” and you are asked to select your default browser. Most users will select the express route.

The expected reaction has already occurred, other browsers like Mozilla’s Firefox are fighting against it and the public is taking sides on the matter generating some bad comments on the web.

But what’s funny to me is thinking about who makes these kind of decisions over at Microsoft, obviously they don’t understand the game as it needs to be played today. We were playing a different game five years ago, the world changed and these people are not aware of it.

Today, the user controls your brand. People value honesty, transparency, truth and fairness over your multi-billion ad campaign. How is it that having the power and the resources Microsoft has, they are not capable of reinventing, to change their message and re-brand, try to be more likable. How stupid it is to continue with these strategies that brought so much heat to the company ten years ago. Today, somebody at corporate decided it was ok to bring back the “browser controversy” to the table, or simply ignored it. Either way…

On top of that, they are clueless about timing. Right when Firefox is gaining so much market over IE, with a culture behind it, a user developed platform and an underdog story. Can you predict that this strategy will slow down Firefox‘s momentum? I don’t think so. I know there are users that will not even notice their browser has been changed, but the user that took the time to download FF will get it back in place.

This is not just about the technical aspects, this is corporate ego and not knowing what’s up out there. Microsoft needs to start listening to the user.

In the meantime, if you use IE, I strongly recommend you go to Firefox and give it a test drive. “Once you go Firefox, you never go back”… or something like that.

Share your thoughts with us…