I had lunch with a former student today, Matt Smelser at I and O Communications.  He’s doing some really cool things at his company.  During our lunch, Matt asked me about some ways that I keep up with social media trends, so I put the following together for him, thought I’d share it here.

Pros I follow on Twitter:
@briansolis
@chrisbrogan
@kimhaynes
@jrue
@sheilaS
@agahran
@techcrunch
@scobleizer
@kevinrose
@mediatrick
@garyvee
@adrianholovaty
@digitaljournals
@omarg
@robquig

graphicdesignr.net reports on Newspapers that Twitter. Follow any of them in your interest or geographic area.

Some of the RSS feeds I follow:
NY Times Technology
Old Media New Tricks
PBS Media Shift
BoomTown
Wired (of course)
Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang
Techmeme
TechCrunch
Scobleizer
SocialMedia Today
Mashable
Connection Cafe (Convio’s Blog)

I also check in regularly with Poynter. It’s good to keep up with Pew Internet studies, too.

I know there are lots more. Any other suggestions out there?

I also have a delicous site www.delicious.com/clroyal . Any time I have an article for class, I tag it there as Daily, then I move it to a category.  It’s open, feel free to visit it to see what I’m talking about.

It is difficult to keep up with the swift pace of new media trends. It really is a commitment. But, it’s fun and can really be valuable to you in any number of ways.

Update:  I just added another couple of important links. Online Journalism Review is back in business at the Knight Digital Media Center (since mid Sept. Why didn’t I know this?, congrats Robert Niles). They are on Twitter, too (@ojr).  And, from that site, there is a great post by @eulken about Building the Data Desk . Erik Ulken’s blog is ulken.com.