When travelling, the first port of call (excuse the pun) when it comes to social media interaction is to get your photographs ‘up’. They need to be online and there for friends, family and all to see, but it’s a realtively simple process, requiring none of the dedication, commitment and brilliance of a blog post (the pressure to be witty, interesting and profound can be a bit of a burden). And thanks to Pikchur, my latest travel tool recommendation, there’s really no excuse.

Pikchur allows you to share your photographs while on the go. Once you’ve created an account you’re all set. Take a snap and then choose to post the image via phone, mms, email or upload. Pikchur then will send it far and wide to whichever online accounts you’ve synced with the service. This means each active profile you have on Facebook, Jaiku, Twitter, Pownce, tumblr, friendfeed, identi.ca, plurk and rejaw will be updated with the pic.

So whether you want to update a host of pals across a host of services with the latest image of you in front of a famous monument in a distant land, or just plop some photos on Facebook while away from a computer, Pikchur could help you out.

There’s using social media and then there’s using social media. In a world where TMI just doesn’t exist, lifestreaming is the crack of choice for the true social media whore. Lifestreamer and blogger Mark Krynsky describes it as ’a chronological aggregated view of your life activities both online and offline’ - a way of displaying and sharing your activities and interests through social media, all in one place. It’s similar to lifecasting (think ED TV) but more subtle than just walking around with a camera on your head.

And Mark recently wrote this very interesting article about how lifestreaming can be adapted to the nomad-minded in the form of travelstreaming. He reports:

Alan Cheslow notified me last night of a new site project he is working on that he’s deemed a Travelstream[…]so that he could share his family road trip with his extended family and friends as well as providing a journal of his travels to reflect upon after his return.

His Travelstreaming site takes the Lifestreaming concept of aggregating social services data, but puts focus on a specific event. His site displays his vacation schedule, photos, blog posts, and several other GPS based activities. Alan has also provided details on many of the tools he used to build the site including several mobile client apps, Brightkite, Flickr, Yahoo Pipes, and more.

It’s basically what we’ve been advocating for ages - using the best tools at your disposal to record and share your travels - but very focused on each individual trip, an interesting twist on the concept and particularly useful if you take many shorter expeditions in the year.

Check out Alan’s site and get inspired to tailor a travelstreaming hub for your own trip.

12seconds.tv is new, super new in fact, so new you’ll need to hit the site and request an invite to sign up. We’re talking a real front runner in social media trends that may or not be the next big thing. Nevertheless, we love it and think it is an addition to the arsenal of any happy traveller. But, before you send that invite request, let me tell you more.

Have you seen Molly’s twittering? If not, then enjoy her bite sized musings here. Twitter is micro-blogging, 140 characters at a time. Micro-vlogging is the same, but with video instead of words. And, as I’m sure you can gather, those videos are 12 seconds at a time.

So what would be the value of such a service to the intrepid? I see 12seconds.tv and the video footage you upload as an alternative that fills the gap between the photograph and text update. Offering real ‘wish you were here’ credentials. It’s quick too. Once your account is setup you can film yourself direct onto the web or, more pertinent for those in lands far away, whip out your camera phone, do your 12 second skit, email it from your mobby and it appears online ready for the eyes of your pals.

12seconds.tv is potentially a great way to share the highs and lows of your trips away without any danger of, err… over engaging your audience.

Self-declared ‘creative techie’ and STA Explorer Tim has taken unpaid leave from his job and is getting his gear together for an epic round the world trip in September (take a look at his itinerary and weep with jealousy). On his Random Projects blog he gives his thoughts on being an Explorer and explains the angle he’ll bring to his travel tales:

I will be writing about essential (\not really essential at all) techno toys for travelling including shiny flashy things that go beep, websites and other mumbo jumbo.

It’ll be essential reading for aspiring techie travellers as:

I’m going to try to put together what I’ve found from some pretty extensive research on loads of things from connectivity and power to cameras and computery things. For those of us wanting to send that video you took of meeting Britney on the top of Mount Everest back to base camp before that paparazzi’s huskies get him back to the local Starbucks or for those of us just wanting to use those long bus journeys getting your latest blog or photos ready for upload. I’ll see what I can do!

With posts already up about his 3-hour booking marathon in STA Travel Brighton and his first gadget purchase - a 20Gb EeePC 901 - Tim’s blog is already a must-read if you’re thinking of a plugged-in global trip. And you can keep in daily contact with his Twitter feed too.

A top five comes close, but it is barely half as good. So to see that BudgetGlobetrotting had gone the whole nine (ten?) yards with Top 10 Travel Social Networks and Communities was a delight.

It is rather redundant to re-list the list, so I’ll just pick out a few that we here at STA approve of, and let you discover the rest on the original article.

Dopplr, Web 2.0 missing ‘e’, check. Web 2.0 fancy dan graphics, check. Web 2.0 integration of other, already utilised, social media services, check. What more is there to know? It’s good to go.

Trip Wolf is cool. The logo is great, a Wolf chewing the globe, and that’s pretty much enough for me to love it. However, if you are more discerning, then the wholly community based service is personal, and as a result, kind of ‘nice’. It isn’t quite up to scratch yet in comparison to other venues, but as BGT points out, it could surpass them.

Driftr discards what in the world of web 2.0 is an erroneous ‘e’ and despite currently only servicing a small user base, is full of potential. Create a profile and share just about whatever you want, from media content to tips on places to chow down in foreign climes. Plus, Driftr is aesthetically on the money, simple and strong.

A couple of others that made the 10 were the invite only Trip Say and the Bootsnall forums, both well worthy of your click. For the entire run down though, get to the source.

I’ve always found social bookmarking a particularly clumsy term, but this is what La Internet has decided to name sites such as Digg, del.icio.us and StumbleUpon. They provide, according to the great Wikipedia in the sky:

a method for Internet users to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the Internet with the help of metadata… users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share

The key word here really is share. With these sites, you bookmark whole blogs or single articles you like, but your faves also get flagged up on theie homepage for all to see (under categories such as travel), so people can come to trust your wise judgement in matters of internet excellence and follow your recommendations. The more kudos you gain, the more people are likely to Digg or StumbleUpon your own writing, in a variant of the link love that everyone in social media craves.

Which means that it’s well worth spending a bit of time rating other blogs and posts you enjoy, and also putting a handy little ’share’ or ‘bookmark’ button on your own site so others can rate you. The AddThis button is a good option, as it includes all the main social bookmarking sites in one neat badge.

STA Explorer Stevo has been experimenting with social bookmarking; have a look at his latest post where social bookmarking helps him discover some inventive travel photography. And obviously, don’t forget to StumbleUpon his own article if you like his style. Love begats love, people.

One of the funny things about social media is that it can be anything but social. Far too often I miss dinner, drinks and general high jinks because I’m getting Flickr-happy uploading 1000 photos from my latest trip, or putting the finishing touches to that ‘perfect’ blog post.

Which is why I have to remind myself not just to create and spread my own content, but actually engage with others in social media (yes, I know, radical, but it hurts less after the first time). One bright idea is to create your own travel forums so people following your blog, photos and videos also have somewhere to ask detailed questions, offer tips and generally have proper old arguments and debates that the comments on blogs just aren’t equipped to handle.

In fact, our pioneering STA Explorers Stevo and Ady did indeed set up their own boards last week, so head over to chat about their upcoming round the world travel plans. They used myfanforum.org, an easy-to-use free site (with the few inevitable ads).

My personal top talk tool is Tangler, a beautifully designed site which creates your own customised ‘live discussion forum’. I’ve created one for STA travelbuzz so head on over if you want to see how it works and chat with Si, Sam, myself and other travel-happy web-heads. But make sure to also create your own so that you can be king or queen of your own sexy social space.

There’s one word of warning to all this: don’t forget to engage in the existing, big travel forums already out there (check out our forum roll for places we love). I wrote this post on the value of using travel forums a while back. Your own forum will be a great extension of your own content, but the established boards will open up your opinions and questions to a ready-made potential audience of thousands, and allow you to spread the travel love on a much bigger scale.

So why the hell not do both? Well. Exactly.