How I stay in touch with web trends and the latest advancements in web design

The web design industry has to be one of the best to work in. It's never been just a case of "I know how to do my job, and there's nothing left to learn". The web is an ever changing platform with new technologies and innovations to work with almost on a daily basis. For example, the last six months have seen the growth in use of HTML 5 and CSS3. Not yet fully supported in all browsers (Internet Explorer being the main culprit), but enough to start playing with new techniques to enhance the user experience. Those with browsers such as Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome and Opera (all free I might add) can sample some or all of these new visual delights, with those not yet supported being added to latest versions as time goes by. (See here for more on that!)

So, how do I (try) and stay up with what's going on in the web industry?

1. The old fashioned way. I read books and magazines!

As well as recommeded books on the major technologies, .net magazine has always served me well. Great articles written by icons in the web industry from agency heads to the best freelancers out there. I regularly pick up tips on design layout, SEO and learn about the newest apps out there.

2. Twitter et al

Stephen Fry uses it, Obama uses it and Paris Hilton probably uses it to tell you about the last piece of clothing she's bought her dog, but twitter for me is an invaluable tool. As I've said, the web industry is a fast moving beast, but is also a very generous one when it comes to sharing information. Following people and organisations such as Smashing Magazine (@smashingmag) and Boagworld (@boagworld), provide me with a huge amount of information and make it readily available.

Together with Twitter itself, I use a great app called Tweetdeck. This helps me keep in touch with what's happening whilst I'm at home and also on my iPhone. And this leads me on to number 3...

3. iPhone

Probably the best mobile device of the last decade. The iPhone applications are a real godsend for me. I've mentioned Tweetdeck already, but two other apps I find invaluable are MobileRSS and ReadItLater. With MobileRSS you can manage multiple RSS feeds with ease. RSS feeds are snippets of information that point to larger articles which can help cut down on reading things I'm not that interested in.

Reading these news feeds and finding bites of information whilst away from home (ie whilst waiting outside m&s for the missus to finish shopping) used to be annoying as I'd have to remember which ones were good and then go back to them later (if I'd remember at all). With ReaditLater, I can save all of these items to my (free) account in the cloud and then access them from anywhere I am at a convenient time (this is also available for Android and Blackberry).

4. Podcasts

As a prominent member of the web community @boagworld provides alot of useful links and information through his twtter account, but he also has a weekly podcast "for those who design, develop and run websites on a weekly basis". It can be found on iTunes and also has a great site and forum which can be found here.