By: Duke Sison
There are professional Social Networking sites like LinkedIn where you can explore and expand your work related interests. The common thread amongst this community of users is jobs and professions. There are interest sites like Flickr – for photography and photo sharing – Cafe Mom – for mothers – and Disaboom – for people with disabilities. Then there are the major players everyone has heard about – the general interest Social Networking Sites like FaceBook, MySpace, and Twitter.
The goal of these sites is to allow you to keep in touch with those who already know and to meet new people. Typically you create a “profile page” where you tell the world a little about yourself and you start creating lists of people you already know. Over time the list grows as new contacts will ask to be added to your list.
There really is no “right” social network site. Whether a site works for you or not will depend on how it meets your needs, on how much you enjoy using it. If you make MySpace your homepage, for example, and you can’t wait to open the page and see what’s new, it’s a site that works for you. You can enter “Social Networking Sites” into your favorite search engine and you’ll get list upon list of sites.
Wikipedia provides an alphabetized list of over 150 sites, adding that the list is not exhaustive! You’ll find helpful review pages that will give you a little information about the major sites. Trial and Error – signing up on a site and experimenting with it – may be a time consuming but effective means of finding a site you like. And then there’s always old fashioned word of mouth. If you have never personally tried a Social Networking site you almost certainly have a contact somewhere in your world who has.
Let people know you want to give Social Networking a fling. You want to get hip and keep up with the times. Surely someone from your relatives, friends, neighbors, or coworkers will step up and share their Social Networking experiences with you. Have fun with this new way to stay in touch with the world!
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