Social Networks 101: Making Sense Of Social Networks
Written By: sujanpatel On June 13th, 2007 | 5 Comments
A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of relations, such as values, visions, idea, financial exchange, friends, kinship, dislike, trade, web links, sexual relations, disease transmission (epidemiology), or airline routes.îThere are thousands of social networks on the web. The biggest question most people ask is ìwhich one is right for me?î When evaluating social networks, you want you want to make sure that you can contribute to it, and most importantly benefit from it.
So, which one should you join? Below are a few that are worth looking into: 43things.com is a social networking site that asks the question ìWhat do you want to do with your life? You enter what you want to do with your life and based on the tags that you use, it connects you with users with similar goals. You can see how others are working toward their goals and encourage them and get encouragement yourself. This concept is also known as folksonomy.
MySpace, BlackPlanet, Bebo, Friendster, Orkut, Windows Live Spaces, Yahoo 360 and Xanga, are among the most popular social networking websites. Most of them offer an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, forums, groups, events, photos, music, videos and classifieds. MySpace is currently the world’s fifth most popular English-language website and the third most popular website in the United States. It receives over 80% of visits to online social networking websites.
Facebook was originally developed for college and university students but is now open to anyone who has an email address. You can join networks related to high school, college, place of employment, or geographic region.
Flickr is a photo-sharing website to help people make their photos available to people who matter to them. You can keep your images private or share them with the world of with groups of people who share your interests. Images can be tagged, allowing ease of finding them or ones like them in the future.
LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site, used for professional networking. It allows you to connect with past and current co-workers, clients, venders, and other professionals. You can receive and give recommendations for the work you have done or received. It also has a job engine allowing you to respond to job postings and the company can view your online profile.
Twitter is a blogging service that allows users to send short text-based updates to their blogs as well as to twitter.com. You can track your friends and colleagues by checking out their updates. Senders can restrict the delivery to those in their circle of friends or display for everyone to see. Messages can be posted through twitter.com, SMS or by instant messenger.
You best bet is to visit a number of social networking sites and see which one fits your interests and goals. Ask your friends and colleagues which ones they belong to. Most importantly, have fun with it.
