Social Networking

“Live as if everything you do will eventually be known” – Hugh Prather

In my case, I made a decision some time ago that part of my life would be known to anybody that wants to know…which is the point of so-called social networking on the Internet.  We all have something interesting to say, opinions to be expressed, thoughts to be made public, and living with the hope that someone out their gives a damn about you…and maybe, just maybe, you will be remembered long after you are dead and buried.  And here, the Internet can help.

That is what social networking is all about...expressing anything you want and hoping somebody will tune in to see.  I started social networking some time ago with my two blogs: this one, Rants and Raves…and Postcards.  This one, is of course, about technology…Postcards, if you haven’t read it, is about my travels and photographs.  Because of this, my writings and my photography are out there for anyone to see…to praise or to damn, or just enjoy.

But, social networking has expanded way beyond blogs.  Seems like there are new social networks popping up all the time.  I like to divide them into two categories…individual sites that perform specific services…and aggregators, where all of these individual sites services that you use can all be gathered in one place for your friends and the world to see.

Let’s start with the individual sites that each have a specific function.  Understand that there are lots of them, so I can’t even begin to cover them all.  First, there are the mini-blogs, Twitter being the most famous.  Twitter is best be classified as a mini-blog that asks the question, What are You Doing?  You have 140 characters to answer that question.  Thousands and thousands of people, both famous and not-so-famous are Twitterers.  Not only can you contribute, but you can follow others as they tweet.  President Obama, for a while, was one.  My favorites include Leo LaPorte, John C. Dvorak, Stephen Fry, and LeVar Burton.  You don’t have to be a member to read people’s Tweets, but if you join let me know and I will follow you.

Twitter works well for me and I contribute to it two or more times per day.  I like it because I can use my Blackberry to tweet when I am away from my computers.  So very handy.  And, according to the latest statistics, Twitter receives over 6 million tweets a day from its members.

Another similar site is Brightkite, not as popular as Twitter, but it ads the capability of listing your location and having it show on a Google map.  Other kinds of social sites include Delicious and Stumbleupon, where you can instantly mark web pages of interest; Flickr and Picassa where you can post your photos for public view; Youtube, where millions of videos are stored and you can list your favorites, Goodreads, where you can review the books you are reading or have read; Digg for news, Wakoopa that tracks your favorite software, iLike for music; even Netflix where you can review movies…and the list goes on and on.

I personally contribute to some of these because I want to.  But, where the rubber really hits the road is the aggregator sites.  The two most famous are Facebook and Friendfeed.  The main difference between the two is that Friendfeed is a public world of everything that's open for all to see. Facebook is a private world of pictures and comments shared by a circle of friends that’s not archived for the world to randomly read.

Being a public sort of guy, I much prefer Friendfeed and use it.  It is much easier to set up. You can follow me on Friendfeed as all the other services that I use all feed in automatically to Friendfeed.  Want to see some interesting web pages I have found, or read my Tweets, or read my book reviews, or even have a list of my two blogs whenever I write a new one? Then head over to my Friendfeed page.  If you have ever gone to my actual blog pages, you will see my last 10 entries on Friendfeed listed side-by-side with my blog.  I set up Friendfeed to automatically aggregate everything I do on the social networks, then put a link on each of my blog pages that shows the last 10 entries automatically.

And like Twitter, I also follow other people’s Friendfeeds to get even more good information.  

If you want to share your thoughts and interests, why not give social networking a try.  Start with Twitter. Be sure and follow people as well as write your own tweets.  Then, start experimenting with some other sites. I would recommend Delicious for bookmarking interesting pages on the Web…and if your are a reader, start using Goodreads.  Then, start aggregating all your input on Friendfeed.  If you decide to jump in, please let me know so I can follow you.