Throughout the last few years, I’ve heard lots of different opinions on the controversial topic of Social Networking. It’s a growing phenomenon that people are participating in whether they realize it or not. Even people who refrain from using sites like MySpace or Facebook still participate in social networking. Online chatting and email have been around for quite awhile now. As broad as those two things may seem, they are part of social networking.

From Wikipedia (The complicated definition)

“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 interdependency, such as values, visions, idea, financial exchange, friends, kinship, dislike, conflict, trade, web links, sexual relations, disease transmission (epidemiology), or airline routes.”

Social Networking is becoming a huge communication tool. Today, it seems like the lack of communication is putting more and more people “out of the loop” so to speak. Depending on the situation, the blame can’t be put on just one person. Communication is a collaborative effort.

The College scene thrives on social networks like Facebook and MySpace. Students seem to check those accounts more than e-mail. Being fresh out of college, I’ve witnessed my instructors and advisors hopping on the MySpace/Facebook band wagon due to their popularity. Some of them use it to establish relationships with their students, and some don’t.

The negative side of Facebook and MySpace, is people can say and post whatever they want. It can cause problems if people don’t watch out. The element of personal responsibility goes along with any social activity.

The big plus of anything Social Networking is being able to reach out to the world. I think it’s amazing to develop new relationships with people I’ve never met in person, and apply the same concept to keep current relationships intact.

The things we do and feel on a daily basis, there’s always someone else out there who’s doing and feeling the same things at the same time. This creates so many possibilities to connect with people.

“Pownce is a way to send messages, files, links, and events to your friends. You’ll create a network of the people you know and then you can share stuff with all of them, just a few of them, or even just one other person really fast.”

Want Pownce? Contact me for an invite.

Ross

My statement about why I prefer Facebook over MySpace:

I was persuaded by my fellow college buddies to start a MySpace page in 2005. I didn’t have a high opinion of it at the time, but I thought hey why not. It didn’t take very long for me to get the addiction which kept me glued despite the errors of basic navigation/editing etc. I fell for the networking aspect. I love networking. I know a lot of diverse people now, which keeps life interesting in my opinion. It was the same feeling I had when I was on Textamerica. However, MySpace is even more convenient with keeping friends close. I found a friend on there who I hadn’t seen in 10 years.

In that same time frame I also knew about Facebook, and thought it was only for College networking. I found out through a friend that it included more networks than just college. So, in 2006 I signed up for Facebook. I got lost with the interface at first. After messing around with it, I thought the interface/functionality was pretty sweet. Having the mini-feed on the main page telling you what all your friends are doing/posting/commenting is awesome. Yeah, you might not be able to pimp out your profile like MySpace, but I think its even more organized. I don’t always remember where my friends are in the world, and it gets organized by networks on Facebook so you know who is where whenever you log into your profile. MORE IMPORTANTLY, NO ERRORS ON FACEBOOK! Facebook even has has addons (like transfer your FLICKR photos to FACEBOOK and vice versa)

Like I said, I love networking, but sometimes when I want to check my messages, login, leave a comment, post a bulletin, view a profile I get the all popular “Sorry, but an unexpected error has occured. We’re fowarding it to cool people that will fix it shortly”

I’ve been able to push that all aside for quite awhile now, but now I realize how much time I’ve spent trying to DO BASIC THINGS on MySpace…such as say “HEY MAUREEN!!!” haha. The time spent on basic functionality has been ridiculas. For some, its more serious. Two of my friends use MySpace as a main source for communication. Her husband is in the army, and they use MySpace as a communication tool. Sounds simple enough huh? MySpace was down the other day with the inability to login at all. It was an error that was going to be fixed “shortly” and took a better half of 3+ hours. Sure, basic email is an alternative, but I’m sure we all agree that MySpace is much more fun than sending an email. It’s a preference, and personally it’s not a service I’d like to use that has constant problems and drains time away from peoples lives because they can’t check their messages or leave a comment.

This ramble I just wrote is to hopefully get you guys to realize time is a precious commodity, and I’d hate to see you lose hours in your day because you’re putting up with all these avoidable inconveniences by just switching to Facebook. Believe me, I wouldn’t go out of my way to type this if I didn’t think it was worth it.

Also I’m keeping my eye out for SocialThing

Ross