I just clicked over from reading my favorite Techmama and wanted to comment on her latest entry, “Compete’s Top Ten Social Networks” in which she inspired me to jot down my social networking thoughts.
I know I’m probably preaching to the choir here but just hear me out. Let’s say you have five friends. Two of those friends have profiles on Facebook, two are on Myspace and one frequents hi5. Are you going to activate accounts on all three networks just to leave comments for your five friends about the latest episode of American Idol? Talk about social networking overload. Unless the top social networking site guru’s create something similar to the package like Trillian from Cerulean Studios where you can access all of your instant messaging accounts with one log in, then color me logged out (no pun intended). I predict this won’t happen any time soon, as there is too much of a rivalry going on between Tom Anderson and Mark Zuckerburg for whose site is more “pimp”. Ah…I kid, I kid. I don’t know if there is really a rivalry or not but in my opinion, I think the social networking band wagon has reached full capacity.
I dabbled around on Friendster and Yahoo 360 for a bit early on but really never spent too much time on either site. However, I have been a member of Myspace since 2003. I did not use the site’s full functionality until 2005. My first memory of Myspace was that the blogging section was horrible and that’s really what I was there for. Shortly after realizing that, I switched to Blogger to get my socializing on. I snuck back into Myspace and found out that is where a handful of my high school classmates have profiles and for this reason, I keep my private Myspace profile current. I just recently set up my full-fledge profile, add-ons and all, on Facebook. In my opinion, Facebook is a networking site that lumps “me on the internet” all into one place. I did, however, find this site to be a little more jumbled with information and add-ons than Myspace and that’s primarily why I kept away for so long. Myspace doesn’t quite have the attractive “lumping you all into one place” thing down yet. Although, I notice they are making a go at it all of the time.
I have also had a profile at CafeMom. It’s one of the bigger, mom-focused social networking sites out there and obviously, if you are not a “mother”, you probably don’t have much of a desire to hang around there and read about icky parenting stuff. Myspace does an awful lot of CafeMom promoting. There are more mom-focused networking sites like MothersClick and Maya’s Mom but I don’t think they hold a flame to CafeMom, which has grown quite rapidly probably due to advertising on Myspace.
I know, you’re thinking, “Amy, don’t you think you’re just a tad bit too obsessed with Web 2.0?” To that I respond, “No, I just have a natural curiosity about this social networking phenomenon”. Here is what I can summarize for you, the way I see it, regarding the social networking boom: The kids (as young as 10, probably younger) use Myspace and Facebook and to that I say keep a VERY close eye out, parents. You should be very much involved with your child’s activity on these sites. Seems to me though, that Facebook is geared more toward the 20 to 40-somethings. Classmates is for the “What-happened-to-so-and-so-and-let’s-find-out-if-they’re-on-Facebook-or-Myspace” crowd. Linkedin is for the networking professionals and Twitter is just an addictive distraction or a way to promote your other social networking sites.
I’ve really just barely covered the social networking sites around. There are so many places on the web now that you create a profile and keep in touch with and make new friends, among other things. It’s virtually impossible not to find a place to connect with others like you. You just have to make the decision on which site to join that you think you will enjoy visiting the most.
Looking ahead eight years to my daughter’s pre-teen and teen years, I can see that we’ll have at least four things to discuss before she walks out the door: sex, drugs, alcohol and social networking sites.
*One of my original Chicago Moms Blog posts
