Social Networking Favorites 2008

It’s a big list, the list of social networking sites out there. The shot above, from FriendFeed, shows the possible list of networks your can import there. It’s simply amazing that the list above isn’t even a large number of those that exist.

There are networks both broad in scope and very niche. Some networks offer many ways to share and interact while others only allow small text messages. Each network offers a slightly different experience than the next, and draws its own type of followers.

Ultimately what’s drawn me back to my favorites is the people. What is it about the people? It’s the interaction. I can interact with them directly, experience the content they created, or just keep apprised of events they are being part of. It’s also about being able to share with these people in some meaningful way.

The sites or tools that best represented that for me aren’t numerous, but they’ve survived by being ones I keep coming back to, even if it’s just to broadcast information.

Facebook – What can I say, this one keeps drawing me back. What has given me? It’s given me access to people I know and introduced me to many I’ve yet to meet. It’s lead me to dinners, breakfasts, meet ups and online networking. I’ve been drawn into reading blogs, watching interesting videos, and learning about people’s lives. We’ve played, we’ve connected, we’ve been charitable. Lots of folks dismiss this site as just spammy. The key is to not wait for the site to bring you good stuff, but to go out and find it in your network of people. The other thing is to avoid signing up for every application you’re invited to. It’s okay and even smart to say no. Those two things will greatly improve your experience.
Twitter – If you are into social networking and aren’t on Twitter, well you aren’t into social networking. Twitter is the simplest site to take part in technically but probably the toughest to do right. It’s one of the sites I’ve blogged the most about. Truth be told there is not right way to take part on Twitter, but it’s so easy to get wrong. It’s best feature is limiting messages to 140 characters. This means you have to keep it short and to the point. This is also it’s biggest limitation. It’s hard to follow one side of a conversation at times. Very little can be reference in a reply. The hidden upside is the huge number of available tools that work with Twitter.
FriendFeed – This tool, mentioned in reference to the photo above, is really an aggregation site at its heart. Though you can post directly there as well. It’s biggest value is being able to see all of the various streams a person creates all in one place. Instead of following me for example in four different networks, you can just follow me on FriendFeed. You’ll get my Flickr updates, my Twitter updates, and more. It’s not just one way either. Users can comment on items in those streams as well as vote them up or down with Like and Hide. It ends up being a rather democratic view of the online world. Great tool if you want to follow someone like Scoble who broadcasts across multiple networks.
Flickr – This site is the one that got me started in social networking. It’s still a favorite. This is first and foremost a photo sharing site. That very sharing though leads to ad hoc relationships, and from there to real relationships. Flickr groups grow organically more as much as on any other social network. The fact that it has groups give it an edge. An additional feature that gives this site an edge is tagging. Every photo can be tagged, as well as groups. Beyond tagging, the descriptions, titles and tags are indexed by search engines. (privacy settings permitting) This means your content isn’t just discoverable by accident as someone stumbles through your stream. It means that someone, on another network you share, who doesn’t even know you have a Flickr account can have the serendipitous chance to find your work, connecting here as well. This just happened for me.

There are other networks I spend time on and enjoy, but these few take up the body of my time online. Each has brought into existence or enhanced relationships. They all continue to grow, and connections overlap more ever day.

You can find me at each of these with the links below:

I look forward to connecting with you on any or all of these networks. Also, I’d love to hear what your favorites were for 2008.