Social Networking
It seems almost every day there is some new social network service popping up. The list is huge already. You have the king… MySpace then there are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter (see my other post about twitter) in the US (North America). Facebook and Hi5 are popular in Europe and Friendster, Orkut and CyWorld in Asia, the Pacific Islands and South America as well.
So why is this social networking service craze taking off like a rocket? Well there are many theories. The one that I tend to lean more towards is the diversity of people that have access to the internet now.
Back in the day, when the internet was young it was just geeks like me on the net. And we know that us geeks are not overly social 
As the internet came more to the masses the social communication became more important.
Also, the ease of the internet now is at it’s easiest. How many people still actually use a telephone modem. The internet is always just there for most people.
Sites like Myspace and facebook make the setup and maintenance of the web sites so simple. And they allow you to share personal info like pictures and other family stuff real easy with no custom web development. It is so easy. Plus you can find people you have not talked with in years.
I have to admit I have an account on just about every social network out there. You can see the links on the right side of this blog page to my social networks. What do I use them for? Hmm.. Well, I also have a personal web page with all of my pictures, etc. So I use it more for communicating with old friends, etc.
There are so many social networks out there it is like the Instant messaging programs. You have to have an account on almost all of them to get all of your friends. With the IMs, if you have friends on AIM, Yahoo, MSN, GTalk and Skype. You have to have each of those clients installed or a program like Trillian that can run them all or you alienate some of your friends.
Well with all of the social networks you have the same problem. Do you update them all, just pick one and alienate the friends on the other? Such difficult decisions….
I am interested in your thoughts about the social networking craze. Where do you think it is going next?
See Ya!!!
Mike