Social Networking… who would have ever thought it’d be as big as it is today. Everyone and their brother is in the game. And while I have an account on just about everyone of them, there are only a few that I log into on a regular basis.
Of course, I don’t count sites like Twitter, Plurk, or Pownce as a “Social Network”. Other people do, but I still consider these blogging services… or if you’d prefer micro-blog. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking about a few services, and here are my thoughts…
MyYearBook.com – This site to me, is the AOL of social networks. I created an account here back when I was trying to get sponsorships for some of those sites I use to run/work for. I logged into this one about a month ago for the first time in years.
This is probably the most ADD social network out there. It’s like MySpace or FaceBook with “forced” apps already installed. While I’ve met a few cool people on there, 95% of the people I’ve encountered send messages like cell phones, “thx 4 add”. I’m expect everyday to see some message come to me with A/S/L… thankfully, it hasn’t come yet.
MyYearBook is really more of a game than a social network. Two things you want Lunch Money (L$$) and popularity. You increase both by having more friends, giving out silly gifts, sining friend’s yearbooks (like a wall or comment section), flirting (yes, flirting… with some of the worst one liners I’ve ever seen), and other actions. The more you do of everything, the more popular you become.
MySpace.com – MySpace often gets a bad rap, especially when it comes to some of the custom profiles (built with invalid HTML). People that complain about MySpace have obvisously never used MyYearBook. Out of everything, I actually like MySpace the best. My friends use it, my family uses it, and it allows us all to keep in touch easily. – Granted, we could still do the same thing with email.
Recent improvements to MySpace make it harder for user to be “hacked”, a term I use loosely as it a majority of these cases were just people that were too stupid to realize the site they were typing their password into wasn’t really MySpace.
Once MySpace Apps catches on a bit more, and a decent profile editor is released I think the complainst about the site should drop off considerably.
Facebook.com – FaceBook could very well be considered the young adult version of MySpace. That’s really all I have to say about the place. It’s everything MySpace is with cleaner profiles, and more “add ons”. Though a FaceBook profile can quickly turn into something that rivals MyYearBook if a user installs too many apps.
Facebook’s Beacon was probably one of the worst ideas ever implimented. Yeah, I’d put it right there with RealPlayer, AOL, and Windows ME.
Orkut.com – Ahh, the social network that Google created. It’s popular in Brazil, and that’s about it. You’d think the search giant would be looking to expand this into something more… or buy another service and bridge the two together. I do think that failuer to do anything here is one of Google’s major blunders.
Linkedin.com – If MyYearBook, MySpace, and Facebook are a representation of age, then Linkedin would be the social network for grownups. Or at least working adults. It’s not designed for fun, it for work stuff outside of work… oh dull is that?
While there are thousnads of other social networking sites out there, these are the onlyones that I really have any experiance using. Out of them all, I’d say MySpace has become my favorite place to “hang out”. Mainly because that’s where a majority of my friends and family are. It helps me stay connected.
What social network do you like the best? Why? I’d love to get some feedback.
Related:
Tags: blog, Facebook, Google, Linkedin, micro-blog, MySpace, MyYearBook, Orkut, Plurk, Pownce, social networks, Twitter