Pros and Cons of Social Networks

If you’ve logged on to your computer in the last year or two, you’ve heard the term “social network”.  Social networks have been evolving over the past 10 + years.  Remember ICQ? And Microsoft MSN Instant Messenger?  They have been around for ages, but still, very similar to the social networks available today.

Today’s social networks are bigger and better than their predecessors.  The user has many more opportunities for creating connections and more details that allow them to screen their “friends”.

Social Networks are an amazing venue for promoting yourself and your blog, as well as finding sites that you may never have come across in the blogosphere on your own.  I have met so many new people through this medium; I would go so far to say it’s one of the most important “free” resource available to get your name out there.

I do have one problem with Social Networking though.  I think that it may be a personal problem, but when I log on to a network, I find myself preoccupied with what I see and forget the reason that I initially logged in.  I can waste hours on Twitter and StumbleUpon without even getting anything done.  Do you have the same problem?  Time just seems to escape me when I’m using these tools.

I thought that I’d share with you the Social Networks that I belong to and what I like and dislike about each of them.

Twitter – I just joined twitter about 2 months ago.  You can find me @AverageGalDotCo.  At first the whole “follow” and “un-follow” idea really perplexed me.  I’ve got the whole system down now, and LOVE Twitter!  The thing that I really like about it is that I’m able to surf the net via others “tweets” and it’s like a live feed to their daily lives.  Twitter makes blogging more personal.  What I don’t like is that sometimes there are so many people logged in that I don’t have the time to read up on everyone’s “tweets”.  I’ve just come to accept that I just read the first 10-15 “tweets” to get up to speed on everyone’s day and in the loop.

Facebook - I’ve belonged to facebook for about 2 years now, but really started using it daily only 8 months ago.  What I love about Facebook is that you can add photos, YouTube video footage, invite others to specific events, set up and/or join groups, feed your twitter messages, add your blogs, and post notes in addition to having access to send messages to your friends and family.  What I don’t like about facebook is that there seems to be a lot of “garbage” that comes along with it.  Like sending someone a “green patch request”  or a “top friend” or a “tropical drink” or “Joe thew a snowball at you.  Click here to throw one back” … what’s the point in that?

StumbleUpon - I really love Stumble.  When I’m all caught up on my work for the week, I just stumble all of the favorites of my friends and others for a couple of hours.  The thing that I like best about StumbleUpon is the fact that it “remembers” what you like and what you don’t like (as long as you give it a thumbs up or down), and then gives you sites according to your responses.  The thing that I don’t like about Stumble is the fact that if you’re the first person to stumble an article or site they ask you for a review.  I think that sometimes this deters users from stumbling sites and/or articles if they have to take the time to write a review.

Digg – I joined Digg 4 months ago; when I first started blogging I used it frequently, but honestly I haven’t used it for about 3 months; I don’t remember what I do or don’t like about it.

Delicious - I did set up and account here, but I’ll admit it… I’ve only used it once.

MySpace – I have a myspace account, and used to use it more frequently than I do now;  I’ve somewhat phased out from MySpace when I found Facebook to be much more conducive to what I wanted to use the medium for… networking and keeping in touch!

What social networks do you belong to?  What frustrates you or makes you excited about them?

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