Thursday, July 30, 2009

The Wonderful World of Social Networks

Let me tell you what my experience has been so far with Social Networks.

It really all started years ago when I discovered Instant Messaging and texting. How wonderful it was that I could type a few sentences-or sentence-press or click send and Viola! Someone either instantly sees it in their chat window or on their phone. Beautiful!

In 2000 I was introduced to something called MyFamily.com which is a website that hosts a family web page to which family members and invited friends can post family news, pictures and personal views within the confines of that group. To me, this was an even more convenient way for families to communicate. Yes there was and is still email, but this was something else. It was like having the entire family in one room having a conversation with family members popping in and out having their say or just observing within a few hours,days or even weeks. I never thought it could be done on a global scale. That is, until I discovered MySpace.

I joined the ranks of MySpacers in 2006 when the group I was hanging out with and co workers all mentioned that they had MySpace accounts.I quickly discovered that it was nothing like MyFamily.com. There were similarities in that a person could post pictures and information, but that is where it ended.

MySpace allowed me my own personal page with a background and even a song that I was into at the moment. It also allowed me to post a brief message on how I was feeling or what I was on my mind and I could decide who to share it all with, on a global scale! I was enjoying MySpace and all its intricacies when my sister began telling me about Facebook so, I joined that too.

Facebook has a lot in common with MySpace except that you can't choose your own background. A major difference at first were the applications. With Facebook one can take a quiz about their personality traits, then share and compare the results with all of their friends. This was eventually picked up by MySpace.

Earlier this Summer I decided to open this blog in order to post film reviews I had written. After doing so, I felt that I needed to get more exposure for my blog.

I began by simply copying the URL and pasting it in my Facebook update. A few days later, I saw that a friend who has a blog had re-posted all of her blog entries to Facebook. Upon inquiry she told me how to link my blog to Facebook. Still curious for other avenues, I researched online and managed to find Triond, a website that lets writers publish and share their writing while gaining a small profit.

It was the sharing part that intrigued me the most and I added myself to Triond. It was through that website that I discovered Twitter and Newsvine, but there was noway to add my articles to this blog or to my Facebook easily. This caused me to quit using Triond and stick with Twitter and Newsvine which have both already gotten me more exposure than either Triond or this blog by itself has.

In truth, all of the social networks have made the world seem smaller and the business of networking yourself easier not to mention your favorite celebrities more accessible.

Social Networking is the wave of the future and hopefully we all learn to ride it soon.




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