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For the last few decades, sociologists and psychologists have been conjecturing that computers are going to spell the demise of interpersonal communication. We're all going to retreat into our dark rooms where our computers are located, and avoid things like playing bridge with the neighbors, shopping at the mall, or heading down to the Elks Lodge to sing silly songs and drink cheap drinks.
It's true that some of the fraternal groups have reported a definite decline in membership over the last few decades. But this may just be more a result of what they have (and don't have) to offer young people, more than just the cheap drinks. (Wireless Internet anyone?)
The Virtual Water Cooler
Although the rise in computer use may be putting a slight dent in face-to-face conversation, it also offers new ways for people to communicate. Some online communication methods started as updated replacements for traditional ways of interacting with other people. Email for example is just an updated way to sit down and write a letter to someone, except you don't have to find a stamp, address an envelope, or find a mailbox.
Email evolved into other forms of electronic communication, such as electronic newsgroups that let you and others share information on a topic. Each message in the conversation "thread" is then displayed for everyone to see. Instant messaging lets you exchange text with another person immediately and online chats let you share messages with a group. Then there are blogs where people can post their thoughts and others comment on them.
The Tangled Web
Until recently, all of these offerings have required the use of different programs or services. In a given day, you might visit your favorite James Bond newsgroup to post your thoughts on the latest movie. Then you send email to your friend about what the weekend plans are, visit a chat for your region to see who is online, IM another buddy to talk about what others are saying in the chat room, and check out your friend's new blog.
Some large Internet Service Providers like America Online and CompuServe offered some of these things under their great umbrella as special services for their members. However, now a relatively new technical/sociological term called social networking has appeared on the online scene.
The Rise of Social Networking
Social networking Web sites aim to offer many communication functions together in one place. As with the old America Online model, at one Web site, you now can send and receive email, put together a profile about yourself, network, and meet new people.
You might say, "Hey this sounds like a bulletin board from the late 80s, what's so new about that?" You'd be right, but you'd also be wrong. The bulk of these new networking sites are light years beyond the old BBS days or even America Online mostly thanks to advances in technology.
On newer social networking sites, you can store videos on your own page along with dozens of photos. You also can put together very specific searches for others who share your interests or geography. If you get creative, you can touch up your page with music, photos, animations and more. None of this was possible in the BBS days.
New Ways to Network Online
As the name implies, social networking sites also include the networking angle. Each type of site asks new users a variety of voluntary questions, such as occupation, salary range, and interests. Your answers determine which databases you are placed in, so others who are searching for people in those areas can find you. You have the same searching advantage, whether you're looking for a co-worker or a former classmate.
The networking concept caught on with a few sites, and as a result now hundreds of social networking sites exist. Some offer a general place to start or focus on a specific area, such as networking for professional attorneys or networking for high school kids.
As with the rest of the Internet, each of these sites has its serious fans and detractors. Plus, social networking sites have their share of abusers, including the always-entrepreneurial spammers, people who try to grab people's personal info, and people who just plain don't follow the rules.
Here is a summary of some of the more prominent social networking sites and what they offer.
MySpace
My Space (www.myspace.com) was founded "way back" in 2003 and is the site many others have tried to imitate. It is designed to be "an online community that lets you meet your friends' friends."
The format allows anybody to create his or her own page. The process is really is quite simple for a basic page that includes your name, age, hometown and other personal tidbits you want to share. Although registration is free, MySpace is loaded with advertisements and other product placements everywhere you look.
With your basic page done, you can start visiting other people's pages, either by searching for a name or an email of someone specific, or blindly viewing any of the alleged 168 million other page owners to see what they're up to.
Of course, you may want to do more with MySpace. It's easy to upload a picture of yourself (or any other picture you want, from photos of other people to logos to landscapes) as your personal icon photo. You can also upload other pictures that people can see as slideshows, or use a prefab MySpace design to spice up your profile. Once you find a design you like, all you do is copy the html code and place it in the correct place in your profile. Designs can include anything from a colorful background to online surveys.
Then there's the networking/collecting friends part. As noted, computer use is no longer a solitary activity, so it's likely you'll know other people on MySpace, either from real life or various Internet jaunts. You may run across classmates, neighbors, co-workers, relatives, roommates, and so on.
If it turns out that they have MySpace pages (and MySpace claims that lots of us do), all it takes is you clicking "add" when you see their page or hitting "invite" to send the person an email to a link, which lets him accept or reject you as a MySpace friend.
Even though it definitely gives your self-esteem a boost, My Space friendship isn't necessarily binding. It just adds one more friend to the count for each of you, along with your icons on both pages. For those who have classified their pages as private, being added as a friend gives you access to the page. You can also send bulletins to all your MySpace friends at once.
As the site and its reputation have grown, it has started to include not just individuals, but also bands, businesses, and even politicians. However, with popularity comes criticism as well. The word is that roughly one quarter of the friend invites you receive aren't from real people. In fact, if you look closely, you can find discrepancies in the descriptions and the profile usually includes something about phone service or get-rich-quick opportunities.
Concerns also have arisen that people share too much information, and that young people are lying about their age to get around the protections requiring parental permission for minors. These issues are undoubtedly why you see more people in their 90s than you'd expect at a hot Web site, and why parents are concerned about what their teens are doing online.
Facebook
Facebook (www.facebook.com) occasionally bills itself as "the more mature MySpace." It doesn't really make this claim in a purely negative sense. It merely compares MySpace to a high school hallway and Facebook to a college hallway,
Facebook began in 2004 and claims 19 million users through 47,000 different networks. The concept is similar to MySpace, but Facebook tends more toward networking and photo sharing than the general "look at me/be my friend" approach of MySpace.
Facebook is organized with an emphasis on schools, regions, and job categories. Each person can create a page for free, with information about interests, background, and links to photo albums. You can upload as many photos as you want, and add general notes/bloggy stuff.
You are alerted whenever anyone posts new comments for you, and also when any of your friends update their own pages and pictures. You also are notified when your friends' birthdays are coming up.
Like MySpace, Facebook is free. The site recently announced that it was giving some of its development code away to the masses that want to craft their own pages more skillfully. Although the pages are fairly basic compared to the possible noisy MySpace backdrops.
Hi 5
Hi 5 (www.hi5.com) emphasizes connecting. This focus is apparent from the "search for" boxes that exist somewhere on every page. At Hi 5, you can design your own page, and load it with videos and music. It claims to have 50 million users, and is reportedly one of the most popular "connecting" sites in cyberspace.
Creating a profile is free (of course you'll encounter advertising) but there seem to be more safety precautions at Hi 5. The site also has an emphasis on international connections. Just because you don't have any friends in Australia when you sign up doesn't mean you won't have any in a few weeks.
It also offers "return path" email, so if an old friend or relative is trying to send to an abandoned email address from the past, Hi 5 will pass it on to your new account once you register.
Linked In
If you are into networking for business, you have still more options. LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) is a free professional site that allows you to create a profile and sign up friends and classmates. It claims 9 million subscribers from 130 industries around the world. Using your friends, their friends, and their friends, you can keep connecting until you find a job, setup a new business venture, networking alliance, or meet some other business goal.
Ryze
Ryze (www.ryze.com) is another mostly free business-oriented network. At this business marketing and networking site, visitors aren't supposed to stop by to chat about trivial stuff. Instead, you can seek out technical and business help from other professionals in your networks. As with the other sites, you can post your profile, bio and photos. However, Ryze also includes a wide variety of networks you can join, depending on your business interests. If you decide you want to start your own network on your favorite subject, you can upgrade your free membership to a paid option. Premium members get access to certain exclusive areas and according to the site, more than 1,000 organizations have networks on Ryze "to help their members interact with each other and grow their organizations." Although Ryze started in 2001, it still seems to be in its infancy with reportedly 120,000 to 180,000 members so far.
A Social Network for Every Butterfly
No matter what your motivation for connecting, you can probably find a network that suits you. If MySpace seems too "high school" for you and you want more of a business focus, you may prefer LinkedIn or Ryze. On the other hand, if you are looking to just meet more people, any one of the networks offer efficient new ways of sharing your information and browsing through profiles to find potential new friends. Just bear in mind that as with networking in the real world, social networking takes time. Friendship, whether online or off, requires time to develop and a level of compatibility and trust. Just as in the real world, it's a good bet, you won't like everyone you meet in the online world either.
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