The Rise in Social Networking

I wrote before about my exploration of the Facebook site. However, since then I have read quite a bit on Robert Scoble’s blog about Facebook and how social networking is becoming the biggest and hottest topic in tech. A person’s profile on Facebook, through the apps that are being written for it by developers, is becoming the convergence point for everything that person does on the web. My Facebook profile now includes the top five posts in this blog and a list of posts I found interesting on other blogs, but I could also share pictures and video, book lists for what I’m reading, and the like. The thing is, there are many social networking sites out there that are vying for the top spot. Friendster was toppled by MySpace, and now Facebook is pushing up. There is actually another, very popular, network owned by Google called Orkut that, depending on how you analyze the traffic, is either the number 1 or number 2 social networking site as compared to MySpace, and Facebook is either number 3 or number 4. As I have been using many Google tools, including Google Reader for my feeds, and Google Calendar, I am also on Orkut.

The really neat site is Ning, which allows you to create your own custom social network for free! Many ways to “skin” the pages for your own look and feel, the ability to share pictures, video, and music, discussion threads, personal blogs, and more features being added. I set one up for my family and configured it to be by invitation only to protect our privacy (we all know what happened to Miss New Jersey!). If you are a family member of mine, stop by and request an Invitation. I’d love to hear from you!