Social Networking Site Comparisons-My Thoughts (Learning of Unit 8)

These days, there are a whole lot of choices for someone who wishes to keep up with their friends via the internet. Sites such as Facebook, Ning, LinkedIn, Pownce, & FriendFeed compete with each other to gain popularity among the individuals flocking to the internet to partake in the social networking revolution.

For the purposes of InfoTechTools ENGR 6923, I had the opportunity to join each one of the sites mentioned above. Some, I have had limited involvement with; others, I have embraced fully. Here is what I have to say so far…

Facebook is at the top of my list in terms of ease of use and enjoyment. I can easily navigate through my community and check out all of my friends’ sites for updates. It is very easy to add widgets and join various groups on this site; The amount of “add ons” is endless; I can subscribe to RSS feeds, blogroll, upload videos & pics & presentations, and much more. This seems to be one of the more socially accepted sites because I had no problems finding many of my friends, classmates, and co-workers on this site.

Ning is also a good site, but I think it’s geared more toward using when part of a collaborative group or teaching/learning discussion group. It is an excellent tool for teaching an online class (as the case for ENGR 6923), but I think in terms of using for social networking purposes, it really lags behind Facebook. It has the functionality to add blogs, videos, widgets, pictures, discussion groups. The only issue I have with this site is that you must subscribe to a particular social network (Such as InfoTechTools). It is not really an open network in the sense that one can easily make contact with people they actively searched out (such as the case with Facebook).

LinkedIn is a site that is geared more toward professional networking. Personally, I think its main use is for people who are actively seeking new employment or searching for technical information. The one thing I don’t like about this site is that it asks for information regarding work experience, employment history, etc to add as part of your profile. If you are using this site for solely building a technical professional network, someone else from your company who is also using this site might think you are looking for another job. This would be the only drawback from using this site because it is almost like posting your resume for the whole world to see. A human resource person from your company might not like this idea, and get the wrong impression when finding their co-workers on this site.

Pownce is a site that I am not that crazy about. It reminds me of Twitter, but with the added option of checking other social networking profiles on other sites. I like the option of tagging messages as “private” so not everyone can see them as well as how easy it is to import friends from other social networking sites, but that is about all I like about this site. It would be much nicer if the user could go directly to their other social network sites from Pownce without having to log into each site. Because of this, I really don’t see the benefit of linking additional social networking sites to this one.

FriendFeed is a site that basically ties all of your other social networking sites together and lets you know what everyone in your network is doing across multiple networking sites. I really like this site as I can get a snap shot of everything all in one place without having to log into multiple sites each day. One can view all new posts and messages, but must log into a particular site if they want to post something to that particular site. The user can post messages within this site if they want to.

Given my exposure to the sites mentioned within this opinionated blurb, I would have to say that in terms of having fun and keeping up social internet appearances, I have to pick Facebook as my “go to” site. This site is very popular among internet users, and most of my social network subscribes to it. If I am partaking in some kind of formal brainy collaboration exercise, I would have to pick Ning as my site of choice since the functionality is geared toward discussion & collaboration. All the others are just secondary “fillers” that I would visit when I had some free time.

My profiles can be access at the following addresses:

Digg: http://digg.com/users/c5allen

Stumbleupon: http://c5allen.stumbleupon.com/public/

Delicious: http://del.icio.us/c_allen

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/c5allen

Pownce: http://pownce.com/c5allen/

Friendfeed: http://friendfeed.com/c5allen