It’s been a bit of a roller coaster researching social networks. The process is the same for most of them. It’s a free account, and after you set it up you write a little profile. One of mine says it fairly succinctly: I am on a professional mission to question all things related to the business of the Internet and to the best of my ability explain it in plain language to anyone interested.

I kind of feel like Movie Critic Richard Roper – one of the guys on the TV show At The Movies. Sometimes he comments on how the movie he was reviewing was so bad it was painful to have to sit through, but that since his job is to review the film, he had to do it. That–s exactly how I felt by the time I got to the so called social network site called tagged dot com. That one really sucks.

But not all of them are like that, and some are important to understand. I was talking about this topic tonight with Marty Walser, one of my colleagues here at Web Teks. He pointed out something about social networks that gave the topic clarity I want to share. There is a big difference between a true social network site like facebook, or myspace and one of my new favorite sites; del.icio.us. Sites like MySpace share thoughts. Sites like del.icio.us or LinkedIn share information.

Digg is another example of a social networking site that is about gauging the popularity of something on the internet. It–s sort of like eavesdropping on what people are talking about around the water cooler. Mostly people look up inane and innocuous things, but when you see a trend evolving it could be an indicator of a change approaching. I guess you can say it–s the 21st century equivalent of our hunter gatherer ancestors listening closely to the dark. Most nights nothing happens, but you want to be ready if a beast approaches.

O.K. – Back to Marty. He cracks me up with some of his comments– Today he was doing a usability report on a client–s corporate portal. We often are asked to evaluate sites to let the client know what might be improved to make a site more user friendly. So today’s Marty Quote of the day “every new click is a mystery– but I can’t put that in a note to the client”.

Now that’s funny

BTW my picture on MySpace is awful – and I have not taken enough time to figure out how to change it ;(

Social Networks: useful or enormous Waste of Time? by
Tom Anthony is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

After reading the special offer email I considered trying a Search Engine Optimization tool called Web CEO. It had been quite a while since I looked at it, and it seemed not bad at the time, but not as good as one I already own and use called Web Position Gold. Well before I decided to download the Web CEO software I found this post… old yes… November 2005… but so relevant it was weird.
The person posting at Utter Bollocks http://www.utterbollocks.com/ reviewed the software and saved me a bunch of time.

Marty Quote of the day: Those guys at (deleted name of company) are not The Brightest Tools In the Shed I just love a good mixed metaphor. Another Marty ism … He is not the Sharpest Bowling Ball in the Bag

O.K., let’s start right here.

When you say Web 2.0 what the heck are you talking about? Social Networking. But unless you dive in a little bit that pretty much is the same as saying flux capacitor. If you know what it means it has a lot of relevance, if you don’t it just sounds like common words strung together for no particular reason. By the way Doc Brown used his flux capacitor to get Back To The Future.

My position as Vice President of an eBusiness company means I have to know what Web 2.0 means. Not just that; I have to be able to explain it to people. Our company (Web Teks) specializes in strategic planning of business Initiatives which have some Internet or web based component. My particular niche is in media with a deep background in broadcasting.

With broadband now widely available this turbo charged World Wide Web is like every person in the world with access to a computer having their own newspaper, Radio Station, and Television Channel all at the same time. So with the media background in my hip pocket I embark today on a mission to question all things related to the business of the Internet and to the best of my ability explain it to anyone interested. To that end I have blogged these notes in my personal blog, and my stumbled in blog.

Next out we’ll look at some important 2.0 sites like del.icio.us, Plaxo.com, Linkedin.com, and jigsaw.com. Stand by — I think (and hope) this is going to get pretty good