Social networks

There are so many social network websites or services currently available, that it can be hard to decide which one (if any) to join! Wikipedia keeps a list of the active social networking websites, two of which have been specifically covered in previous Learning 2.0 tasks (LibraryThing and Flickr). Social networks allow you to create a group of or to "connect to" friends online, either matching your in-real-life (IRL) friends, or people you have never met in person but have something (anything) in common with! Most sites offer photo sharing, and some offer tagging services.

MySpace has been making headlines for years, and is currently offering 27 International sites. Recently, the popularity of MySpace has been lacking, as Facebook is increasingly in the news. Both web applications have been widely criticised (on Wikipedia - MySpace, Facebook), especially for allowing, or in some cases, enabling cyber stalking and bullying, not doing enough to prevent child abuse, and for contraversial decisions to support pro-holocaust and pro-anorexia/bulimia groups, and ban photos of masectomies and breast feeding in support groups. Friendster, which MySpace and Facebook were based on, has not received anywhere near as much criticism (perhaps it was features in popular media less often). Mashable has large news archives for Friendster, Facebook and MySpace. It also has a generic section for social networking news.

Ning allows anyone to create an open or moderated social community, and has recently passed an amazing milestone: one million social networks. LinkedIn is a social network focussed on business, where as most of the other social networks are predominantly for personal entertainment. Many people (over 40 million) use LinkedIn to showcase their resume online, making themselves more visible to head-hunters.

Some of the concerns that many people voice about social networking services are: lack of privacy, potential for data theft, photos being published online, increase in spam and viruses, bullying, etc. Most of these social network sites allow for various privacy settings, controlling what information others in the extended social network can see. Other people argue that having an extensive online (digital) presence makes identify theft harder.

When using social networks, I endeavour to follow a few personal rules:

• I do not publish photos of people without their permission (simple courtesy). I know many people who really dislike photos of themselves appearing on the internet - me being one of those people! I publish almost no identifying photos of myself, even though blue hair is rather recognisable.
• I will usually only connect to, and accept connections from friends that I know in real life, via extended electronic communication, or through other friends (unless I am specifically looking for new language exchange friends).
• I try to never use clearly identifying names (full names), especially of those friends who I know value their privacy
• I consider that anything that I publish in a social networking site (apart from specific contact details), is publicly readable - just in case privacy rules fail, or the social network site is searchable using Google.