Module 7 Social Networking

It really is baffling what you can do with today's technology. I had reconnected with my elementary, high school and college friends after all these years via the social networking site Facebook. Of all the four social networking sites that we were asked to look at, I prefer Facebook because for a not very technology savy person like me, it was pretty straight forward and simple to use. I had created an account on Bebo and MySpace using a different name because I wasn't really going to pursue it. Both sites as I see it may be catering more to the younger generation and people who are looking for love. I had found it to be very busy and somewhat hard to navigate around. I did love decorating or customizing my profile by choosing different skins or themes. The designs were really cool.Bebo also have a lifestream which is a way of mapping your activities so you can see what you had planned or had done. Ning was more of for group of people who would like to create an exclusive topic or need. they may all have one central or specific interests that brings them all together. With regards to privacy, there are levels of privacy settings which you can choose from in all the four sites. They can be public,private and fully private. Bebo even has age restrictions option where you can set restrictions on the ages of people who would want to contact you. It would all depend on you on how you'd like to set your privacy so it's all under your control.

I think the library can use these sites to promote our services because people are accessing these sites and maybe we can get hits from them even if only out of curiosity.

These social networking sites are a valuable tool if you use it correctly and safely. It can work for you and against you depending on how responsibly you use it.