Thing 21 -- Beyond MySpace: Other Social Networks

Visit 23 Things on a Stick


I am not personally much of a social network user, and truthfully don't anticipate becoming much of one (too many things to do, not enough time to do everything--this one would fall a bit farther down my list). Although some of the sites I looked at could be of interest to and shared with patrons, I had a tougher time thinking of ways I could use some of these sites for the library in general. I will be curious to see what ideas others had on this matter! One of the sites I really do intend to use more myself professionally is WebJunctionMinnesota. I have spent a bit of time on this site in the past and know it to be useful--I just need to take the time to use it. I haven't read ahead yet, but know that using WebJunction is one thing I could do to continue learning new technologies and ways to use them.

One idea I will carry away from this Thing is Ning, the site for building social networks from scratch. (After reading the "Nine Ways to Build Your Own Social Network" article from TechCrunch, I think that is the one I would choose or recommend too.) I think that this site could be usefully referred to any patrons or local groups who were interested in building a social network.

The other element I found most useful from this Thing was the article on ways that nonprofits can use social networking to promote their causes and to network with organizations with similar interests and those who might support their causes. My library has contact with the local Early Childhood Coalition; the information in this article seemed like it might be of some interest to the Coalition and I will share it with them.

I will also make a note that social networks are ways that people who are looking for others with similar interests can make connections. I noted in passing that Ning had a network of Home Based Business owners; I personally spent a bit of time for this Thing exploring Gather.com.

NOTE ON THE ABOVE BADGE: When I copied the code from Ning and then tried to publish this post, the post would not publish but gave me an error code. I don't (regrettably) know HTML--but I learned enough from my dad in the early days of the Apple that I was able to compare the code I copied to other code and find the error. In case anyone else had the same problem, I added the phrase < / embed > (but with no spaces--I need to put spaces in so Blogger won't think I'm making another html error!) before the bit that starts out with
< small > (near the end) and then it published.