Weblog & Social Networking Page

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Weblogs & Social Networking [this page]

Because of the high volume of activity on social networking sites and on blog sites, placement on one or more of them can bring a major increase in traffic (depending on your website's content). Social networking goes all the way back to the days of the caveman. The modern version is merely doing the same thing online, on the internet. Most such sites are general, with the ability to belong to a range of subgroupings; but quite a few networking sites are for a specific purpose, such as business & career contacts, ethnic or national subgroups, photo-sharing, music sharing, etc. No commercial dating sites are included here: such sites treat relationships as a commodity. Many social networking sites include their own blog {short for 'weblog'} function, or allow inclusion of outside blog site content. Blog content ranges from amateur to professional, and a great many are not updated very often. But the 'blogosphere' has grown in influence, such that even the corporatist media are repeatedly forced to cover news stories that first appeared on blogs.

	The social networking site MySpace is #1 in users as-of mid-2007. It was launched in August 2003 by eUniverse, and rapidly populated by contests among employees for signing up the most users. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. purchased MySpace in July 2005 for $580 million; the company is now located at Fox Interactive Media head- quarters in Beverly Hills, CA. MySpace currently adds new registrations at a rate of 230,000 per day (2007). my MySpace homepage
	Blogger started in San Francisco in August 1999, narrowly survived the Dot-Com Bust, and was bought by Google in February 2003 for an undisclosed fortune. Google purchased Picasa in 2004 and added its photo-sharing capability into Blogger. The major 'beta' redesign in 2006 included moving all of Blogger onto Google servers. my blog 'Dateline Chamesa' at Blogger.com
	Orkut describes itself as 'an online community that connects people through a network of trusted friends'. Orkut is second in membership to MySpace, yet has only 30% the number of users. Orkut is run by Google, and is extremely popular in India. You can choose to view pages in a dozen languages.
	Zaadz is the Dutch word for 'seeds'. The site launched quietly in February 2006, attracting new members by full-page ads in progressive print media in the U.S and elsewhere, using the motto "Let's change the world!" and emphasizing spirituality, social & environmental conscious- ness, and Conscious Capitalism. Then in January 2007, the site renamed itself the Gaia Community 'powered by Zaadz'; all the old Zaadz address links automaticaly redirect, the big change is the color scheme. my gaia/zaadz page
	Gather launched in September 2005 to bring together listeners of public radio, thus its emphasis on books & authors, and music & other arts; Gather is privately-owned, with headquarters in Boston, MA. Members who participate regularly will earn Gather Points, which can be used onsite for services, or can accumulate and eventually be redeemed for dollars. my gather page
	LinkedIn is 17th behind MySpace, and is designed for business professionals, for career & sales-contact networking. The basic service is free; the Premium Features (for a fee) options add posting resumes & job search, access to Fortune 500 executives & topical experts, and a priority email service. After signup, LinkedIn will search your email address book and alert you to LinkedIn members that you already know. my LinkedIn profile {requires sign-in}
	The hi5 social networking website is third in membership, yet has only about 25% of the users that MySpace has. The emphasis is on romantic and friendship relationships, and hi5 is especially popular in Central America.
	BOOMj.com describes itself as a 'web-based lifestyle portal', and is headquartered in Las Vegas, NV. While MySpace is geared toward (and mostly used by) 'Generation X', BoomJ is geared toward older 'Baby Boomers' (born after WWII) and 'Generation Jones' (born 1954 to 1965, with teenhood during the 1960s & 1970s).
	Facebook, seventh largest after MySpace, began at Harvard University in February 2004, first with college students, then high schoolers, then expanded in September 2006 to the general public. The Facebook Marketplace feature - classified ads, in competition with Craigslist - was added in May 2007.
	Meetup.com is widely used for political and social connections offline – organized by ZIP code and topic. Founded in 2002, Meetup expanded rapidly, especially when the Democrats made use of it going into the 2004 elections. A housecleaning in July 2005 drastically reduced the number of groups.
	The for-fee DirectMatches website is set up to connect business people, business events, and 'yellow page' ads. The basic fee is $9.95/month (billed to your credit card), with higher fees for Managing Independent Representative & Executive Independent Representative status.
	Delicious {using the URL www.del.icio.US} is a 'social book- marking' site, designed to allow online storage of bookmarks and provide the ability to access your Favorites from any computer, plus search the posted Favorites of others around the world. The site was founded by Joshua Schachter in late 2003 and sold to Yahoo! in 2005.
	Volunteer Match connects individuals wanting to serve their community with possible opportunities at non-profits & corporations. The organization was founded as Impact Online in 1996, and the website was launched in 1998.
	blogarama: the blog directory began in 2002; the Add Yours Now! function is free and may take a week or so for approval/rejection by a human. The directory search results appear based on internal ranking, which requires having a simple button or text recip link on the page specified for your blog (no redirects).
	HerOrbit - Where Women Connect was launched in April 2007 as a social networking-slash-shopping site for women. For-fee listing of your products is optional; the networking is free.
	Wink is a free social networking site launched in August 2007 that brags about having access to over 300 million profiles; the site gleans from Facebook, Friendster, Internet Movie Database, LinkedIn, MySpace, Wikipedia & ZoomInfo. Free login/account allows posting of a Wink profile and-or contact with search results.

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