Comments on: Social Networking: Not Quite Mainstream

By: lenusmaria

lenusmaria — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:50:57 +0000

I also use zigime.com It is my favorite. I really like the look of the site. It looks very professional and the community is very friendly.

By: leoschmidt08

leoschmidt08 — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:57:21 +0000

I think that, for now, Charlene is right and social networks are more ubiquitous than surveys indicate. It amazes me how many people use them and how many people are jumping on board every day. There might be some fatigue when asked about social networks, but I would bet many of those same people go and check their info on the likes of Facebook and MySpace weekly or at least monthly.

By: boen_robot

boen_robot — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:19:59 +0000

When I read that people from my country (Bulgaria) were also surveyed,
what you said in the next paragraph (that it doesn’t make a majority
of the social networking market) is exactly what I though.

Here, social networking is mainly known by youngsters (13-25) and they mainly
join Bulgarian social networks (sladur.com, aha.bg, etc.) instead of mainstream
social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. But even those sites are rarely
used. Users prefer to share their Skype username (Skype is the most popular IM here)
in their profile on such sites, and then do everything from there,
including sharing files, chatting, voice and video talking, etc.

Accidently, my mom is part of many social networks, including the not so well known
mylivepage.com and a few others I can’t even remember. She uses them because they’re
not in English, but in Russian (most elders know Russian better than English;
the opposite with youngsters).
And if the question is if she realizes she is part of a social network – she doesn’t.
From here point of view, the site is for “meetings” or “contacts”.
It’s just that the term “Social network” doesn’t sound well when translated.
Probably because any “Network” other than the internet is associated with “mafia”
(a criminal network), giving people a certain disgust from even thinking about it.

By: brothercake

brothercake — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 01:48:58 +0000

One from each column, I’d say.

I think the ability to participate in online communities is here to stay. But the role of online networks as a medium for offine social networks is a fad.

Online and offline communities are completely different things, and don’t share very much common ground. Essentially, sites like Facebook are good for keeping in touch with people you only know through the internet, but an extremely poor and vacuous way of keeping in touch with your real friends.

By: Tyssen

Tyssen — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:57:23 +0000

I want to get my parents onto using Facebook – makes it easier for me to distribute photos and videos than by using email (and having to compress videos into a format small enough to email). My parents-in-law already signed up a few weeks ago.