Category — Social Networking

One of the things I love doing on Plurk is posting song lyrics. Nothing brings more people out of the woodwork than a familiar song, tune or lyric.

Music gets people excited, stimulates the brain and is just plain social. The Internet is definitely the most utilized tool when it comes to music and social networking and Brian Wallace, over at Nowsourcing, has put together a great list of websites that offer the most unique features, have the biggest audience, or mix both aspects together most effectively.

My favorite is Last.fm………..

is a great music social networking site because it truly brings music and socializing together. It helps you find friends based on musical tastes and helps you find new music through your friends. Its hard to tell whether its more of a website for socializing or a musical haven. A great indicator of compatibility between friends is music, so why not make it one of the first factors when meeting new people. Last.fm is the best because it makes music the first part of your social networking experience and can link people with similar tastes as well as help you find new acts.”

Music is the one thing in life that breaks down barriers and connects mankind in a way that nothing else does, so check out the rest of Brian’s post and let me know what social music sites you prefer and why.

As you may know, one of the best social networking sites for moms has been the Digg-like site called Sk*rt. For a little over a year, the ladies over at Sk*rt have been bringing moms the best in news, products, stories and ideas and those moms have voted, commented and contributed in many ways. However, recently, due to some trademarking issues, those fabulous ladies have been forced to make some very big changes to their site; the biggest of these changes being a brand new name for the site, new location and new logo…….

“Much like Saul became Paul. Puffy became Diddy. Prince became an unpronounceable symbol. Sk*rt will now and for ever yonder as far as we can see in the future as we know it be known with a new name. A name that many many many voted for. A name that means giving honor, nods, props and respect to something. A name that looks freaking awesome in its logo form. A name that we now know as Kirtsy.”

What does this mean? In a nutshell….the site is better than ever. Kirtsy is still full of great information, new ideas and wonderful stories and women from all over the world can participate in the various conversations going on throughout the site.

So what’s it like over there? The Kirtsy logo is very much like the Sk*rt logo so you will feel the familiarity right away and the old Sk*rt address goes right to the new Kirtsy address so no worries there. Evidently trademarks and mommy bloggers have been a fairly big topic in the blogosphere as of late and by tapping into the very community that makes their site possible, the three owners, Gabrielle Blair, Laura Mayes, and Laurie Smithwick were able to get things changed over in a timely fashion.

Don’t take my word for it, see for yourself and check out their blog. While you’re at it, raise your skirt and Kirtsy!

I love the idea of reducing our carbon footprint on this planet, in fact, I’ve spoken about it before. Well, things have gone even a step further in keeping this planet alive and well and social networking is the latest to climb aboard, the proverbial, eco-friendly bandwagon……..

“What’s going to be the viral element that gets us to cut down on our collective carbon emissions? Who’s going to deliver us the iPod of cleantech? If we knew for sure, we’d be off building it, but these 10 web sites think they have the key ingredients to motivate their users to fight global warming and cut carbon.”

The Care2 Network is the one I am most familiar with. They were one of the first networking sites to focus on the mainstream green community. A Digg like network in need of a makeover, this site sits up there with the best of the tree-huggin’ communities. But that is only 1 in a great list that Earth2Tech has provided their thoughts on. Check out all 10 of these “Green Social Networks” that seem to be promoting “personal carbon fitness” and tell us which one you would use to fight for your cause.

I was invited by a blogging friend of mine to join Ximmy. Having never heard of it I thought I just better check it out and I found some very interesting things.

For starters, Ximmy is similar to sites like Digg, Mixx, etc. in that users submit content, video and photos that can be voted on and made popular. The unique thing about Ximmy, however is the fact that you can actually get paid for the submissions you make, comments you make, and posts that go “hot”……..

“We are the first company to reward you for your contributions to our community through points that you can redeem for cash. Just register for an account. (It’s free!) You will earn points for submitting stories and posting comments. When your story is published to the home page, you will receive 15 points. Once you hit a points bracket, you can redeem the points for cash at any time. Payments are made via PayPal.”

It breaks down like this:

Points Earn:
1 point - Story Submitted
1 point - Comment
15 points - Popular (homepage)
Points Rewards
1,000 $10
1,800 $20
3,200 $40
6,000 $80
12,000 $160
20,000 $300

Seems like a lot of work to me just to get a couple of bucks. This also brings up that same old question of “quality content”. Are people submitting stuff just to get paid or is it quality submissions? I understand the idea and I think they are trying to find a way for users to actually benefit financially from a social news site but honestly, this really opens the door to all of those that quickly learn how to abuse the system.

Social networking is definitely not limited to adults. As you can see, there is a wide variety of sites that are geared towards our youth and while the idea is to get kids participation by playing games, it is already setting the foundation for the next generation of social media users.

If you know of a site that your kids participate on that is not listed here, please leave a comment as this list will be updated throughout the year.

Must be at least 16 years of age:

Friendster PR 4 Online community connecting friends

Must be at least 14 years of age:

MySpace PR 8 A Place For Friends

Must be at least 13 years of age & in high school:
Facebook PR 8 Social Utility that connect people with those around them

Must be at least 13 years of age:

Hi 5 PR 6 Who’s in?
Xanga PR 7 A weblog community
IMVU PR 6 Chat with friends in 3D
There PR 6 Online virtual world
Chamber of Chat PR 6 Harry Potter online role playing game
Second Life PR 8 3D Virtual World
Runescape PR 6 Online adventure community
Pownce PR 7 Create a network of friends and share files, links & events
Jaiku PR 6 Share your activities
Tickle PR 5 Social networking through personal development
43 Things PR 7 Microblogging site to share with community
Bebo PR 7 Social network for sharing and entertainment
Gaia Online PR 6 Virtual community with games, message boards & economy
vSide PR 6 Virtual music community
Windows Live Spaces PR 7 Community of friends for sharing and blogging

No Age minimum but must have parents approval:
Imbee PR 6 Social Networking designed for kids 8-12
Active Worlds PR 6 3D virtual world chat
Boom Bang PR 4 Chat, make friends and explore a virtual world
Dofus PR 6 Mulit player online role playing game
Awol PR 3 Chats, games, diary, friends, & cribs
Sanriotown PR 6 Hello Kitty games, community, blogs and forums
Webkinz PR 6 Virtual pet community for plush pets
Club Penguin PR 6 Virtual world for kids
Marapets PR 3 Virtual pet site with games and chat community
Shining Stars PR 5 Chatting, naming stars and virtual star worlds
Neopets PR 6 Virtual world for pets
Endless Online PR 4 Community role playing games
Eternal Lands PR 5 Community role playing games
Furcadia PR 5 Community role playing game
Graal Online PR 5 Community role playing games
Guild Wars PR 6 Community role playing games
Hero Online PR 4 Community warfare games
Millsberry PR 4 Home building community

There are hundreds more of the community role playing sites for kids, they are all very much the same so I decided not to list them all here. These types of games are not may favorite nor are they the “best” as far as networking sites for kids goes. However, they do allow certain features such as chats and interactive situations with other kids online. You can see a larger list of these Massive Multiplayer Role Playing Game (MMORPGs) here.

The important thing to remember when it comes to kids and social media is that parents should always have a very good idea of the games, people and sites their children are involved in, no matter how old the child is. The terms and conditions of these sites are set for a reason, abuse of them only creates problems. I’m also a firm believer in having access to all passwords for my kids accounts. Kids will argue about the invasion of privacy but let’s face it, their privacy is not nearly as important as their safety.

For more information on just how radically the internet is transforming the experience of childhood, check out Growing Up Online by Frontline. Frontline has created a great conversation by taking families into the very public and private worlds that are being created online. They are raising important questions and giving parents a chance to talk.

You may remember that last month I listed Cafemom as one of the Best in Mom Networking sites on the web. Well thanks to fellow mom blogger, Anne Marie, from My Readable Feast,
I was notified of some recent changes to the Cafemom site.

The idea behind Cafemom is to bring women together to actually network and promote one another through their targeted groups, and while their groups are great, this last week marks a step toward moms promoting each other in an additional way. Cafemom has added a tool that allows moms that are sharing ideas and interesting things around the web, a chance to vote on topics on their new “hot list”………

“Moms can “bump” submitted items that they think are
interesting and that other moms would appreciate. The more bumps an
item gets, the more likely it will be to end up on the Popular tab of
the Hot List.”

Currently the categories of the “Hot List” are current events, parenting, health, entertainment, recalls and alerts and offbeat news. Similar to other networks for moms that allow voting, you can submit your own information or something you’ve found on the Internet that falls into one of these categories. You can share your submission with friends and flag inappropriate content. The only drawback to voting and submitting items to the “Hot List” is that you do have to be a member of Cafemom to participate.

I sincerely suggest you check it out! Peruse the Hot List, see how many bumps some of the posts have and start connecting. You may decide this is a great place to start you’re own group and lead other women to sanity and support.

The month of January ended with my comprehensive list of Social Networking sites that are geared toward the growing group of mom bloggers. There was a big response and some sites have been added as this niche continues to grow by leaps and bounds. I will write more on this later.

What I really am interested in, however, are the sites for moms that promote not only relationships but have the ability to submit posts and vote. One site that seems to be making a real dent in this arena is the new, niche, social media site, The Mom Blog Network.

I mentioned, in my post, that the community of mom bloggers is an extremely engaging and rapidly growing niche and being able to identify the top mom blogs is very a valuable resource for those looking to enter, study or market to people in a particular field. Marshall Kirkpatrick, of Read, Write, Web, lists six different services you can use to identify the top blogs in a particular niche field. He compares the pros and cons of each site and while Marshall’s list is fairly comprehensive, he does note in his conclusion that,

“Nobody quite does what we need. Used in concert and with a little work,
these tools together can build you a pretty good reading list of top
blogs in any niche.”

I would like to suggest that The Mom Blog Network is on the right track to becoming the best place for finding blogs in the mom blog niche…….

“Moms are the ultimate internet networkers,” states Debra Aho
Williamson, senior analyst at eMarketer.com. “They seek out other moms’
advice for what they’re looking for.” Most certainly, blogs are highly
effective for sharing information and establishing a critical voice
online. “89 percent of moms use the Internet at least twice a day,”
reports PME Enterprises, which produces the annual M2Moms™ marketing
conference. “In the evolution from ‘Web 1.0 to Web 2.0′, mommy bloggers
have grown their sphere of influence.”

Nobody knows about this “sphere of influence” better than fellow mommy blogger and founder of Mother’s Click, Andra Davidson. Andra saw the need for moms to have place that their posts could be promoted through syndication and at the same time offer an easy way to reach a wider audience and drive more traffic to their sites, so she developed the Mom Blog Network.

Great idea, but is it working? To answer that question, I went straight to some active mom bloggers in the community that have been using the Mom Blog Network for a couple of months. Here is what they had to say:

Amanda, from Pajama Mommy Community says,

“I just started using Mom Blog Network maybe within the last 2 months. I haven’t received any referrers. In my stats you have to give me at least 11+ click throughs generally to make it in my list of referrers. Mom Blog Network hasn’t given me enough to even register on my radar.”

Sharyn, from the FeeFiFoto blog notes,

“In the last couple of months I have received a few visits from the Mom Blog Network. Maybe 20 or so.”

Summer, from Wired For Noise doesn’t put much work into it……..

“I have my blog set to auto feed there so that my posts are up automatically and I get about 1 or 2 visits a week from them.”

Jenny, from The So Called Me, can’t seem to get her blog to aggregate to the Network…….

“I’ve gotten some decent traffic from them. No one that comments, but they have subscribed to my feed.”

My experience in the last month has been similar to those moms above. I have received exactly 28 visits from the Mom Blog Network and while comments have been at a minimum, I have gotten a couple of subscribers. The thing that I really like about the network, as Summer mentioned, is that once you register your blog, your posts are automatically posted on the network. So for 28 visits and no work done, it is really an easy way to generate a little extra traffic.The good news is, it’s real traffic, not fly by night votes. These are real moms looking for real content, and if they find something they like they stay for a while and quite often, become subscribers. So while the traffic may not come in hoards, the quality of the traffic is definitely what focused and highly specific social niche sites have to offer. What niche sites do you participate in?

Business traveling has become a lifestyle for many and even though hotel stays and lodging may not be the most luxurious, if you own your own business, it is often a necessity.

Small Business Trends suggests that “for many business travelers, it’s simply not possible to bring families along” when traveling on business and the continuous separation can wear a person down. While I like Small Business Trend’s 5 Methods to Conquer Loneliness When Traveling On Business, I would like to suggest that technology has found a way to bring family to the business traveler.

Sleep.FM claims to be the first sleep and wake up social networking site, where your friends and family’s messages can wake you up. Check out this short video to see how it works.

So, do we really need something like this when we have travel alarm clocks and wake-up call services? Maybe not, but I actually think it is kind of a cool idea. My husband travels quite a bit with his computer, it might be fun to have the kids’ voices telling him to rise and shine and hit the pavement, or quite possibly, my nagging voice.

Sleep.FM is still in beta and they have already had thousands of sign up requests since their presentation at the NY Tech Meetup Forum in November. They are currently working on an iPhone application as well as a Windows Mobile application which is very cool. As a work at home mom, this probably wouldn’t be for me since my kids already wake me up every morning as it is. But for someone who travels….well it might just be one way to bring the family a bit closer to your home away from home.