Thoughts on Social Networking Sites

Hi all,

I don't usually post here too much, but I thought that I would start using my other networking sites a bit more since I am starting to get a bit fed up of Facebook.

I first got introduced to the social networking world in about 2003 or 2004, when a number of my email contacts started inviting me to sites like Friendster and Bebo. I joined up but didn't really use them all that much. In 2005 I set up my own networking page on MySpace after being introduced to it by the band The Busymen. Two years later, my Canadian cousins Becky and Troy Western introduced me to Facebook and from there I was pretty much hooked.

The problem was as Facebook became too popular, it also attracted a number of problem people to my profile whom I didn't really want as contacts. Bored people, alcoholics, mentally ill people, and trolls started creeping into it and I thought "naaah, I'm going back to my other sites again - far less trouble!" I have recently started to downsize my Facebook friends to family, relatives, favourite musicians, musician, model and photographer friends and people whom I want to become professionally involved with down the track with my music.

So, in the meantime I want to give you all a bit of run-down as to what I think about other alternative network sites that I'm on.

FRIENDSTER - http://dariowestern.friendster.com - Friendster is the premier and oldest social networking site out there. Commencing in 2002, it was originally a dating site only, but expanded to other aspects of social life as well. I don't have too many friends on it, as the site is only really used by people in Asia now. It's recently undergone a facelift to go from a humble social network to one that looks like a cyber amusement arcade with tons of games.

Pros: Easy to use, nice large fonts that make stuff easy to read. You can mix and match your favourite music and videos on the music player.

Cons: Not enough interest from people in the Western world, so it can be quite lonely on there.


BEBO - http://www.bebo.com/dariowestern and http://www.bebo.com/theglamgod - Bebo was originally started in California in 2002 and the name means "Blog Early Blog Often". Like Friensdter before, I got introduced to it mostly by my Australian contacts, but again it is not much used in Australia anymore. Most of the people who use it now are from the UK and Europe. Very popular with fans of The Veronicas (as you can see by my avatar pic!). Only thing is I'm sure that there are a number of people impersonating them on their profiles!

Pros: Easy layout, fairly easy to blog, you can also share videos, wall posts, and a 'timeline' whereby you can share your entire life history with old photos and videos on it. Nice apps, and it's easy for other people to contact you on other messenger networks. You can customise the pages with your own 'skins' or use a myriad of other skins made by some very creative users.

Cons: The changing hands of it from being independently owned to AOL put a lot of people offiside, and costing one of the top executives his job in the long run. For a while it was a serious contender to MySpace in the popularity stakes, but the chopping and changing of it saw it drop in the popularity stakes. Not enough Australians using it anymore, even though it's still good and highly usable.

MYSPACE - http://www.myspace.com/dariowestern - I first heard about MySpace in 1995 when Richard Buchanan from The Busymen had set up their own webpage on there. I joined up quickly, and was quite happy with it until it got sold to NewsCorp who started upgrading the pages against most of the user's wishes. It also took me a while to get my old profile back due to some logging-in issues that I set up another one as fatpizzaman for a few years. Once I got my original profile back and updated, I deleted the other one.

Pros: A great platform for musicians, photographers, models, fashion designers, DJs and other creative souls in the arts and entertainment industry to promote themselves. You can share multiple music, videos, blogs and up until recently bulletins. With Justin Timberlake at the helm now, things are starting to look rosy for the company again after several industry rumours that it was going to be shut down.

Cons: The automatic upgrading of the sites profiles designs angered and annoyed a lot of users at the time, who could make any changes to their sites themselves or wanted them the way they originally were. In its early days it had teething problems with paedophiles and child pornographers using it to prey on its (mostly young) users. However, such problems are water under the bridge now. Several game apps that it had to try and compete it with Facebook have since been removed, causing most of its fanbase to stick to Facebook.


FACEBOOK - http://www.facebook.com/dariowestern - I joined it in 2007 after my cousins in Canada invited me to it and it fast became a very addictive networking site because of its ease and conciceness. I've made a number of friends thanks to being introduced to them on Facebook, but also made quite a few enemies with my very outspoken diatribes about topics like nudism, families, racism, religion, the cosmetic industry.

PROS: It's the No.1 social networking site in the world now. Originally used as a college intern network site, it's used by major businesses and organisations to keep a track of their customers needs and wants through groups and community pages. Easy sharing of videos, photos, and music. Plenty of games and apps to share (though they can be very addictive, so I don't use them myself).

CONS: Does attract a lot of very unsavoury people like trolls, perverts, malcontents and other very questionable people. Very gymnophobic, doesn't allow nude photos or near nude photos to be posted unless you can stand to have your profile deleted (mind you most other social networks are not too nude friendly, but FB takes it JUST a tad too far). The site constantly chops and changes, sometimes without prior knowledge of the users.


TWITTER - http://twitter.com/Dario_Western - joined it in around 2008 or 2009. Usually use it in conjuction with other networking sites (after all that's what it's meant to be for).

PROS: Easy status updates, you can protect your 'tweets' and decide who follows you.

CONS: Recently become a paradise for spammers, hackers, and fly-by-night business operators.


ORKUT - http://www.orkut.com - Google's first social networking site, which was founded on January 22, 2004 to no big fanfare. It was originally mega popular in the United States, but eventually its popularity was usurped by users in India and Brazil. It is a clean, easy and unpretentious site to use, lacking in the facilities that the Big Three sites have such as being able to post blogs and share music. However, it's quite easy to navigate.

PROS: Easy on the eye, easy to navigate, you can share videos from YouTube for it as well as use it as a dating site or to rate other user's sex appeal. Also has communities that you can join, as well as scrapbooking. Privacy is also a major issue, it's easy to set who can and can't see your profile as well as various aspects of it.

CONS: The site was involved with much controversy between 2005 - 2009, especially with imposter profiles, invisible profiles and communities, spammers and flooders, as well as some Brazilian users promoting child pornography and Indian users promoting rave dance parties in which narcotics were sold. Orkut also came under fire for hosing racist and other hate crime communities. These have now thankfully been rectified and removed from the site.



GOOGLE PLUS - http://plus.google.com - I joined it this year after being invited by a photographer from Model Mayhem. At the moment the site is still in its baby stage, so there's still a lot that can be done with it. However, it's more secure than Facebook and you can put your contacts in 'circles' so that you can post different status updates to each of them.

PROS: Easy to use, good for sharing videos and music and newsfeeds to. The "Hangout" feature is pretty cool if you want to do video-conferencing with friends. Would also like to see Google Groups being linked into user's profiles as part of their interests, as well as Google Buzz.

CONS: Not much to complain about since the site is relatively new. Just hope that it doesn't go the same way as Facebook with the gymnophobia. Would like to see users be able to create their own URLs as the ones that are given are about as long as Siamese railway stations.


WAYN (WHERE ARE YOU NOW?) - http://www.wayn.com/dariowestern - don't really use this one too much, but as its name implies its more for connecting with overseas people. I'd probably use it to keep in touch with old school friends in the UK and from high-school for occasional updates, but aside from that not much else.


FORMER SOCIAL NETWORK SITES I HAVE USED:

MSN SPACES - http://theglamgod.spaces.msn.com - later "Live Spaces". Good site which I used to its full advantage, but a shame it got shut down.

YAHOO! 360 - used it from 2005 till it's closure. I didn't like the way that Yahoo! combined it with its user profiles against it's users wishes. Plus it gained a bad reputation for being a haven for swingers and sex predators, which was partially the reason for its closure.

SKINBOOK - http://skinbook.ning.com - Launched in 2008 by a young team of British students from Manchester (UK), whilst holidaying on a nudist beach, it was touted as the "Facebook for Nudists". It was a great network, the admins were very strict about dodgy people joining and using anonymous photos as their profiles. However, they trusted in the wrong types of people for its forum admins. One was a power mad couple who deleted user profiles without warning because they didn't agree with what they said on the forums. Another forum moderator was a verbally abusive and rude person, who also attacked me a number of times. Following Ning's decision to become a pay only community as well as phasing out sex and pornography communities as well as banning nude imagery, the founder Karl Maddocks threw up his hands deciding that enough was enough. He didn't get much sympathy from the users, and was attacked in Nudiarist's blog for immaturity and bad business ethics. The other founders have started up a new community called MySkin which is via invitation only for immediate friends of theirs.