Social Networking

Social Networking is part of everyone's daily life. We might not think that we rely on it, but we do. While I was thinking about the sites I use on a daily basis, I kept going back and adding to the list. You can join a social network for just about anything now. Personally, I belong to the most common ones along with some that pertain to specific hobbies I have. The giants of social networking are Facebook and Twitter. Anyone who is anyone has and uses Facebook and/or Twitter on a daily basis--whether it's to keep in touch with friends and family or just to let everyone know what is going on in their lives. While these may be the giants and possibly the most popular, they are still behind LinkedIn in terms of number of members.
LinkedIn is a great tool for connecting people that work together and gaining contacts for job openings or filling positions. It is great for when you want to get your resume out there or want to look for a new job. You can upload your resume and LinkedIn will fill in your profile. You can make status updates just like Facebook and Twitter. You can also link your Twitter account to your LinkedIn account to make the same status updates. Instead of followers or friends you have connections and they can make recommendations about you. There are a lot of employers out there that use this as a tool to see what you have worked on and for who. It can be a great tool for employees as well to get to know people they work with.
Flickr is a big network for photographers, but they are not the only ones on it. All types of photographers are on it from amateur to professional. I like to use it so I can have a backup of my photos, but also for the integration with flash to actually use my photos as content for a slideshow. It is also one of the biggest sources for stock photos. When you post your pictures you can add locations to where you took them and also group them. The groups are locations and categories of photos so that others can look them up and see what else is out there. You can comment on others photos and give them tips or ask them for tips. It is a great community for people to converse about photography.
Foursquare is a social network with a points system. It has you "check-in" when you travel to a new place, whether it be a gas station, restaurant, museum, etc. If you are the one who travels to that place the most then you become the mayor. You can have friends and send messages to them through foursquare, but the nice thing about it is its full integration with Twitter and Facebook. When you check in anywhere you can have Twitter and Facebook mirror the post. Every place you check-in to, you get points--bonus points for multiple stops in a day. It will keep track of your total points and has leader boards. The feature I enjoy most is that with each post, it will have a link to your location in case anyone wants to join you. The downfall is that people will know where you are/were, so check in to public places and not private ones.
Lala, as I talked about already, is a great social network for music lovers. You can have friends and send messages just like any social networking site, and it is also intergrated with Twitter and Facebook. The unique thing about Lala is the ability to share music with people and the fact that you can listen to any album all the way through without buying it. If you only use lala to play your music and don't want a copy on your hard drive you can buy web albums which are only 99 cents. This is a great website to discover new music you never knew about along with telling your friends what they should listen to.
The final social network I will touch on is Deviantart. This is a social network for artists of all kinds--from photographers to traditional and digital artists. You can follow people and also have "collections" of people's art. You can get a gallery for your own art as well. This is a great site for inspiration and finding people with the same interests. There is no intergration with other social networking sites, but it is a great site to join if you enjoy art of any sort. This is an excellent network to show people what you are doing and get suggestions on where to go with what you are working on.
All of the listed social networks are the ones I belong to. Facebook and Twitter I user on a daily basis and I have intergrated them both. Whenever I post to Twitter, my Facebook status updates. My Foursquare account is linked to Twitter so therefore my Facebook updates as well. I use all 3 of these social networks when I'm on the go. I use LinkedIn more as a professional tool and I don't link that to my Twitter or Facebook accounts because I think it's a good idea to keep your professional and personal lives separate. Flickr and Deviantart are where I display my artwork and also follow others that I know or whose work I like.
Social networking isn't just for recreational purposes anymore. While I mostly network to stay in touch with friends, family and acquaintances, programs like LinkedIn and Deviantart allow me to have online representation for professional growth.

Social Bookmarking

Have you ever wanted to take all of your bookmarks on the go with you? Even if you only have one computer, there's a simple and useful way to keep them organized. Social Bookmarking has grown over the past few years with sites such as digg.com and stumbleupon, but there is a new, more useful website for bookmarking purposes. Delicious.com has become a large "database" for bookmarks. You create an account and upload your bookmarks from your browser. The site will tag your bookmarks if you had them in folders and will also tag them as imported. Once they are on the website you can edit them. Tags are great on here because you can categorize them according to the subject of each bookmark and they can have multiple tags if you wish. You can also add people to your network on the site and share websites with each other. Delicious also has twitter integration where you can share any bookmark that you add. However, you don't have to share all of your bookmarks. There are privacy settings you can choose so only you can see your bookmarks. The great thing about it is that most browsers have plugins to integrate delicious. I currently use chrome and there are a variety of plugins, I can access all my bookmarks just like they were bookmarked on my computer. Another reason I am a big advocate of this website is that I use 3 computers consistently and there would be no other way to have them all synced to the same bookmarks. Wherever I am or whatever computer I am on, I have access to my bookmarks. My Music and Bookmarks are now in the cloud, what is next?