Social network sites for many of us have become part of our everyday lives. Here is a rundown of some that I have used.
You will be familiar with some of them and some you may never have heard of.

Facebook is the one that is the most widely known. It seems these days that everyone is using facebook from teenagers to grandparents.  My wife was the first in our family to have a Facebook account in our house. I would walk by the computer and see her on it messaging friends or playing games. I never thought it would be something I would use. She had her account for about a year before I decided to give it a try.  What made me take the plunge was The  Word Twist game  It looked interesting so I signed up and quickly became addicted to it. I took the newbie approach and almost immediately started sending pokes and flairs to my friends and family. When I first joined there were very few people I knew that used Facebook but recently it seems that everyone from my graduating class has joined.  I have friended most of the people that I have found or who have found me.  Even though I may not have deep discussions with these people it has been nice re-connecting with them.  If it wasn’t for Facebook I would never have known where these old friends were or what had happened to them.

Twitter is different from Facebook. On Twitter, you post within the limits of 140 characters what you are doing either from your computer or from your phone. Your posts will then show up on the Twitter site for friends and family or perfect strangers to see. I first started using Twitter as a way to update my status on Facebook but I quickly started to use it more than Facebook. I can’t explain why I like it I just do. Twitter is something you either get it or you don’t. You can read my previous post #iranelection for more on Twitter.

Flickr is the first social network site that I used. Flickr is a photo sharing site. I am not a professional photographer by any means but I do enjoy taking pictures. Flickr is a site that you can upload your pictures and share them with people. Once you upload a picture you can join groups and post your pictures on those groups for other people to comment on and give you tips. Through creative commons a trade mark service. Your pictures that you add if you choose to allow it can be used by other people for commercial or non commercial use. I do allow my pictures to be used for non commercial non profit use only. This is a great site for amateur photographers like myself who want to improve their pictures. With Flickr, you can see the world through pictures without ever leaving your chair.

Brightkite which is my favorite site of all is more obscure than the others. The simplified version is that it’s Twitter with pictures. The truth is the Brightkite community is a smaller, more interesting group of people than the Twitter community. On Brightkite people post pictures where they are what they are doing and they always post what they are eating. Noms!!! When you post a picture you add a comment and then your friends will add their comments under your picture. The best thing is the comments don’t get lost in the stream. I first started with Brightkite because as I mentioned I enjoy pictures. I enjoy seeing places around the world that I would never get to visit. Brightkite to the dismay of my wife has become an addiction for me. everything I do or eat gets posted. The first thing I check when I have internet access is the Brightkite sight. If I don’t I feel like I am missing something. The friends I have made on Brightkite truly feel like friends.

FriendFeed may change they were just purchased by Facebook. FriendFeed is a real time site which collects your posts from other sites such as BK, Flickr, Twitter, Blip FM and many more and then posts them all on the FriendFeed site.  This way, you can go to one location for all your posts.

Do you like Music? Have you ever wanted to be a DJ? If you answered “Yes” to either question, then Blip.fm is for you. On Blip you become your own DJ. You Blip songs that you like and people will then give you props on the songs you choose. You can just use it to listen to songs or use it to create playlists. It is a very enjoyable site.

These are some of my favorite sites but there are many more. So stay “in” and be social….

Follow me here at John’s Ramble and at the following as @JonF119:
Brightkite, Blipfm, Twitter, Flickr, Current, Digg, FriendFeed, picocool, Zapatag, Yublog and Facebook.

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