MySpace, Xanga, Friendster, hi5, Facebook, Xuqa. How many social/friends networking sites are you part of? With so many websites going around, and millions of members on each site, which one do you go to? Which one do you use to keep in touch with your friends? The answer is simple: you keep in touch with all of your friends through all of these sites, or only a few friends when you stick to a few sites. Unless 2 networks start allowing their members to communicate with each other, we’re going to have more and more networks popping up, boasting millions of members and making it even harder for people to keep in touch easily. I have friends who are scattered over different sites, and it’s a huge mission to keep in touch with everyone through these networks. It’s possible to keep in touch; it’s just not easy.

One needs to check their Xanga comments, their MySpace mails, their Friendster and hi5 notifications every day to keep in touch. People keep sending me messages “Hey, have we met?” every single day, about 10 times a day at least on MySpace alone, and I responded so many times saying “no, I don’t think so”, that I don’t think I will have time soon to respond to real emails and comments anymore. That’s a huge waste of time in my view. A friend of mine recently told me that MySpace is for underage people who can’t get into college, and that Facebook is for college people to find and have friends for their Facebook profiles only. While the profiles of almost everyone on MySpace do tend to say “WARNING” in a weird way, I think the issue that bugs me on MySpace is the abuse of videos and dark backgrounds with blue font colors and similar traits. People actually think it’s cool, and it looks like the late 90’s to me again; long pages, ugly backgrounds, hard to read text and everything scattered everywhere. The only way such a thing can look cool is if you drink and type, and looking at the pictures of most of the people, it does seem as if they get drunk in groups.

All of these places have the ability to message other members, and almost all of them allow you to search for someone through the educational institute they attend. All of them offer blog capabilities, though people on Facebook don’t have that luxury. Facebook is indeed mainly about socializing, which Sumin introduced to me [she also got me into Xanga], and adding people to your profile and leaving comments, known as “post on a wall” on that platform. MySpace members, on the other hand, have forgotten for some reason that they have the power to blog on that site, and instead have chosen to post long entries through comments about nothing other than to hook up for a single meeting with guys or girls through other profiles; very interesting. Bye Bye MySpace.

So for now, I’m keeping just a few profiles. There should be a way to connect with all friends through all different networks, the same way that GAIM connects different IM protocols. I’ll be focusing on Facebook and Xuqa, which Emily introduced to me yesterday. Bye bye hi5, and bye bye Friendster. I’ll probably get rid of more networks, but some of them seem to be interesting at the moment. If anyone is on Facebook or Xuqa, please let me know. I would love to add you on my friends list. If you’re on any other network, let me know about that too please, as I might join that or come back to it if it’s interesting [even if it's MySpace].