MySpace

With Social Networking Sites on the rise it is interesting to see how sites differentiate themselves. There are some great niche specific networks pertaining to: the social good, business applications, medical applications and various personal pursuits. With all these options available, I think it is important to focus and to be involved in the networks that offer what you need.

I signed up for Ping.fm today. It allows you to set your status or create a blog and send it to multiple social networking sites such as MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and several others, all at once. I've found it useful since I just started using Plurk and continue to use Twitter. You can sign up today by using the code "tastyping".

MySpace, Facebook, Gmail, Twitter and the list goes on; trying to keep up and maintain all my junk accounts friends status got to be a little overwhelming. At any given time I'd have tabs to an array of communication tools and personal blogs just to stay in touch with friends and family, so I decided it was time to consolidate.

To Ning or Not to Ning - that's the question around here. Who has the time to join (or start, for that matter) another social network? I have enough trouble finding time to twitter.

The subject did come up in a marketing meeting the other day and while some of us thought Ning was dead there were others who thought it just might be gearing up to take over as one of the best advertising opportunities out there.

I may just be one of them.

The New York Times blog, BITS broke the story last week that Google is now testing video ads in search results in order to offer even more diverse opportunities and media expansion for AdWords advertisers.

Can I just say that as the last person in a fully developed country that doesn't have cable OR high definition television, the internet is like a treasure trove for me? This morning I went on YouTube and caught the highlights of last nights South Carolina debates, checked out some blogs to get people's reactions and joined my candidate's support group on Facebook.

While I work in an interactive development agency, I still find my self a little lost sometimes with all of the new technology and online developments. Recently Chris Brogan wrote a great blog on how to help others understand social media, and I found that this was probably one of the most helpful blogs I've read in a long time.

Until recently, search engine optimization consisted of concentrating on how a website ranks in all the big search engines. Now the game has changed and traditional SEO is a thing of the past, according to a recent article in SitePro News by Jim Hedger. It claims the old ways of SEO are being pushed aside as the popularity of searching on social media sites is becoming the new means of search.

While Al Gore may have invented the Internet, it was Howard "arghhhh!" Dean who first realized its potential for drumming up support in a Presidential campaign. He took the other candidates by surprise when he started the first campaign blog in 2003. Candidates today are now betting that MySpace is the next big thing. In addition to their own websites, most candidates now have MySpace pages and are ready and waiting to add you as a friend.