Other social networks to try besides Facebook

My blog feed passes by a captive audience of my Facebook friends every time I publish a new post.  To many of us, Facebook is the first social network we became involved in and it’s the one we stay most active in, too.  However, it doesn’t necessarily need to be this way; there are plenty of other social networks and utilities out there that provide great opportunities, as well.  This post is intended for friends that might be unfamiliar with some of the other networks out there, but if you’re a seasoned pro, please chime in and add your own thoughts too!

If you enjoy keeping up with your friends and discovering new websites, videos, and photos through Facebook, here’s a list of four other networks you might like to take a look at.  I’ve written up a short description of each and rated them, on a one to five scale, on ease of use, time commitment, and community friendliness from the perspective of a Facebook user.

Twitter

One of the most popular networks out there, Twitter is essentially a distilled Facebook Status that continually asks the question, “What are you doing?”  Twitter users answer this question in a variety of ways and in varying detail, ranging from giving simple descriptions of what was for dinner to transmitting the text of an entire novel.  This utility might not seem too groundbreaking at first, but, as most of the community can attest to, it gets addictive, fast.  Sign up for an account,  update every once in a while, and get some friends on the service, and you’ll start spending much less time on Facebook.

An added bonus: while Facebook likes keeping your status updates locked within the site, you can use all sorts of third-party applications, even IM tools and cell phones, to send and receive Twitter “tweets.”  It’s also super-easy to display Twitter updates on your Facebook page or even use them to replace Facebook Status altogether.  What’s not to like?  (Just be sure not to cross-post too much!)

Ease of use:
Time commitment: (smallest time commitment)
Friendliness:

StumbleUpon

When Anne and I discovered StumbleUpon about three years ago, we thought of it as a cool toy for discovering neat new websites.  It still is a great tool for discovering new internet content; install the StumbleUpon toolbar in your favorite browser, click “Stumble!” and the service takes you to a never-before-seen website on a topic it thinks you’ll enjoy.  As you continue to Stumble, you can give pages a thumbs up or thumbs down to help it refine future selections.

However, the reason StumbleUpon’s in this section is because it also has a surprisingly fully-featured social network hiding beyond its initial toolbar point of contact.  Although I admit that I haven’t gotten involved with this as much as I would like to, I know many Stumblers who swear by the networking portion of the tool, which allows you to share websites you’ve enjoyed with others and see the pages recommended by your friends.

Ease of use:
Time committment:
Friendliness:

Digg

Digg is probably the largest and most well-known social bookmarking website.  What does this mean?  If you’re ever in need of an interesting website, fascinating news article, or really off-beat flash game, Digg’s the place to go, as it provides the hottest the internet has to offer literally 24/7.  Life on Digg revolves around the “Front Page,” the index of the site which contains all the most popular stories of the day.  There’s more to the site than just that page, though– switch to the “Upcoming” section to see many more articles that might pique your interest.  Much like StumbleUpon, you can friend your buddies and people who enjoy similar content to see what they’re up to as they explore the internet themselves.  Be careful, though: the Digg crowd can be rough and rowdy at times.  If you plan on staying a while, you’d best be prepared to defend your thoughts if the need arises!

Ease of use:
Time commitment:
Friendliness:

Google Reader

A few months ago I would have been hesitant to call this widely-popular newsreader a social network, but it’s beginning to evolve as a great link-sharing site in addition to its primary role as a no-frills RSS reader.  Subscribe to your favorite blogs, newspapers, and so forth with Reader and new articles will be automatically loaded up for you as they’re published.  As you’re reading, you can “share” the material so your Google Contacts that also use Google Reader can see what you liked.  You can also share clips of material from elsewhere on the internet, too, simply by using a bookmarklet.  A great way to start using Google Reader might be to subscribe to this blog!

Ease of use:
Time commitment:
Friendliness:

Now, there’s a special second reason why I recommended these services, too: thanks to a new feature, you can import your activity in most of these features directly into your Facebook Mini-Feed.  Just click the “Import” button found at the top right hand corner of the feed, as seen below:

Now, all of your Facebook friends can see what sites, topics, and people you’ve found interesting in other places on the web, so you don’t have to worry about isolating friends that aren’t on these new and exciting services.

(Curious about what Hulu is, by the way?  Hear what Ryen and I have to say about it on the most recent episode of the William & Mary Powwow.)

Facebook is a great service and offers one-stop shopping for many, but there’s a lot more to the world of social networks.  Try one of these sites today and see what you think!  If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me or leave a comment here on the blog, and if you’re a seasoned networking expert, I’d love to hear your thoughts or recommendations too.

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Tagged as: digg, facebook, google reader, import, mini-feed, social networks, status, stumbleupon, twitter