Social Networking sites

Below is our list of Social Networking sites broken down into categories that best describe their focus;

General

• Bebo
  Gets its name from ‘blog early, blog often…’, general user-base.

• MySpace
  Most popular social networking site globally. Most customisable amongst top sites.

• Facebook
  Successful social networking site, with applications that can be used to gather new members.

• Friends Reunited
  UK based social network. Main feature is connecting school friends.

• Windows Live Spaces
  A multipurpose social networking and blogging tool. Intregrates well with MSN messenger.

Business

• Ecademy
  Build your stature in social networking terms, through various levels. Setup groups and schedule meetings.

• Linkedin
  See other peoples contacts to expand your range of networks and outsource skills.

• Xing
  Manage business contacts globally. Use as a human resource tool and search for members.

• Brownbook
  A free business directory. Networking through reviews of your business. Spread word of mouth through recommendation.

• Plaxo
  Connect al your social networking sites together and sync contacts and calendars.

Photosharing

• Flickr
  Social networking around an image gallery framework, Flickr is one of the first web 2.0 apllications.

• smugmug
  Online gallery and network that incorporates e-commerce. Requires a subscription fee and is most suitable for professional photographers.

Messaging/microblogging

• Twitter
  Send and receive short updates between friends (microblogging). Notable for its ability to send from mobile phone or web to a website.

• friendfeed
  Collects feeds of web pages, photos, videos and music that your friends and family are sharing, and displays them in one place.

Bookmarking

• Digg
  One of the earliest social bookmarking sites, it allows you to see what other members are looking at on the web. Useful to get a picture of what sites are successful in your field.

• Technorati
  Social bookmarking with a bias toward monitoring blog updates.

• Del.icio.us
  Share bookmarks with friends and discover new sites. Differs in the organisation and hierarchy of discovered links.

Video

• Youtube
  Combines video sharing and posting with networking tools. New content can be time consuming to produce, but has excellent potential as viral marketing.

Music and Radio

• Jango
  A a free social music service that lets you create your own custom radio stations and share them with friends and others who share musical tastes.

• Last.fm
  Last.fm builds a detailed profile of each user’s musical taste by recording details of all the songs the user listens to, either on the streamed radio stations or on the user’s computer.