Social Media Sites by Category: General Social Networking
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I had two choices while writing this article: hunt down every social networking site on the Internet and provide links but give little information about each, or provide more information about a decent selection of popular sites. I originally opted for the second choice, but then I thought of a third: review the more popular sites, and provide a link and a more abbreviated description for each of the rest. The result is the list below, which is only the first part of a larger collection of categorized sites.
Please see future posts for the rest of the sites, which will be linked from this page. They include the following categories: books and reading, blogging communities, social bookmarking, business, photo/video sharing and miscellaneous.
Also, see our page on Social Networking for Beginning Bloggers.
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Bebo
Bebo is a nicely designed site that offers a social network where friends share information and explore different forms of entertainment. Their are a lot of cool applications that expand what you can do when you're in the Bebo environment. These include the BeFunky Cartoonizer that allows you to turn photos into cartoons; iLike, which lets you add music and videos to your profile; the ability to make song dedications to friends and participate in a music challenge; and much more. At the moment, this site is more popular in the U.K. than the U.S., but it can be used by anyone.
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Capazoo
Capazoo is unusual in that it combines social networking with the ability to earn "zoops," which can be converted into cash at the rate of $0.01 per zoop. You earn zoops by getting "tips" from other users for your videos, music, photos, profiles and more; when you invite friends to join you at Capazoo; and for other member activities.
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Facebook music video overview
Facebook advertises itself as "a social utility that connects you with the people around you." What that means in practical terms is that it allows you to upload photos, publish notes, get news from friends, post videos in a profile, tag friends and join a network to see people who live, study, or work around you. Facebook is much like MySpace, but in my opinion, it's easier to navigate and better looking.
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MySpace
MySpace touts that it's a great online venue to meet your friends' friends. And if your friends' friends are in bands or are celebrities, you'd have an even greater chance of finding them there. But plenty of other people use MySpace too. It's a happening place to network, even though it's not a very elegant environment. As of this writing, MySpace had just added ringtones, news and an Impact section, which focuses on giving back by helping the environment, getting involved in politics or donating either money or time to nonprofit organizations.
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Twitter video overview
Twitter is a service that allows people to stay connected through the exchange of quick bursts of online information. Some use Twitter as a cute time-waster on their sites or blogs, but it can actually be used to transmit useful information, too, such as letting everyone know when you're busy. You also can use it to network by exploring your "block" to see who has been using Twitter at the same time as you. And there's an application that allows you to use Twitter within your Facebook acount, as well as many other third-party apps created by Twitter fans.
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Yuwie
Yuwie features most of the same networking features as the other sites on this page, but there's one big difference: they pay their users to generate traffic. Granted, you have to generate a lot of traffic to get paid, but that's possible if you sign up people underneath you and have some patience. But Yuwie earnings aren't entirely based on the efforts of other people. They pay you for your own page views as well.
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Additional General Networking Sites
The following are more social networking sites that fall within the general category. If I left off one of your favorites, please leave me a comment below and I'll add it.
- 43 Things Tag-based site centered around goals and life dreams
- BlackPlanet The place to connect for African Americans
- Faceparty Networking for British teens (must be over 16) and young adults
- Friendster International social networking for people 18 and over
- hi5 International social networking for young people
- Jaiku This Google-owned site allows people to share their "activity streams" with friends, and is enabled for use on mobile phones
- MEETin General networking backed by live regional events where you can meet your online friends in person
- Meetup General networking that allows you to meet people in your city who share the same interests
- My Opera General networking that allows blogging, photo sharing, etc. online and by mobile phone
- myYearbook An online yearbook that grows with you as you get older
- orkut This general social networking brought to you by the folks at Google is most popular in India and Brazil
- Passado This London-based site claims to have Europe's largest social networking community
- Searchles Offers searching, networking and social bookmarking in one place
- Tagged Provides social networking for teenagers, especially high school students
- Tribe.net Social networking that connects people in local communities
- Yahoo! Mash Yahoo's social networking site is in beta at the time of this writing and requires an invitation
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You might also find these pages helpful:
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Comments
Thanks, Bob. :-)
I use social networking and have my own site, this info keeps me on top of what is available.
Wew! I am behind times. I just don't know enough. I need to learn as much as possible. So thanks for explaining all the different sites.
Great HUB
regards Zsuzsy
Zsuzsy Bee: It's okay if you aren't that familiar with the sites. It would be too hard to use them all anyway. My recommendation would be to choose one and get to know it. Once you've done that, you can expand out to others if you want to. Many of the features are similar from site to site, so most of what you learn on one site would carry over to the others.
I hope you get the dup content issue sorted because this is a very useful hub and doesnt deserve that low score! Giving a thumbs up!
Thanks so much for your support and the thumbs-up, Lissie! I'm sure this low-score thing will get straightened out eventually.
Thank you WordPlay. Great info.
Thanks, Peter!
Excellent hub! SY
Thanks, Sybille!
Nice Hub. The list of Web 2.0 sites is endless. It's almost impossible to keep up with them. But as you say, best to focus on a select few which bring you the best results.
Thanks, motherduck. You're right; the list is endless. The ones I included above are only a drop in the bucket.
You've put together a great hub wordplay, gGood all round resource with excellent info, thanks for sharing, cheers!
Wordplay: this is a great resource!! Thanks!!
I have never used 43 things. Is it still good for SEO purposes. I remember seeing there stuff in Google's organic results earlier on, but haven't seen them around in a while.
Thanks for the kind words, highwaystar.
Thanks to you, too, vrecc. Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer for your question about 43 Things. Due to time constraints, I restrict my postings to Propeller, Digg, Reddit and a few others that have high pagerank. So many blog posts, so little time!
You did quite a job on putting all that information together. It is always good to know what the latest sites are since there are so many.
Hi, askweb20. Thanks for your kind words!
Nice stuff. Most of them I hadn't heard of
Sometimes big isn't always better. If you are looking to build actual relationships with people rather than just promote stuff then the smaller network sites work well.
I run a social network for women internet marketers at http://www.womeninternetmarketers.net and what you find is that we are developing relationships with each other and helping each other when we are stuck.
www.Ning.com is a great place to start your own network and attract your particular niche to you. Its also a great place to find smaller targeted networks where you can promote and build relationships
It's a really informative list though... thanks
Diane Corriette Women Internet Marketers
I really liked your summations
I think you have done a good job summing up some of the communities that social sites are creating. For people who are just learning about social networkig - it is really confusing! that is why I liked your hub alot, you simplified the info and gave us your slant as well.
good job - do more!
working
Bob Ewing says:
5 months ago
Great info here.