The new buzzword is social networking, but we all know that it’s been around for a very long time. One method of social networking that has been around for awhile is foruming. In a forum people get together as a community and chat together in threaded posts. It’s probably one of the most original and basic methods of social networking so people do not think of it as such.

Remember that forums can be an easy way to embarrass yourself so don’t go a little crazy on the silly statements and flaming. There is nothing worse than a troll who comes in and disagrees with everyone. You will instantly be flamed and make enemies quickly.

Don’t bring your business opportunities to a forum. Some allow you to put a signature in your post, but do not simply post to have your signature seen. That is a great way to annoy anyone in a community.

Follow the rules of the forum. Don’t swear and talk down to others.

Place your topics in the right forum areas. Otherwise you risk your post getting removed and getting flamed in the process.

Social networking sites are a dime a dozen. They are popping up all over the Internet and getting people together. People are starting to thing that creating a social site is the next best thing for marketing. Unfortunately, unless you have a direct niche for your social network then you might not get any followers at all.

What drives people to a social networking site? Friends and content. People are obviously going to join sites where their buddies are located, but what about other people? Why would someone join your site if they’re not your personal friend?

What you need to do is find a niche. Back in the 1970s and 1980s computer people grouped together and formed user groups. Much like social networks they formed dialup bulletin boards where people could participate in discussions, live chats, and downloads. As dialup is very slow people still needed to meet monthly.

The fad continued throughout the 90s with little changing except the software. The groups eventually gave up on BBS software and looked toward the Web. Those who kept up saved their organizations by changing their attitude toward payments and software. Those who didn’t lost their members to the open country of the Web.

Now in the early 2000s we are back to creating sites where groups of people can get together from all over and chat about their niche. Social networking has been around all along to select groups, but it wasn’t until the content management systems PostNuke and PHPNuke started bringing people together again. These systems have evolved into blogging and social networks allowing people to join because they like the social and niche aspect of the sites.

If you owned a social network, what would it be? How would you get your members to join? Would they be friends or coworkers? Would it be local? Would it be a niche? Perhaps to make money you need to find that niche that other people love yet there are no other niche markets. I’m sure there are still some out there–you just have to find one.

I’ve seen a lot of great products go downhill because the author cannot keep up with development. I wish some of these authors would embrace the world of opensource and let others work on their code. Seriously, why else would they start a project?

I can see someone wanting to get paid for a project. I think my first guess is that these people are waiting for someone or a company to buyout the project or waiting for people to start paying for it. I can completely understand this as I believe people should get paid for their hard work. But why don’t these developers say anything about it?

There are some products out there that would be great for social networking and blogging that really need to be updated and no one is working on them. Do we ask the developers to open the code? I’m sure we all can give donations, but is that enough? Many of these guys are programmers with jobs other than creating free plugins. So, how do we keep them developing and upgrading?

Twitter is nice, but it isn’t a blog. If you like sending out little microblogs with blibbets of information then go ahead, but please don’t just use it as a spam dump for your advertisements.

Not everyone is going to look at your profile on Twitter so if you sit there all day just tweeting it isn’t going to get you anything different. I know, I’ve tried it. The only way I received more hits with Twitter is by actually making blog posts and having people visit the blog by reading what I’ve written.

I think that too many people end up spamming their affiliate links. It might get you immediate hits, but it might also get you banned and disrespected within the community.

The moral of the story? Let people know that you have something important to say. They might not agree with you, but they will respect you a lot more.

I was looking for a way to share my iPhoto pictures to facebook after deleting them from my iPhone (dumb move on my part) and realized that I would need to buy the new version of iLife. Now, I’m not into spending a ton of money on software and being forced to do so for a product that is essentially free really irks me.

If I ever decide to buy the new version of iLife I will do this simple task and give you the goods. Until then, I will need to find another way to do it.

Apple, you make a lot of money already. Don’t act like Microsoft!

If you’re looking for people who have similar interests and you really want to drill down the contact without having to step through copious amounts of social networking sites and search engines then check out

This system is not just a people search engine for social networking junkies. This is a place where people can pinpoint the interests of other people and weed out all the unnecessary wording you normally see in a search engine or social networking site.

An example would be finding other writers in your area. Are you interested in finding other writers? Then you would open a new search for writers and decide what type of writer, published or not, etc. in a decision tree format so you can get an exact match of interests.

As with most social networking sites, be careful of what information you put out there. Do not give people your home address or phone number. Do not chat with people and offer your life story. If someone seems rather creepy then you can block this person from viewing you.

The site is rather new so you will not see a lot of advertisements and probably not a lot of spam. I can all types of usage from this site. There will be hobbyists, dating, friends, meetups, information, and the list is endless.

If you would like to find other social networkers then feel free to visit my social networking page on my rootquestion page.

Are you ready to start an account? Follow my instructions on How to Find People with Similar Interests Using RootQuestion.

I loved using Social Links, but I have way too many social networking products that I use that are not in the social link library. For now I will just use text links on the side so if you need to find out if I use a service just look for Socialize With Me at the top of the right side.

Enjoy!

We all already know facebook, right? Surprisingly, not everyone knows what facebook is or that it even exists. In fact, I thought it was just a silly get together tool for the longest time until I realized the power of what it can do.

facebook is a social networking tool for finding people that you know. It used to be just kids and college students in school trying to find each other but now it has turned into a rather huge network of people from work and business. The company just recently allowed people to put cosmetic names and name links on their pages which allows others to create business pages.

The facebook in my links is my personal page. I don’t use it for anything else but to find friends that I’ve known in my past. If I don’t know you then I probably will not befriend you–please do not take it personally. If you take the time to chat with me then I might add you.

My friends can get a taste of what I do for a living by reading the posts I place here because they are automatically uploaded to facebook through the plugin Socialite. Since most people can subscribe to my RSS feed or see my MySpace page there really isn’t a need to be added to my facebook.

What is really handy with facebook if you do use it as a networking tool are the many different applications available to you. There are games like farmtown that can occupy your time for countless of wasted hours and there are other tools such as birthday calendars that can be really handy in helping you let your clients know you’re thinking of them if they are on facebook by sending a birthday ecard. You can also let your friends know what projects you’re working on and place a professional profile of accomplishments and organizations.

If you’re afraid to let your clients get to know your friends then you can easily create groups and separate friends, family, and business associates. Then your favorite customer or your mom will never know how drunk you got at your graduation party and how your buddies remember those deep secrets of that very night.

It’s really up to you how you use facebook. It can be a personal tool for fun, a business tool, or a casual combination of both. Just be careful because anything out there on the Internet is there for a very long time.

If you’re networking through WordPress you will want to install this nifty tool called Future Post Dates. It is a calendar that gives you a quick glance of the month you are working on so you can plan your future posts if needed.

Although it can be really handy, one thing I do not like is that it is too simplistic. For some that is all they need, but for me, I would like to be able to click on the future date and see what posts I have planned. Right now I’m creating this post on the 9th of August and it is scheduled for release on the 11th of August. It adds a light green color to the days where a future post is waiting for release. This is extremely handy, but I would also like to see it highlight the current day in a different color. I would also love to see it produce a list either under the calendar or in a pop-up window of the titles of the future post. This feature would be so handy for planning.

If you do create future posts then check it out and see if it is for you.

I just found this great game where you can do a bit of social networking and build on up your design and scripting skills. The game is called ROBLOX and it’s a place where you can build games and models using building blocks. I know it sounds like it’s just for kids, but the scripting language Lua make it nice for older people to play and build.

The majority of the community are kids. They build games where the other kids can go join and play. There is also a social community similar to Twitter and MySpace where you can make comments on the profiles and games of other players as well as special groups and the models the players make. They can create shirts and pants to wear and sell. Who knows…maybe they will have blogs next.

Signing up and playing are free. I created an account for my avatar snbutterfly.

Remember, it’s for all family members so keep it clean.