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.