Ok, it started a couple of years ago with MySpace – which wasn’t too bad. In fact, it was kind of cool that shortly after I signed up, I was getting emails from high school friends I hadn’t talked to in a while. But recently I am overwhelmed with the number of new social networking sites available .
LinkedIn popped up as a work related networking site where I can recommend my co-workers as well as get recommendations. I liked that, since it allowed me to keep up with old colleagues – where they work now, what skill sets they have developed since I worked with them, etc. I didn’t mind having to keep up with two networking sites, since they served different purposes – one was social, the other career minded.
Then came facebook. I ignored it for months and months, but finally succumbed to the peer-pressure. Now I get emails regarding Oregon Trail and someone wrote on your ‘funwall’. I didn’t even realize I had a funwall. Then Plaxo’s Pulse joined the mix. In my Pulse site, I was able to tell it about my facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace sites. Wow – kind of like a one stop shop for all my social networking sites, only now my inbox is flooded with sites I can’t go to from work – and you guys are just networking away everyday adding pictures to each of your pages, updating your emails, contact information, which schools you went to – each of which trigger an email to my inbox that doesn’t tell me what you updated, just that you updated. I have to actually log into the respective site to see your updates – and again, I can’t do that from work because I get the big “YOU CAN’T GO THERE FROM WORK AND WE HAVE REPORTED YOU TO YOUR BOSS, OUR BOSS, THE CEO, THE NETWORK NAZIS AND THE MOB” error message!
If I get fired for checking out MySpace – I gonna hit you guys up to stay your YourSpace since I won’t be able to afford mine any more… watch for that update on facebook! I gotta go, I just got an email from LinkedIN…