Thing 6 - Online networks

OK, so I've had a Facebook account for a long time. I like it, use it often, but only personally, and have no intention of changing that. It's interesting watching the 'war' between social networks: Before Facebook I used Friends Reunited, but have rather abandoned that now. I consider myself too old (!) to have joined Bebo or MySpace. There was a lot of talk about Google+ coming too late when it was launched, and admittedly, whilst I tried it, no-one else I knew leapt on the bandwagon so I saw little point in replicating information. I read a suggestion this morning that Facebook won't exist in five years - that may well be so, things evolve - but it's top of the tree at the moment.

As an individual then, for me Facebook is not relevant to professional networking. I have, however, just registered myself with LinkedIn. This was partly out of curiosity and partly out of worry: Whilst I'm still reluctant to put too much information 'out there' (at the end of the day anyone can register and even without registering view info about me), I hate to think that I might be sending a negative message to prospective employers or similar by not having a profile at all. That aspect is actually something I'm uncomfortable with: I love a lot of what the Internet has given us, and like to think that my use of certain sites and tools is a personal choice which can have positive outcomes, but that shouldn't mean penalising those that don't use them.

As regards Reid Hoffman's "MySpace is the bar. Facebook is the backyard BBQ. LinkedIn is the office.", all I can say is that it reflects my different approaches to the latter two sites at this current time, having been too put off by peeking my head through the door to even enter the bar :-)

I wasn't aware of LISNPN, and might find it useful although it struck me a little like it was focused around graduate trainees. I will certainly bookmark Librarians as Teachers, although I don't do much in the way of teaching. As a CILIP member, I have dipped in and out of Cilip Communities and will continue to do so...