Top 10 Social Network Tools

People tend to have much different personas and habits when it comes to these respective groups. A lot of people have started to revisit their business networks and realized that they should only post that photo (even that comment) in a more private setting.

Perhaps the study will rank these groups separately for us. the difficulty will be and always is - just ask Scott McNealy - is when you go public - you are no longer in control of anything in your company - cause the stockholders and the public including the media will come after you - just ask Michael Dell - so things will change - and depending on which sector of LI members have the controlling power will the change be considered good or bad. And there you have it - with LI 

MySpace has its own problems - which it should - you are dealing with kids -

Heard some great things about Twitter - and how is has increased people's business - so that might be a good site to look at.

My Big Five - could be something wonderful - on a personal/business level - but it is young and needs to have more members in order to gain the staying power needed - and it is by an invite only - and a good strategy for helping people.

NING - is much too restricted on the software features and functionality- and I frankly hate it - and the business model is great - their problem is going to be - how do they reivent themselves as the SN begins to change - and how do they really grab ahold of the members and keep them on their site - it is not about how many returning to the site on a daily basis -

So how does one person build their network community around a one SN site? That would be the question - and I think the answer lies in a place where you and your community members have the right be in a virtual world and you decide the rules - and regs - and if someone doesn't like the direction they can go to another world.


It depends on what your strengths as an individual are, who your target audience is/where they hang out online, and what product/service you sell. (its very, very industry specific) However the following top the list:

1) Facebook
2) Linked in
3) Wordpress (social media platform--even if not a social network in the traditional sense)
4) Twitter
5) Video platforms (YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler) (lots of niche areas, especially in education)
6) Old school forums and message boards (people tend to read comment threads here more so than on blogs)
7) Old school email list groups
8) If you're in a big city and like to eat out Yelp is phenomenal.
8) Ning
9) Lifestream aggregators like Friendfeed. Prophalatic is making a huge, huge slash right now.
10) Flickr
11) Alltop and Technorati and places to find blogs to connect with people in your niche or in your target audience.
12) If you're a designer or web architect, you might like Digg (or the Digg clone in your particular niche area)

That said, mobile and video are both going to be huge ways to leverage social networks and the communication they enable.