Weekly Prompt #30 - My Social Network

I was reluctant to join Facebook when first invited by several family members, I held off for a long time, but, when I found out that my cousin, whom I've been out of touch with for over a decade was a member, I thought I'd join, just to keep in touch with her again. It's been about two years since I joined, and I am not a "friend collector", most of my Facebook friends are family members. I have found Facebook useful in getting the news and information out about our upcoming family reunion, since a group was formed for this purpose. I also joined Geneabloggers on Facebook as well. I look forward to the messages and invites from Thomas about upcoming carnivals and events. I use some of the apps on Facebook such as "I Remember" and "MyHeritage" but I don't get into the games and other stuff.

I joined Twitter a while ago at the request of my daughter-in-law and forgot all about it (so did she). When I started geneablogging, I decided to start using Twitter. I joined the genealogy group on Twitter and started following a few people. When I started to get Twitter emails from people who started following me, I would check out their profile, and, if they had the same interests, I would follow them back. I'm not interested in making money on Twitter, so I don't follow the marketing entrepreneurs, although they follow me and for the life of me, I can't figure out why. I tweet about the weather, interesting genealogy sites that I come across, my blog posts, current events and often participate in Follow Friday on Twitter, which is my personal reccomendations for people to follow, and Surname Saturday, where I tweet my surname interests so that anyone searching the names I post can contact me. I've even joined a couple of twibes. Most of the people I follow are in the Genealogy world, but I follow some people with different interests such as gardening, sewing and crafts. I often go to sites referred to by people that I am following, and have found some that I wouldn't have found without their tweets.

I am still waiting to see if GenealogyWise is going to be of any benefit. I have joined a few groups, but there doesn't seem to be much happening there as of yet. The forums are disorganized, no categories, just one post after the other. The blogs have no sense of direction either, they are all over the place. Some I wouldn't even consider blog posts, they would have been better off placed in the forums. I joined a few groups on GenealogyWise, but I'm not very hopeful that they'll help much in my research. Some groups were created as a way to get more exposure to blog posts, but I think there should be more to offer than just another place to read the same postings. Some of the groups don't seem to have much direction either, just post your research interests and then what? I'd rather have some kind of directory for researchers to get in touch with one another.

Another social networking site I use is Multiply, one that is familiar to anyone who belonged to an MSN Group. I have a homepage and have started a few family groups there. Some of the things I like about Multiply is the control of privacy and unlimited storage available.