05 February 2007

Social Networking

MySpace is awful, Friendster mediocre, XuQa just plain strange, and Facebook revolutionary.

Social networking sites are a phenomenon which have taken the Internet by storm. Facebook is an awesome powerhouse and by far my personal favorite. Facebook gives users a clean design, space for personal branding, and new ways to communicate with friends and co-workers. Its Achilles' Heel is the collection of privacy concerns over the service's public release. Originally a college-only peer network, Facebook was an outlet for personal discussion, random commenting, and humor-laced experiential sharing. In result, much colorful language and many unprofessional photos exist. There are privacy settings to address user concern in this area; however the now open network is forever changed.

Is Orkut--a social networking service "endorsed" by Google--a chance to start over? Probably not. I've just discovered it, but it seems the world outside of the United States has known about it for a few years, particularly Brazil. The service is named after Google engineer Orkut Büyükkökten and is a product of the 20% time Google employees spend pursuing personal interests.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you Orkut?

Seth C. Burgess said...

I'm exploring Orkut as a means of expanding my social networking reach. As of right now however, I am friendless.

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