Do you socialize much? By socialize I mean go to dinners or parties or similar events where a large group of people meet to socialize. Social networking can often be a very similar experience.

I can remember where, in past years, a doctor would never reveal his/her occupation. If they did, they would spend the evening doing on the spot diagnosis of sore backs and aching legs and so on. Social networking can be a similar experience. If you were to reveal that you were a doctor, you know that someone is going to pop one of those questions at you.

It’s the different characters you find at parties that I find interesting and I find that with social networking, those same characters exist. You know the types. There are the quiet ones who sit back and watch. They don’t offer much unless you ask them, yet if you engage them in conversation they can generally be quite entertaining. They are the mixed bag. You just never know what to expect.

On the other end of the spectrum are the life of the party type people. You can’t keep them quiet. They come as a mixed bag as well. You have those that have been there, done that, expert on everything, qualified at nothing. They are just as likely to push a business card into your hand while passing a drink. The other talkers include the gossipers. If you want to know what’s going on in the world, go and listen to them.

In the middle of all this are your every day individuals who try and do the right thing by circulating, chatting and listening to everyone before moving on to the next little group. I have oversimplified things a little, but you get the idea. Which group do you fit into? Social networking on line is no different.

On line, you have the braggart who can answer all your questions, always has an opinion, and is always trying to get you to visit their website. The gossiper can tell you what is going on everywhere. Who is not talking to who, which products are out of flavor (and which are ones are in). And you have the quiet ones who sit in the corner and watch everything. Pick their brains and you often find pearls of wisdom.

Recognizing some of these traits in the social networking world can be invaluable. Who do you ask for advice? Not the braggart – 90% of the time they are wrong. No, you seek out the quiet ones and get in line to ask them. They don’t need to promote themselves, their actions speak for themselves.

Likewise, if you want to quickly get a message out, go to the loud gossipers and let them in on the ‘secret’. As soon as it gets that confidential tone, you know the whole network will have heard about in with ten minutes. I must say, social networking reminds me of being at a party – there are just no drinks to consume – often the best part of any party.

LinkedIn is a social networking site dedicated to professionals and industry leaders. It is also a little slow in updating its services in comparison to many other social networking sites. There is nothing wrong with that of course. It is often said there are leaders and there are followers: LinkedIn is neither – LinkedIn is, well LinkedIn. It meanders along its own road.

LinkedIn has had the groups feature for some time now, however it is only just about to open it up with easier access and more functionality. Starting from this Friday, groups will have a forum function (which can be disabled by the group administrators), the ability to send out regular digests of forum conversations, a group homepage and a searchable list of group members.

They don’t sound like big changes; however, there is little purpose to groups if you cannot meet in your own forum to discuss various issues. The daily or weekly digest is handy function particularly for those not able to log in on a regular basis.

Likewise, home pages are an important part of groups, particularly when you want to promote your group and encourage new membership. Being able to search the list of members has two benefits, first, you can find ‘friends’ and secondly, you check to see if friends are members, if they aren’t, you can invite them.

LinkedIn is a little slow in the modernization processes; however, they seem to ensure that each new function works well and are going to be a benefit to all participants.

One of the biggest problems with social networking, in fact with any online social activity, is anonymity. In reality, you have no idea who it is you are talking to.

This is not a new phenomenon. Since we have been able to communicate online, people have misrepresented themselves. Sometimes it is their gender, or their age, at other times it is their profession, or at least their position. Dating sites and on line chats are classic examples of misrepresentation through anonymity.

Recently, someone set themselves up as a representative of Exxon. Some may feel so what? However, if you can set yourself up to represent others, where does it stop? Online social networking in particular is capable of starting viral mis-information flows that can effectively destroy a business. All it takes is for someone to set themselves up a company representative and start revealing ‘information’ that is not only false, but very damaging as well.

The only come back for most businesses is to hope they can track the individual down and perhaps instigate legal proceedings. They could have the account of the individual closed on whichever site they started, but there is nothing to stop them moving on to the next site. In the mean time – the damage has been done.

While online privacy is a big issue and we all have the right to that privacy, online protection is also important. The time will come where every account holder will need to verify themselves prior to using their social networking or social media accounts. That is a lot of places with a lot of personal information. The more places you have personal information stored, the greater the risk of it escaping into the community.

Social sites may eventually be forced into taking action. It will only take one business to succeed in a lawsuit due to an attack by a fake representative. Perhaps the time has come to have an online ID card that can be used on every site. One set of personal data stored on one site will reduce the odds of personal information breaches.

Do you really know who you are talking too when your social networking? Do they really represent who they say they represent? If you’re a professional using social networking sites, then perhaps the time has come to verify who your contacts are!

WordPress users may be interested to learn that a new adaption of their favorite blog software, called buddypress, will be released later this year. Buddypress, formerly ChickSpeak, is set to turn any WordPress blog into a social networking site.

Using WordPress-MU (multi user), buddypress will enable various users to log in and create their own pages. The original ChickSpeak pages from WordPress.com describes the ‘home page’ as:

A member home page includes a users own personal profile front and center, their own personal “journal” as a feature of their home page, as well as private messaging functionality.

The original developers handed the code over to the WordPress community to complete and it seems that it is not far away.

In a little self promotion post, the code developers state:

It’s clear that the future is social. Connections are key. WordPress MU is a platform which has shown itself to be able to operate at Internet-scale and with BuddyPress we can make it friendlier. Someday, perhaps, the world will have a truly Free and Open Source alternative to the walled gardens and open-only-in-API platforms that currently dominate our social landscape.

The question is whether we have time for more social networking sites. Of course, for small niches this could be ideal. They will be able to set up their own ‘by invitation only’ private networks totally free of any of the influences of the large scale sites.

It will be interesting to see whether or not it actually gets of the ground and if it does, will it fly – or fly away?

I was invited to join another social networking site recently by a contact on yet another social networking site. I had a look at the site to see if it had anything to offer. I also looked at my contacts profile and list of contacts.

Recognize that name, and that name, oh yeah – I recognize them as well. It struck me that half the contacts in that profile where on the other social networking site. So I thought I would do a little research comparing the contacts on each of the social sites I frequent.

Around 15% of my contacts were common to all sites (we are talking six social networking/social media/social bookmarking sites). A further 27% were common on at least three sites and a whopping 52% were common on at least two sites. From that little survey I have only 6% of contacts that are unique – the rest are shared.

One of the difficulties you come across is repeated conversations. You see some comments and its, hang on, I have just finished discussing that – I want to move on. I want fresh news, fresh ideas, and fresh conversation. Not rehashes of the previous conversations.

There is of course a moral to this issue. Social networking is about networking. Sometimes you need to be brutal in who you allow in as contacts. I have seen in a handful of profiles statements to the effect that “if you are in my contacts on another social site, please do not be offended if I don’t accept your invitation here”. In other words, I want fresh faces here.

Some will be offended; however a new social networking site should be an introduction to a new group of individuals to network with. Have social networking contacts become blurred? Kinda reminds me of the old Venn diagrams from school – interlocking circles.