Social Networking the next big thing - I read in one of Belgium's leading recruitment & career weeklies this weekend. Well, if it is in the papers, the phenomenon is probably at the right side of the innovation curve by now (acknowledgements to Rogers) Similar sites have been around for quite some time so why the big fuzz? For HR departments, it seems to be their next Holy Grail - an infinite source and expanding online universe filled with thousands of potential new stars. And the fun thing about those networks is that they never stop expanding - once you are part of a network, you can just sit back, relax and watch it grow organically thanks to active fellow networkers. And they are darn viral too - you can upload different address books - send an invite and Bob's your uncle : with every mail you spread the networking virus in all senses of the word. Curiosity killed the cat doesn't apply when you receive a mail to connect, link, join, network - a new circle of friends or a network full of peers or whatever is only a mouse click away
Anyway, social networking has indeed been on my radar for the last couple of years but I am wondering on how many of those sites do you have to be presence-wise nowadays? I have subscribed at least a dozen of those sites - varying between actively used and logged-on-once-out-of-curiosity kind a thing. Not very effective if you ask me but they all serve different purposes of course. Linkedin for the professional stuff (though geographically speaking quite limited), Facebook or Myspace for fun and now we have Spock for those we trust! Let's not forget Skype, MSN or Yahoo! for the chatting and Flickr or Youtube for the vid-adepts. Shelfari for the book aficionados - if it weren't for the "Forgot password?" service, I'd have a couple of those accounts forever lost in cyberspace.
Is being online square our new destiny - like your mail being delivered to different (physical) mailboxes - or not an option? For me it's a no-no, can live with 2 or 3 but that's where it stops. All suggestions about how to integrate them can be posted on this site
