Online Networking

There are two main types of networking online: personal and professional. Sites such as 'Facebook' and 'Myspace', are used mainly for social networking and entertainment. These same sites however, can be used professionally, to promote new groups or share a band's music to establish fans and followers. The array of online networking sites online is huge. Sites like 'Flickr' and 'Slideshare' are used for sharing files along with  the messenger 'Skype', which has a very fast file transfer speed. Sites like 'Linked' and 'Redbubble' are aimed at businesses trying to establish links with other businesses. 


With the vast plane of online social networking sites, there comes controversy in certain areas. Seth Godin has spoken about what he considers to be 'fake networking.' This is the situation where an online user has thousands of friends who count as nothing more than a number. He speaks of how people try and build up a huge number of 'hits' or friends almost to be used as a trophy or a display of false popularity. Godin has spoken about how he has many friends who he could genuinely rely on and call upon for favours through networking relating to business. This is the kind of networking that can be beneficial, not the fake networking we can sometimes see on huge sites such 'Facebook'.


In a lecture on online networking, we were given a list of rules for good networking. This was relevant to us as the blogs we are producing over the period of our university courses are visible to the public. This means our Blogs are acting in essence as online portfolios, and how we network is a reflection on us within a professional context. The rules are: Be social, visit other logs, respond to comments, be generous, Subscribe by email, share, everything is permanent, know what you are posting about yourself, be a conduit, be original, create a news feed, credit sources, use key words, interview somebody, post frequently, beware widgets, left align, use paragraphs, don't copy paste from Microsoft word, stick with it and end with a question. These points will be taken in to consideration when I post work on my blog. It is important to convey professionalism and establish interest when blogging.