Typically the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions social networking is MySpace or Facebook, the two prominent social-networking based websites currently online. But have you heard of RSS as a social networking tool? What about YouTube or Twitter?
The entire goal of social networking is to provide communication methods between people, whether those people are family, friends, or simply acquaintances. While MySpace and Facebook definitely fall into the social-networking category, I don’t like to think of them as such. What you accomplish on these two sites, and others like them, is setting up a who’s who page about yourself with outlines of your interests, tastes, and an occasional blurb or journal entry about your life. You may or may not receive an occasional one-to-one comment from a friend. There’s really not much “networking” to it except in already existing social relationships.
On the other hand, services like YouTube and Twitter allow a person to not only establish communication with existing social relationships, but discover and become involved with new content and people. Following someone on Twitter becomes something that isn’t only reserved for your friends but anybody you come along on the web who writes something that interests you, thus opening up the door to more content or ideas from them.
This idea is also clear in RSS. While the original intent was simply to keep you updated on a particular web site’s content without having to actually browse to it, the potential of RSS has become much more. It allows you to subscribe to things which you otherwise would have never visited again. It shows who you are interested in as well as it shows the content producer that they have a following and gives them the opportunity to push out more of their own [b]unique[/b] content.
YouTube allows this content to be put into video form. It allows people to keep up to date with producers they like. It allows viewers to provide comments to the producers which ultimately keeps the cycle going. Viewers get ideas of their own and then become producers.
The very thing that got me into blogging was actually listening to the 2005 Northern Voice live stream podcast. The producers of content gave me ideas for blogging and helped me become a content producer myself. While I am by no means anyone “major” in the blogging community, I’m still doing it and always exploring new ways to get my content out there, both from things I’ve seen other producers do and ideas I get from the community.
This, in my opinion, is the truest form of social networking: It not only allows you to stay connected with people you know but also explore new people and content you otherwise wouldn’t have. You then have the opportunity to become a part of a whole new community.
Give your own content and people will follow. Follow people’s content and they’ll give you more content.
