PR Studies

Anti-social networks

Remember when Saturday was a day dedicated to crowd activities: shopping, football matches, big night out?

Well, I'm exhausted from the week (and not that gregarious at the best of times) and Gail has returned from the desert with a cold.

So the best I can do is catch up on virtual social networks:

• Facebook remains a good place for photo sharing; I agree with Bill Sledzik that it's primarily a social network, not a place for work (and not somewhere most students would want to meet their lecturers) 
• LinkedIn has gained some good new applications and has renewed purpose in a recession (it's the place for professional networking) - but I find few compelling reasons to return beyond accepting connection requests
• PROpenMic is the best place for a discussion of current public relations issues and has become a good aggregator of blog content; it's now approaching it's first anniversary - and 4,000 members 

There are many more networks too: blogs, online magazines, various email accounts, twitter, virtual learning environments, wikis, mobile phone and so on.  Unique among them, I still view my news reader as a time saver, not a time waster. I think it's time to turn off.

Comments

Anti-social networks

Remember when Saturday was a day dedicated to crowd activities: shopping, football matches, big night out?

Well, I'm exhausted from the week (and not that gregarious at the best of times) and Gail has returned from the desert with a cold.

So the best I can do is catch up on virtual social networks:

• Facebook remains a good place for photo sharing; I agree with Bill Sledzik that it's primarily a social network, not a place for work (and not somewhere most students would want to meet their lecturers) 
• LinkedIn has gained some good new applications and has renewed purpose in a recession (it's the place for professional networking) - but I find few compelling reasons to return beyond accepting connection requests
• PROpenMic is the best place for a discussion of current public relations issues and has become a good aggregator of blog content; it's now approaching it's first anniversary - and 4,000 members 

There are many more networks too: blogs, online magazines, various email accounts, twitter, virtual learning environments, wikis, mobile phone and so on.  Unique among them, I still view my news reader as a time saver, not a time waster. I think it's time to turn off.