Social Networking and me

I hold accounts on both Facebook and linkedin for mainly professional reasons. Facebook and linkedin allow me to maintain my contacts with artists I've known and worked with over the years despite that so many are living in foreign countries. I relocated to upstate NY and while "not that far" is still a journey requiring preparation that kills any kind of spontaneity. Now instead of getting a hold of LN at HERE (spring/broome) and going over to the eastside to one of many special spots to catch up, I can poke her on Facebook and find out what's up. I really like that I do feel connected and I think many other folks I know do too. The otherside is all these people from your hometown that find you out. And that is sweet too -- I like to see everyone I remember doing well. Even many of my cousins are on Facebook and I have MANY cousins.

Linkedin I need to do more work with I've been passive so far and hadn't had much time to fiddle. It feels more serious. MySpace, I spy on youth culture on MySpace for research purposes and am not into the music scene in a serious way so for me it's a great place to advertise (when I wear my day job hat) and that's about it. I also advertise on Facebook and have enjoyed this experimental marketing.

Twitter I haven't touched -- too immediate for my liking (I hate the telephone myself). But, perhaps it's just the demo I saw that introduced me to it. The lady was pretty snotty and was talking about how to keep lame people out of Twitter. I'm pretty careful about who I'm friends with online but at least want to believe in its inclusivity factor. It is still an experimental medium and the point is that people should feel safe to try things out (appropriateness ? is still hard to judge, enforce, define here).