Feb 29 2008 1:29PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (1) |
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Social networks are the hot trend right now in Web circles. If you're not using them, you've probably at least heard of sites like MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. In publishing, it's what a lot of people are talking about as we try to figure out how to keep our jobs in the digital age. (Writing my bosses to tell them how much you love my blog would help, by the way.)

Sometimes in publishing I think we tend to run a little bit ahead of our readers. This can often be a good thing, but it also leaves us in the position sometimes of guessing what our readers want.

Just this morning, I was in a digital media workshop where one of the speakers talked about using Second Life (an online virtual 3D-world) in publishing by using it to hold demos, etc. Sorry, I'm just not buying it. Maybe I'm just too old (my saying that probably makes a lot of you feel old!), but I don't see a bunch of people going online to watch avatars install windows.

That said, I think there can be some value in industry-focused networks, in theory. Personally, I'm not doing a lot with these. I've been to these sites, but the only place I've got an active account is LinkedIn. (If you're not familar with it, here's a link to my profile to give you an idea of how it works.)

So what about you, loyal reader? Anybody out there using social networks to improve your business?