Abandon Nest

MySpace is the 2nd most visited site on the internet today in terms of pageviews. It’s home to a lot of people and is impossible to ignore in today’s “new media” society.

If you’re not familiar with MySpace, here’s the basic gist. MySpace.com is a social networking website that allows you to make a profile, customize it, and have “friends.” Last year, it was sold to Rupert Murdoch for a large sum of money so “old media” definitely thinks it has value. However, would it benefit
you to become part of the craze?

If you’re not already a MySpace member, I have to encourage you to stay far far away from the site. First, I believe the website itself has no value as a true networking tool. Sure, you can have 5000 friends, but how many do you actually know and how many will actually provide you with any value? My guess is the number is close to 0.

In addition, because MySpace users are allowed to customize their pages to their heart’s content, you end up with some of the most garish, disgusting, user-unfriendly, and atrocious pages on the internet. Picture annoying music, terrible colors, and unreadable text and you pretty much have 90% of MySpace pages. Also, it takes about 10 clicks to actually do anything on the website. No wonder it’s second in pageviews to Yahoo!

As you can tell, MySpace has almost zero use as a networking or marketing tool. Of course, there are a few exceptions. If you’re a female model or willing to portray yourself in compromising situations (without being pornographic), then
you’ll be popular and could end up with benefits. Barring that, I’d say you’re out of luck.

If you want a good user experience, great design, and excellent organization, MySpace is not for you. It’s a mess, quite frankly. I could not recommend MySpace to anyone, for any reason, ever. MySpace will not be a marketing or networking coup for you, so if that’s what you’re after, try LinkedIn or Facebook instead.

Facebook is one of the biggest players in the social marketing scene right now, and with good reason. If you’re a college student you’ll find it almost essential.

If you’re not familiar with Facebook, here’s the basic gist. Facebook is a directory of college (and high school now) students that was founded in February 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg. According to TechCrunch, 80% of American college students have a facebook account. Of that group, 80% check their facebook profile daily. Facebook allows you to input your name, school, classes, and interests, along with other activities like the storing of pictures.

Is Facebook a true networking tool? Some would say no, but I loudly exclaim yes. Through the judicious use of groups and friends, you can form clusters of people who believe the same way you do and would be able to help you advance yourself in some way. Of course, this is not really in the spirit of Facebook, but it is not disallowed by their Terms of Service. Also, Facebook can be used as a great marketing tool for a product or service that you offer to students. Some companies, like Pepsi and Apple, already have sponsored groups on Facebook that allows them to market to the college student demographic.

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I’m not much of a social networker, but when I saw LinkedIn I knew it was going to be a useful tool.

If you’re not familiar with LinkedIn, here’s the basic gist. It’s a networking site designed for professionals in business. It can be used to connect with people in order to find jobs, services, and other opportunities.  You can choose to become “linked” to colleagues, bosses, and friends. Ideally, this will expand your virtual network a few steps and allow you to become aware of opportunities through other people. You’ll also be able to gain valuable contacts.

After creating your account, you’re greeted with summary screens that prompt you to enter information about yourself. You’ll probably want to include items such as your current job, your professional background, and any clubs, groups, or organizations that you belong to. In addition, you can highlight certain interests of you that are searchable by others.

Adding information is quite simple. The visual look of the site is quite intuitive. You know exactly where to click in order to alter your information. You’ll also find it easy to change things at a later date. Edit links abound.

The hardest part is figuring out what you should say. As a professional oriented site, this is not the place for “i m da 1337357 h@x0r” or anything like that. You want to look and sound cultured and educated as people will view your information when considering you for a position or as a service provider.

After you’ve put together your profile, you’ll probably want to browse the site a little bit just to get a feel for the place. I recommend clicking on Jobs & Hiring and checking out the positions that are available around you. It seems like a lot of people put positions up on LinkedIn, and you’d have a good chance of finding a new job quite easily. Also, if you’re hiring LinkedIn makes it extremely easy to post a job. Just look for the big orange button.

As with most networking sites, you can invite your friends, co-workers, and colleagues to join you. This is easy and LinkedIn provides some great default emails that you can send. I sent out a few and am waiting to hear back about whether they joined or not. I’m looking to expand my network because you can really never have too many connections.

In the end, I have to give LinkedIn two big thumbs up. I like the interface, I like the service, and I think it serves its target audience well. If you’re looking to make contacts, LinkedIn could be a definite sign up. For now, you can check out my profile here.