Sometime during those two weeks, I was also bitten and became a zombie, farted intentionally in the school bus, joined revelers at a Mardi Gras party, signed up for the Who Cares About Paris Hilton Cause, stuck tutti-frutti flavoured gum on a friend’s hair, sent someone named Pat in my place when another friend wanted to make out with me, and was nominated as most likely to dress my dog in Prada and Gucci.

Such are the activities that you can do at Facebook that doing all these things may turn you into either a cyber social butterfly, bully, or alien in no time. I was invited by my friend a couple of weeks back to join Facebook, a social networking site that enables people with common affiliations to network with one another. I’ve been hooked on it since. Originally launched as a destination for college students to connect with one another, the site has expanded to include companies, professional networks, and geographic regions. The one thing I like about Facebook is the many fun applications you can add to your profile, enhancing interaction with people in your network.

Nowadays, almost everyone connects through social networking sites. I’ve heard people tell an acquaintance "yeah, I think I’ve seen you in (insert site here)!". Surprisingly, that sometimes sort of breaks the ice and gets the conversation going especially if you share the same interests as your New Found Friend. What I find amazing is how closely connected one can be in these sites. If you browse other people’s friends list, you’ll see that you know someone who knows someone who knows another someone who knows you. And then there are also some people who you wouldn’t think would know each other. It’s like a karmic link minus the karma. The downside of these sites is, it can get really creepy – especially when they start enumerating the photos you’ve posted, the people who are on your featured friends list, and how often you check your page.

Finding love and making friends on the web

My best friend, Liana, met her husband, Jo, thanks to a common friend of theirs who set them up in Friendster. They started exchanging messages, which then graduated into lengthy emails, phone conversations, then the actual visit of Jo who is based in the US. They’re now happily married with a beautiful daughter named Aly (who is always close to tears when she sees me or hears me laugh!). Jo and Liana’s relationship is one of the love stories I know that was a result of hooking up via a social networking site.

Social networks such as Friendster or Facebook have started sprouting like wild mushroom over the past couple of years, and it seems there’s one that cater to everyone: from dogs to moms to bookworms to shoppers to travel buffs to the romantically-challenged single folk. Social networks, I think, more than anything give people a place to belong and to hang out. Or to maybe show just how popular one can be.

Nobody said its bad to be a Mr. or Ms. Congeniality in cyberspace. The World Wide Web has loads to offer those with like-minded interests or those who have plans of ruling the world one friend at a time.

One of the most popular social networking sites in the Philippines is Friendster (www.friendster.com). I’ve been logging in for the past three years. Though I don’t find anything earth shattering about it, it still does the trick of staying in touch with friends, making new ones, and seeing what they’re up to based on the photos and blog entries they post. You can also send smiles, post bulletin boards for your entire network, or be a fan of a certain topic. It also has a profile view counter that lets you know how many times your page has been viewed and depending on your account settings, you can check on the people who did!

More popular to those in the US, MySpace (www.myspace.com) has taken the land of opportunity by storm with over 80 million users. I’m also signed up in Myspace but only because my friends in the US log in to it more than Friendster. What I notice with MySpace is that you can be really creative with your page. My friends have pages that glitter, shine, and shout "I have more colours than the rainbow". They also embed music tracks and animated graphics. MySpace also proves to be a great avenue where artists market their music. I know of one young brilliant local artist named Nate Day who uses his MySpace account (www.myspace.com/natedaymusic) to share his creative vision and jaw dropping electronica music, which he composes.

Tag used to be one my favourite games growing up. I especially hated it though and found it annoying when the "tagee" would insist that the "tagger" didn’t tag them when in fact they were. Tagged (www.tagged.com) holds the same concept minus the getting annoyed at each other part. A social network mainly for teens, Tagged has a unique concept of building ‘tag teams’ and earning points to be the ‘Ultimate Tagged Team.’ Product endorsements not included.

Another popular site is LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com), which aims to connect colleagues and business-contacts and also help you find new ones. With around 5 million users, LinkedIn remains a popular choice for its targeted audience.

The most diverse social networking site when it comes to activity I’ve ever come across is Imeem (www.imeem.com). It’s a social media service where users interact with each other by watching, posting, and sharing content of all media types, including blogs, photos, audio, and video. Visitors to the site may access music, video, photographs and blog posts; however, commenting, rating, tagging and the posting of new content needs a user to register an account. A key feature promoted by Imeem is the media playlist where content posted from multiple sources may be collected into a playlist which itself may be published for comments, tags and rating.

Imeem links users through topic groups, which were originally called "meems", relating to common interests. Media content can exist in custom profile pages and topic groups (called "meems", from the word "meme"), as well as in browse-able content channels and charts.

For those with discerning social networking tastes, log on to aSmallWorld (www.asmallworld.com). Dubbed "Snobster" by critics, it is an exclusive invitation-only network with roughly 230,000 members. On its roster of beeeeyooooooteeeeefull members include supermodels Naomi Campbell and Marcus Schenkenberg, Ivanka Trump, Massimiliano Neri, Singers and Musicians such as James Blunt, and Josh Groban; Film directors Quentin Tarantino, Sport champion Tiger Woods, socialites and businessmen Emanuele Filiberto Di Savoia, James Ferragamo and David Reuben.

aSmallWorld shares many features with other social network services, such as profiles, an event calendar, and private messaging. Unlike most other such services, aSmallWorld allows users to list multiple cities as their location of residence. It also offers 65 detailed "city guides" written by its members detailing and rating high-quality clubs, bars and restaurants. Members can also buy, sell, and auction items using aSmallWorld’s private forums or even rent property or find a flatmate.

There is more to social networking sites than just gathering friends with the same purpose of generally hooking up. wThere are also sites that cater to people who have the same interests and then there are those that are made for the people who hover in the same industry. Read about them in next week’s piece. In the meantime, go forth and register!

Email the author at techiepen@gmail.com