Social Networking Awards

Mashable.com just posted their 2006 social networking awards. The post serves as a useful directory of social networks by category--general ones like MySpace and Facebook, plus social networks for video, photos, music, etc. I've only heard of about a fifth of the ones they mention; clearly I'm behind the times.

Friends and Identity on Social Networking Sites

I just finished reading a fascinating piece in First Monday called Friends, Friendsters, and Top 8: Writing Community Into Being on Social Network Sites, which analyzes the relationship between choosing online friends and constructing identity on social networking sites. If you’re interested in social networking, it’s worth a read. FYI, I wrote a detailed blog post about the article on my personal blog at http://crumj.blogspot.com/2006/12/friends-and-identity-on-social.html — definitely an optional read :-)

Meebo and Librarians

There's a nice post on the Meebo blog (meeblog » Blog Archive » librarian love) about librarians and Meebo. Apparently librarians are beginning to put the Meebo Me widget on library web pages to make it easy for patrons to open chat sessions. The comments on the post are also fascinating. A common theme is that Meebo allows people to circumvent filtering software, common in libraries and workplaces, that blocks access to chat programs.

If you want to see a Meebo widget, take a look at my staff page; I have one embedded in the top righthand corner.