I browsed through the social networking sites this morning. MySpace seems very similar to Friendster and seems to be the most useful, since it contains blogs, photos, personal info, and links to other friends. Facebook seemed okay, but pretty much the same concept. Ning was... unique- random bunches of people grouped together by inconsistently structured interests. They were all colorful and pretty easy to read and navigate.
I can see the general appeal of social networking- people who feel comfortable online may have more sucess finding friends, people to chat with, dating partners, etc. through a social network than in person. It was fun to see the different users and what they're into- some of them had really pretty layouts, others just had basic information.
I don't think online social networking is something that I'd do, though. I have *way* too much to do offline (work, calligraphy class, exercise, research, etc.) to spend my limited free time browsing through thousands of users that I don't know at all and will probably never have a substantial connection to. I tend to do my social networking with people I actually interact with- it's more useful for my life's activities and goals. And I'd rather meet new people through something more active, like travelling or attending a concert or watching a hockey game. For professional communication, I socialize with colleagues through listserves and forums that are specific to library work- I'm not really going to find serious opinions on the future of letterpress printing, best practices for building a digital archive, or new workshops on implementing DACS on MySpace! >_<
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