Antisocial networking
Forget the hi-so events pages of this magazine, being a network socialite is far more 21st century darling. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Hi-5, YouTube, MySpace, I’m all over them like a social networking butterfly. If there’s one phenomenon that’s taken the internet by storm Facebook is it, though I know a few out there resolutely refusing to sign up and, gasp, others who aren’t familiar with it. If you want to waste hours keeping tabs on your pals’ private lives, and have your old school mates track you down 30 years later, not to mention irresistible applications that reveal your character to the world, along with party pics of that swingers gig you shouldn’t have been at, then sign up right away. It really is an amazing site once you start amassing friends, and a great way to keep in touch. Citylife Chiang Mai proudly maintains a Facebook group. Yes, I have to admit I put a great deal of effort into my ‘Facebook persona’. Which is how I got twittering – forty word statements (known as tweets) revealing my take on the world and broadcast to anyone who cares to listen, that’s another addictive, yet incredibly simple social networker. Hi-5 is similar to Facebook but immensely popular with Thais, while LinkedIn is an essential page of your virtual filofax if you really want to keep a permanent professional profile for business networking. MySpace is a little bit yesteryear – the original site for creating your own personal webpage on who you are, what you like, and where you’re at in your thinking. And then there’s YouTube, which will never be the same since Susan Boyle shot to stardom. These also network you socially since you can create accounts to upload your favourite video clips, share them with others and comment. And you can embed any video you like into your Facebook, Hi-5 or MySpace pages by simply cutting and pasting the code shown right of the ‘tube’. Then there are the social bookmarking sites like Digg, Delicious and Stumbleupon which collect your favourite sites in an online account making them recommendable to your friends and strangers of similar interest. We hear so much about these sites but signing up seems daunting until you actually ‘get into it’. They’re all very intuitive and user-friendly to quickly get your head around…you never know you might end up meeting your social networking soul mate (without ever having to meet in person), now that’s antisocial!
[Ed. City-Now.com is also a new site which Citylife has launched where you can open register, get a chance to win prizes, and upload all your events photos for free.]
Andrew Bond is the Manager of www.virtualtravelguides.com