[Web4lib] Launch of NS2: Niche Social network Sites Blog | Facebook Group

[John Fereira]

McKiernan, Gerard [LIB] wrote:

>  
> 
> BTW-2: I am greatly interested in learning of Any and All Niche Social
> Network Sites for NS2, as well as suggestions of NS2
> 
I haven't totally bought into the use of social networking sites as it 
seems in many cases they don't often provide any added value other than 
yet another forum for communication and the content is often not all 
that useful.

However, as a member of the program committee for an annual conference 
for an open source organization (JA-SIG) and the person responsible for 
the web presence of the conference for the past 6 conferences we used a 
site called Crowdvine for our last conference (we're using Facebook this 
time).  In this case, the social network is created with participants 
that will be networking face-to-face at the conference and/or provides a 
forum for those that actually attend the conference to network virtually 
after the conference.

Although I have been using online forums since 1985 I only recently 
started using Facebook and Twitter because they were actively used for a 
recent unconference I attended (Barcamp Africa).  Although FB and 
Twitter seem to be incredible time syncs I have managed to make good use 
of them to create new and maintain existing online relationships with 
people that I have networked with in "real life".

I don't know if you consider conference related social networking sites 
"niche" sites, but for me, they're the only type that's produced any 
real benefits.