Maureen, I have to admit that I have a FaceBook account but do not understand it.  I have been bitten, had drinks thrown at me, flower pots, squirrels, gotten pinched and super pinched, poked, prodded and I still don't get it.  The people doing all this stuff to me must think I don't like them, but the truth is that I just don't get it......

I don't respond except to Friend requests Maggie... It's not that I don't like all the people but I don't want to spend time on Facebook, etc. The time is better spent to me on AcitveRain or one of my blogs. Or working, sleeping, eating....The facebook applications will change and be a little bit more commercial this week?

I received an email about this. I have facebook but for me ...I have already to many of these contact programs and have been getting so many spam emails from it. Just my opinion. Same goes for linkdin. I have enough friends to keep up with:)

Maureen, I think Web2.0 is still evolving and who knows what it will be in future years. Interesting comment you made about Google not being allowed to crawl social networks and yet we know activerain gets crawled regularly. Did you read Jonathans post this week? I guess we just need to hold our  breath nothing changes here. I started on Facebook a few months ago and I enjoy many of their apps and connected with a few long time friends through it. Never started myspace, my kids were aghast I started facebook, they would flip if I got a myspace page.

Maureen, I too have a Facebook and Myspace account but have yet to tape into it in terms of my business.  Maybe it's time!!!

Hi Maureen - I have a facebook page and am on LinkedIn, but must admit that I have no clue really what they're all about. It hard to keep up with all this stuff, and it does seem the better way to spend that kind of time is on blogs, unless there's far more to each of those kinds of sites than I'm realizing.

Ann

This is great information!  I have a MySpace which I got because my daughter wanted me to see some of her friends pictures.  I have heard about Facebook but haven't joined..I try to keep up with Digg and Technorati and Trulia Voices but honestly am mostly focused on my own blog and AR.  Thanks for writing about this!

I received an email from Widgetbox regarding Open Social. I didn't understand what it was about. I've not joined Facebook or MySpace. I am on LinkedIn and have noticed it's being picked up by Google. Can you explain more about OpenSocial? What is it and what does it mean?

I have a MySpace account, and was active in it for quite a while... but didn't see an ROI.  I set up Twitter... and I completely don't get that. 

Thanks ALL for the comments.  

Neal are you finding real people in your life involved in the social networking or just real estate people?  If a prospective client throws a Zombie at you, or ask you to review movies, how will you handle it?  I try not to think of all the stuff that comes from FaceBook and Digg (I don't get much from LinkedIn) as spam, but I don't want to get involved in groups or applications that are going to produce more emails.  Pandemic makes Facebook more commercial, I am not sure if you will get spam from the entities but you will see ads based on what you participate in.  If NetFlix (just an example) is the advertiser and you've somehow particlpated with a Facebook friend in discussing movies, they've got your number.  

Not sure if this means that if you buy something, add something I get something telling me about it, because I am your friend 

 http://valleywag.com/tech/facebook/facebook-to-place-more-ads-in-users-news-feeds-318503.php

Not email spam... I am not sure I am even aware of news feeds on Facebook.

Missy wrote: "Interesting comment you made about Google not being allowed to crawl social networks and yet we know activerain gets crawled regularly. "

My comment about ActiveRain is: ActiveRain is an island that does allow Google to see what we are saying and doing.... 

For many members ActiveRain is very much an island, as described in the NYT article but one that is embraced by Google and embraces Google.

I certainly read Jonathan's post and am very aware that Google sees ActiveRain and delivers traffic UNLIKE much social network.  I think you must be referring to the NY Times statement about Google not seeing MOST  social networking, it's a quote..... "At that point, Facebook and other social networking sites appeared to be the only companies in a position to instill fear in Google. The sites tend to be the place where many members head first when they go online, and many end up staying right there. The sites also hamper Google's ability to meet its grand charter of organizing the world's information and making it available to all; the Google search crawler is not allowed to land on most social networking islands and gather data about what island residents are saying and doing."

Diane: I don't think of Technorati as anything that needs to be kept up with... How do you keep up with Technorati? Favoriting blogs is the only thing that comes to mind to me.  I have not done that in a long time.  I  am not particularly fond of Trulia Voices.  Digg, is like Facebook to me, if someone ads me as a friend or a fan or whatever I "reciprocate", but I don't see the point.  

Elaine: I got the same email from WidgetBox, read the press release from Google about it, probably know as much as you do if you bothered to read it.  Web 2.0 is evolving. Maybe we'll understand the Facebooks, LinkedIn's, MySpaces more if we pay attention to what happens.  And it looks like some will be SOON.  If I read this correctly FaceBook is going more commercial.  Google is going toward open source, getting friendly with developers who I think the changes at Facebook spurn if I am reading the Pandemic stuff correctly.

Lane: Strangely... Twitter is starting to sink in for me.   I think Twitter could be good, I use TwittterFeed from my blogs.  I don't remember how I set it up but I do get some traffic from Twittter and Facebook (Twitter feeds Facebook)  on my blogs.  I had not until reading the Veturebeat.com, the NY Times article, the info from Widgetbox, a press release on Google got that Facebook, a bunch of stuff on Techmeme... understood that Facebook is not crawled, that Google is shut out.  I was able to read stuff on Twitter the other night that told me more about OpenSocial from a geekier than I can understand point of view.   One of the applications was hacked into in no time flat.  Plaxo?   

I'm not seeing much on the social end..most are from the RE industry...but I do get all kinds of garbage that comes from these groups..it gets a bit out of hand at least for me. I get a lot of please join this group and that group. I simply do not want to ...Ive got enough to do:)

Neal the question though is will you join a group if a non real estate agent, a contact from real life, a possible future client ask you to join the group? 

I'm trying to use Web 2.0 to find Daytonians. But, here's the great thing. My buddies from AR and the RE.net ease me into facebook, twitter, etc so that by the time I find those Daytonians I'm not a complete idiot out in the real Web 2.0 world. Kind of like in kindergarten when you went on a field trip and you all had to hold hands. A long line of linked kindergarteners stretching down the block. :-)

Maureen,

I am on LinkedIn, have a page on MySpace, but do not remember last time going there, never heard about Twitter...

How do you follow all that? I still do not quite understand AR, my wife thinks I am nuts spending hours in the middle of the night... maybe she is right.

Anyway, thanks for educating

I have not been to MySpace for months either. I doubt I ever set up a profile on MySpace or Facebook, My LinkedIn profile is at 40%???

Twitter feeds Facebook from AR, and my two blogs via Twitterfeed, I heard about Twitter on AR.  At our big company meeting last summer the quest speaker Marc Davison said "Twitter."  It is evolving. I spend very llittle time on it.

I hope some of them fail...

Teri I missed your comment.  Good analogy.

Hey anyone who knows who Robert Scoble is.

Robert Scoble replied to My Twitter.

I wrote:: awake. ActiveRain slow so I thought I'd check Twitter. It looks odd. No Scoble, no Calacanis, no Techmeme. Is Twitter broke? Twitter Strike?

Here's what you and your friends are doing.
Robert Scoble @MaureenMcCabe sorry for not being on Twitter lately. I've just been in meeting after meeting and went to a cool awards dinner last night. 12 minutes ago from web in reply to MaureenMcCabe

Are J. Calacanis and Techmeme (and some other tech thing which I can't remember the name of that I have set up on Twitter) with him? It looked like the geeks had disappeared from the planet.

Creepy, creepy,,,  very good analogy for me,  Description of Facebooks changes, how we have traded our privacy for free doo hickeys

Tapping at the window  -  Spying is best done surreptitiously.  The Peeping Tom that you don't see is of infinitely less concern to you than the one who taps on your window and waves.  With its new Beacon ad program, Facebook taps on the window.  -  Nate Weiner reports on his first experience coming face ... Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket +Discussion: Valleywag, Download Squad and All Facebook