Facebook alternatives - best social networking sites

I had a Facebook account a few years ago for about three or four weeks. The site wasn't as popular as it is today, however, the childish and intrusive applications along with the school playground mentality was very much in evidence. I closed my account when Microsoft first teamed up with Facebook to run the adveritising - well at least I thought I did. Apparently it can be very easily reactivated by accident.

My reasons for studiously avoiding Facebook are personal ones, but life goes on and I find that I can still keep in contact with friends and family without the site. Telephones are amazing devices and contrary to the views of one or two Facebookers, email isn't actually some retro old thing that granddad uses to get in touch. If you're thinking of closing you're Facebook account here's an article on how to Delete, Cancel and Terminate Facebook Account and Profile.

Okay, all done? Well you're probably ready to hook up with friends on family on some alternate social networking sites and I can tell you, there are quite a few of them now. They're not as big as Facebook but don't let that put you off. So what's the best alternative to Facebook?

Twitter - You should have already heard of Twitter because it's nearly as big as Facebook. The expression "Follow us on Twitter" is almost as ubiquitous as "Follow us on Facebook". When BBC TV programmes have captions like "Follow us on ......" you know it's mainstream. One thing I like about Twitter is that it is unbelievably simple. You post a message, it has to be short, perhaps too short for a lot of people. The 140 character limit might seem a bit daunting at first but you very quickly learn to say what you need to in a few words. Despite this limitation Twitter is becoming more and more sophisticated and it's open platform makes it attractive to developers who want to build new applications to interact with the service. As an alternative to Facebook you might find Twitter a bit limiting in some respects, but you'll probably find more of your friends and family on there than some of the other social networks. Give it a go!

Google Buzz - This is one of my personal favourites and although Google were somewhat late in many respects to the social networking game, they've definitely got something good here. There's also a rumour of an upcoming social network called "Google Me". This hasn't materialised yet so we can only speculate on how good or popular it will become. Google Buzz on the other hand is here now and has some excellent features. Google were one of the early adopters (perhaps even the first) to make user posts "location aware". In other words when you posted a message it also captured your location. You weren't only standing on platform 2 waiting on a train, you're friends knew what railway station you were at. This got Google into some trouble because as you can imagine the privacy paranoid groups had a field day. Well you can turn it off if you don't want to give away you're location - duh! Google Buzz also took some flak when it went live due to them pre-populating you're friends list with GMail contacts. OK, that was a bit naughty but they made good in the end. I have personally found Buzz enormously useful, especially when I'm out and about with my Android phone. Posting photos and videos is a breeze and I've since made a whole new group of friends. Google Buzz sit's next to your GMail inbox so it's never far from your finger tips - definitely one to try out!

Foursquare - Is the new(ish) kid on the block that's getting some attention in the media at the moment. It's predominantly a social network that requires you to be out and about with a smartphone telling you're friends where you are and where you've been. The idea is that you check-in when you go to a venue such as a pub, restaurant, supermarket, pizza place etc. You can leave tips (no, not the monetary kind) and you receive badges and awards depending on where and how often you check-in. If you check-in frequently enough at a venue you can become "The Mayor" which is quite a prestigious position and may even entitle you to a discount or something free. J. D. Wetherspoon pubs are one example. The Mayor will receive 20% off their food bill (excluding alcoholic beverages). I am a regular visitor of the Bear and Ragged Staff in Bedworth and have enjoyed several discounted meals recently. Whilst Foursquare allows you to connect friends to you're account and you can see their activity and vice versa, it's perhaps a bit of a stretch of the imagination to call it a social network. Who knows how the service will develop as it becomes more popular though. It's definitely one to watch and there's certainly some material benefits to using it.

Orkut - Is the brainchild of a Google employee and is in fact named after it's creator. Whilst not very popular in Europe or the U.S., it is very popular in India and Brazil. Orkut is one of the older social networking sites and one that I tried out a very long time ago. Unfortunately at the time none of my friends or family used it so it was of limited use. This is perhaps one of the characteristics of a successful social network and why Facebook is so popular. It's the snowball effect. People are more likely to use a site if someone else they know is also a member. That's my opinion anyway.

MySpace - This social network is still alive and kicking and at one point was the Daddy. It's fall from the top spot wasn't too graceful when Facebook muscled in and became hugely popular. I can still remember going to the shops near where I lived and overhearing a bunch of teenagers talking about someone's MySpace page. I considered myself a bit of an Internet veteran at the time and here was something I'd missed. Well MySpace is still around and evolving. It used to be heavily used by bands as a tool to promote themselves. I guess they've all moved onto Facebook now as well. Actually that may be part of the reason for Facebook's rise and MySpace's decline. The latter was a haunt for teenagers and musos and there was nowhere for the more academic and mature students and everyday office workers. If only I'd thought of filling that niche - and I'm willing to bet a few people are thinking the same. Anyway, have you noticed how MySpace is actually starting to look a bit like Facebook?

Bebo - I had an account on Bebo some time back as well. I always found Bebo to be a bit messy but one of the cool features of the site was the ability to create you're own theme. I think you could do that with MySpace too, but I had so much trouble creating an account I gave up and joined Bebo instead. Part of the reason for joining Bebo was that some of my family (mainly nephews and nieces) were already on there. See, there it is again. People will migrate to where their friends and family are. Bebo seemed to me to be more aimed at younger people and therefore didn't have the appeal. I could be wrong on that one and it's certainly beginning to look radically different these days.

Others - I've highlighted some of the main social networking sites I have encountered but there are many, many more out there. In fact with Google's Open Social platform practically any website can claim to be part of a social network. Consider sites such as YouTube, Digg, StumbleUpon etc. They all have a social aspect to them as well. The landscape of the Internet has been altered significantly with the rise of social networks, of that there is no doubt and Facebook has become the single largest player in much the same way that Google is the biggest search engine in the world. I know some people that strive to avoid Google's services and they get by just fine. In fact, I'm sure they probably have quite a unqiue perspective on using the Internet. Similarly I get by just fine socially without Facebook. There are times when I consider dipping my toe in just to trace some old friend that I haven't spoken to in years, but then I decide not to.

Where will you posting your status updates today?

Facebook alternatives - best social networking sites

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