I'm joining a network a day. - Day 21 - BrightKite.com - http://brightkite.com/people/bervin

BrightKite.com is an interesting network.  They certainly make it easy to upload images and update your location. Unlike some other networks that are afraid of the outside world, BrightKite.com will post links to your other networks right in your profile and has quite a few tools to make cross-posting easy.

I haven't worked with BrightKite.com very much, but so far I would give it four out of five stars.

I'm joining a network a day. - Day 20 - GetSatisfaction.com - http://getsatisfaction.com/people/bervin

Get Satisfaction is an online service that provides help desk services to businesses and organizations.  Generally help services are provided by the company in an open and transparent atmosphere.  Users can subscribe to threads that cover the issue or feature of interest.  They will be automatically notified of any status changes.

GetSatisfaction.com is free for users, but not for companies that use their services.  They offer a number of service levels for different sizes of organizations.

I'm joining a network a day. - Day 19 - Inenti.ca - http://identi.ca/proepic

Identi.ca is a free social network based on the Open Source software package, StatusNet. It's a nice, clean network that is not covered up with advertising, games or personal widgets.

Identi.ca has the usual RSS feeds that allow people to subscribe to your feed.  It also uses FOAF (Friend Of A Friend), which is a machine readable file that is used to describe you, your activities, and your relationships to other people, objects and places.  In theory, FOAF could be used to standardize your profile across multiple networks.

The FOAF project started in 2000, so it's not really new.  Google indexes all of the FOAF data on the web  for its Social Graph API, as well as Yahoo's SearchMonkey.

Sorry I got off on a bit of a tangent. The main point of Identi.ca is that it is possible for you to build your own version of it using StatusNet software.  I'll cover StatusNet in detail in a future post.

I'm joining a network a day. - Day 18 - LinkedIn.com - http://linkedin.pro-epic.com

LinedIn is like Facebook for business networking.  If you want to do much more than reminisce with your old business associates you'll need to upgrade to a premium account. A premium account will allow you to search for people and contact them using the LinkedIn network.  Premium accounts run from $24.95 to $99.95.

If you are in a business where who you know is more important than what you know, then LinkedIn can pay for itself many times over.

I'm joining a network a day. - Day 17 - Multiply.com - http://proepic.multiply.com/

Multiply.com is a place where social networking meets e-commerce.  It will allow you to create your own online store and promote it by networking with other people trying to do the same thing.  You'll need to sign up for the Pro version of the website in order to access any of Multiply's attention getting features.

I'm joining a network a day. - Day 16 - Foursquare.com - http://foursquare.com/user/-2303120

Where was Foursquare a few years ago when I was just about living on the road? I don't have as much use for it today.  It holds more value to me as a reference of places to go and things to do than as a social network.

If you are so trendy as to own an iPhone or Android, there are a slew of applications that make it easy for your phone to broadcast your whereabouts over the Internet. That doesn't seem to bother the kids today.  They broadcast their location for the whole world to see while their parents worry about the government using GPS to spy on them.  Talk about a generation gap!