Social Networking Websites
This page features social networking websites. Please note that this is a work in progress. If you'd like to nominate a site for this page, email John Kremer. I know that I have missed some sites I truly would like to add to this list. Your site might be one of those. Thanks for your support. — John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books
Social Networking Websites
Bebo: http://www.bebo.com Headquartered in San Francisco. 30 million users, primarily teens and young adults. The top social networking website in the U.K., Ireland, and New Zealand. Now owned by AOL. 22 million visitors in January 2008.
BlackPlanet: http://www.blackplanet.com A social network of 16 million African Americans.
BlueString: http://www.bluestring.com Upload and share photos, videos, and music from your PC. Just drag and drop to share. With StringIt, you can share your creative collections (for example, from a wedding or other event) and then invite family and friends to add their own photos, videos, or music to add to the story. A service of AOL.
Book Marketing Network: http://bookmarket.ning.com The social network for book authors and publishers. A place to share tips, book trailers, questions and answers, photos, blogs, and more. Sponsored by John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books.
Classmates Online: http://www.classmates.com A social network for connecting with old high school and college classmates. The third largest social networking site.
Cyworld: http://www.cyworld.com Headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. 24 million users. Big in South Korea.
Deviant Art: http://www.deviantart.com A social networking and sales site for art, manga, and more. Motto: The largest art community in the world.
Doppelit Train: http://www.doppelit.com The Entrepreneur Connection, this site brings you motivational newsletters and teleseminars, networking, and insight into the right way to do business. When you register for Doppelit you put yourself in the top 10% of entrepreneurs worldwide, with a ticket on the Doppelit Train you join the top 3%.
eCademy: http://www.ecademy.com Business-related social site.
Emurse: http://www.emurse.com.
FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com Headquartered in Palo Alto. The second most significant social networking site on the U.S. web, with a greater emphasis on college students. 70 million users as of April 2008. 47 million unique visitors in May 2007; 73.5 unique visitors in September 2007; 101 million unique visitors in January 2008 (Comscore). It is currently the sixth-most visited website in the world. John Kremer's Facebook profile: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=621364552.
Fast Pitch! Networking: http://www.fastpitchnetworking.com A fast-growing business social network on the web that also includes a free press release syndication service, blog syndication, and more.
Frappr!: http://www.frappr.com A mapping site that allows you to highlight where your friends live. Create your own social map on the web.
Friendster: http://www.friendster.com Headquartered in San Francisco. 37 million users. Big in Southeast Asia. The original social network.
Gather: http://www.gather.com A business and professional networking site with many groups and special events (such as First Tracks, a contest for musicians). John Kremer's not very active page on this website: http://johnkremer.gather.com.
HI5: http://www.hi5.com Headquartered in San Francisco. 50 million users. Big in Mexico and Spain.
IGoUGo: http://www.igougo.com Bills itself as the world's leading online travel community.
JacketFlap: http://www.jacketflap.com A comprehensive resource site for the children's book industry, featuring thousands of published authors, illustrators, agents, librarians, teachers, editors, publicists, and publishers. Features a social network, blogs, a blog consolidator, and more. Also includes up-to-date information on children's book publishers and hundreds of children's book blogs. John Kremer's profile there: http://www.jacketflap.com/JohnKremer.
Jott: http://www.jott.com Allows you to call a phone number with your mobile phone and leave a message for yourself, send a text message and/or email to a friend, send an email to a group that you define, or even make a post to your blog.
LawLink: http://www.lawlink.com Professional and social network for attorneys.
Lending Club: http://www.lendingclub.com A new social network for lending and borrowing money. Already 15,000 users. $1 million has already changed hands with most loans under $500.
Library Thing: http://www.librarything.com Users share the books and book lists they love. More users than Shelfari and more flexible (according to one user). Now offering galley copies to users who will write a review for the website. Their Library Thing Local lists bookstores, libraries, and book festivals including author appearances, events, and signings at these venues. Authors and publishers are invited to add event listings.
Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com A business and professional networking site, designed to find jobs, partners, consultants, and other business networking contacts. 20 million users as of April 2008. Includes an Answers Q&A section where users ask and answer questions. John Kremer's Linked In profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/johnkremer.
Marketocracy: http://www.marketocracy.com A social network for investing fanatics (who can invest virtual money in testing their investment strategies).
Mashable.com: http://www.mashable.com This blog tracks all the social networking sites, providing updates on services, mashups, etc. A great resource if you are into social networking.
Match.com: http://www.match.com A paid matchmaking service for romantics.
Mom Junction: http://www.momjunction.com A social networking website for mothers. 50,000 members.
Multiply: http://www.multiply.com This social network allows you to add photos, videos, music, a calendar, and contacts. You can also write reviews, blog, list favorite links, create or join groups, and more. John Kremer's Multiply page: http://johnkremer.multiply.com.
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com The largest social networking site on the web. 200 million members as of September 2007. 109 million unique visitors in January 2008 (Comscore). John Kremer's MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/johnkremer.
Naymz: http://www.naymz.com.
Ning: http://www.ning.com Allows users to create their own social networking site for watching videos, creating photo slideshows, listening to music, publishing a blog, creating buddy lists, etc.
Nothing Binding: http://www.nothingbinding.com A social networking site for book authors.
Orkut: http://www.orkut.com Headquartered in Mountain View, California. 39 million users. Big in Brazil. Owned by Google.
Pageflakes: http://www.pageflakes.com It allows you to create your flake (homepage), share it with others via a pagecast, and let others know about you via a profile page. Apparently you need to be a developer and know lots of software to use this service. I could not find on the home page an easy way to start other than to download a developer's kit, but after some clicking around (a process I could never duplicate), I did create a page. It looks like it might be an interesting way to create a homepage to share with others.
With Pageflakes, you can easily [not so apparently easy, in my view] customize the Internet and make it yours using flakes - small, movable versions of all of your Web favorites that you can arrange on your personal homepage. Flakes are available for thousands of uses and interests, including news, sports, e-mail, local events, search, photos, music, videos - even interactive tools like a calendar and a to-do list - and just about anything else you do on the Web at school, work and at home.
Piczo: http://www.piczo.com Headquartered in San Francisco. 24 million users. Teen-friendly. Big in the U.K. and Canada.
Pinger: http://www.pinger.com Instant voice messaging for your mobile phone. With Pinger you send voice messages directly to someone instantly--no ringing, no greetings, no lengthy prompts. Pinger is fast and efficient like email, but with your voice. You can also send voice messages to groups you define as well.
Respectance: http://www.respectance.com A social network for people to share memories of loved ones.
Reunion.com: http://www.reunion.com A social network for connecting with family, friends, lost loves, and colleagues. The sixth largest social network.
Ryze: http://www.ryze.com.
Shelfari: http://www.shelfari.com A social media site for people who love to read. Allows users to build their book collection online, tag books, start book clubs and discussion groups, and add their bookshelf to their blogs.
Slacker: http://www.slacker.com Allows you to share your music choices with others. And create your own Internet radio station for your listening pleasure.
Socializr: http://www.socializr.com A social networking blend between Friendster and Evite. It is designed as a way of sharing party and event invitations with friends and family. Here are some of the things you can do here: view your personalized event listings, create and send event invitations, automatically share events with your friends, get your events on your mobile phone, and customize your events with music, videos, and more.
Spoke.com: http://www.spoke.com Social network for business and sales.
StyleHive: http://www.stylehive.com A social networking website for people interested in style, fashion, beauty, jewelry, etc. Allows bookmarks, forums, communities, etc. Motto: What's hot. Right now.
TeeBeeDee: http://www.tbd.com Robin Wolaner, founder. A social networking site for people over 40 who believe life is still to be determined.
Teqlo: http://www.teqlo.com
Tickle: http://www.ticklecom Features categories such as lifestyle, mind/body, relationships, style/beauty, entertainment, and more.
Tribe.com: http://www.tribe.com A social network with a local focus, based on the city where you live.
Uber.com: http://www.uber.com Uber is a creative community where you can discover, collect, publish and store all kinds of photos, videos, songs, blogs, and bookmarks.
UPumpItUp Social Network: http://www.upumpitup.com Crystal Light, a beverage from Kraft Foods, launched this social network to encourage women to inspire and challenge each other to achieve personal goals, which they can share with friends via the website or track with a widget. If you have a book relevant to women's goals, check out this new social network. In my experience, the first people to join a new network and work it tend to be the ones that benefit most from social networks. They have five team members: singer and actress Mandy Moore, who is their spokesperson; Erika Lenkert (responsible for their Connect section), Bobbie Thomas (responsible for their Express section, to share your creative site), Mandy Ingber (responsible for the Inspire section, to help you tune into yourself), and Cynne Simpson (responsible for their Explore section, which shows ways to explore the amazing world around you).
Xanga: http://www.xanga.com
Xing: http://www.xing.com Features events and teleclasses. Offers a free service as well as a paid monthly membership.
Yahoo! 360: http://360.yahoo.com The blogging and social networking service from Yahoo!
Yahoo! Groups: http://groups.yahoo.com A social networking service from Yahoo! It's where people with a shared interest meet, get to know each other, and stay informed. Your group gives you instant access to share message archives, photos and photo albums, group event calendars, and member polls and shared links.
YoName: http://www.yoname.com A tool for searching for your name, friend's names, or other people's names over the major social network websites.
Yuwie: http://www.yuwie.com A social networking site with all the bells and whistles that pays you to be on the network, to blog, to post photos, to meet friends, to send messages, etc. They don't pay you a lot, but it might add up if a lot of people visit your page.
Zebo: http://www.zebo.com A social networking site for learning what brands your friends own, judge photos of products and clothes, buy and sell cool things, and get product advice. They do not allow you to enter your email address in any posts (to prevent spambots). Free to use since they sell products in their online shop. As a member, you can sell stuff.
Ziggs People Hub: http://www.ziggs.com. A social network for professionals. A free service that personalizes the Internet around your people, your work, and your life. You can use this service to find people and groups you'd want to network with from around the world. Still in beta, very slow.
Social BookMarking Sites
BackFlip: http://www.backflip.com
Bibsonomy: http://www.bibsonomy.org
BlinkList: http://www.blinklist.com
BuddyMarks: http://www.buddymarks.com
Del.icio.us: http://del.icio.us One of the top social bookmarketing sites.
Digg: http://www.digg.com Currently one of the most influential traffic stimulators on the web. Millions of users.
Diigo: http://www.diigo.com
Faves: http://www.faves.com
Feed Me Links: http://www.feedmelinks.com
Folkd: http://www.folkd.com
Google BookMarks: http://www.google.com/bookmarks
Ma.gnolia: http://ma.gnolia.com Another Digg-like website for discovering, sharing, and discussing the best of the web.
Reddit: http://www.reddit.com
ShoutWire: http://www.shoutwire.com A website like Digg for rating news, music, movies, videos, pictures, editorials, and more.
Slashdot: http://www.slashdot.com Motto: News for nerds, stuff that matters.
Stumble Upon: http://www.stumbleupon.com 3,250,000 users share the sites they like. You can discover new sites via word of mouth from other like-minded users. StumbleUpon is the best way to discover great websites, videos, photos, blogs and more - based on your interests. Everything is submitted and rated by the community. Discover, share and review the best of the web!
StumbleUpon Strategy Tip #1: Create One Theme/Category per StumbleUpon Account.
Who says you can only have one account? No one! You should have one account per major topic. Do you write about more than one subject? Some of you may write both a non-fiction business book and also a romance novel. Set up one account for business and one for literature. There are categories that you can pre-select using StumbleUpon and this is important for the type of market you want to get into. You'll need a new email address for each new account. Susan Gilbert, SEO expert
Reprinted from The Book Marketing Expert newsletter, a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. Subscribe at http://www.amarketingexpert.com.
Taggly: http://www.taggly.com
Yahoo! News Search: http://news.search.yahoo.com. Allows you to build and share a customized news feed. You can share the news feed on your MyYahoo! share page noted below.
Yahoo! Publisher Network: http://e.my.yahoo.com/config/create_content_package?.a=create. Publish and share a MyYahoo! page with your exclusive content. Here's a link to my MyYahoo! page on self-publishing and book marketing, which includes blog feeds, news feeds, and links to several book publishing and marketing forums. Note that you have to be using MyYahoo! in order to use this link (it adds a page to your MyYahoo! page): http://cm.my.yahoo.com/add/page?id=myy_a3ecb98f1621edc8.
Yahoo! Search MyWeb: http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com. Save your bookmarks in a place where you can always find them. Then share them with family, friends, colleagues, and others. Discover new sites by browsing what's popular.
Blogging Sites: http://www.bookmarket.com/blogging.htm
Blog Tours and Virtual Author Tours: http://www.bookmarket.com/booktour.htm
Knowledge-Sharing Sites: http://www.bookmarket.com/knowledge.htm (including photo-sharing sites, wikis, content management services, membership software, and more)
Widget Services: http://www.bookmarket.com/widgets.htm
Copyright © 2008 by John Kremer
Email: JohnKremer@bookmarket.com
Open Horizons, P O Box 2887, Taos NM 87571