The top 10 social networking sites

I call web 2.0 the New Internet Meritocracy because I think that is the best way to talk about it. The new and most powerful sites on the internet are doing things that confound the experts on a daily basis.

What is web 2.0?

Web 2.0 is a phrase that basically refers to a new way of using the internet in which the group decides who is the authority, and more weight is given to people judged to be more authoritative. Web 2.0 can be accessed anywhere from a mobile phone, or a laptop and it is leading to more and better wireless internet.
One example of this is Pagerank, the system Google uses to determine what we see when we search. This system places results higher or lower based on the number of other sites that have links to your page. Other factors include the popularity of the link source and how many links you have to popular sites (like Google, MSN, AOL, Yahoo, eBay etc).
This was the beginning of the revolution for most of us, making search meaningful. But how have others used this powerful new idea and how can you?
eBay was another good example. In order to make an online marketplace function without an overwhelming need for micromanaging participants a system of seller rating was set up. Each time a transaction takes place the buyer and seller can give feedback on the transaction. This has been a highly effective method for keeping people honest without eBay having to do any work at all.
Want more? Check out msnCAPS. This is a site that lets people pick stocks that they think will outperform the market or underperform the market. Over time the players get a rating based on their accuracy and the ammount they have out (or under) performed the market (the s&p 500). Then the stocks themselves get a rating based on which players picked them. This system has produced impressive results.

So how can we use this information to our benefit?

One way is start looking seriously at the vast array of social networking sites on the internet. In this new world that is emerging a strong social network can often do the same exact thing as the media moogles have been doing for years...Get the word out about your ideas and or products!

In my next article I will talk about the top 10 Social networks that I have found, and what you can use them for. Stay tuned!

These sites listed are the ones that I recommend for building your social network.

1. Blogger - This site is part of the Google network. Basically you can create an endless number of blogs and they get crawled at a fairly rapid pace by Google. Remember to link each or your other sites from each new blog you make.

2. MyBlogLog - Here you can connect with your contacts from all kinds of other sites (twitter, flickr, netflix, ebay, amazon, myspace, facebook, etc etc). Check out their "friender" tool also.

3. Twitter - This site has an immense population of people who seem to always be online. Squidoo has a "tweet" feature where you can send out notifications of updates, also very handy.

4. Digg - This heavily trafficed site has a constant stream of users posting news articles and videos almost in real time. Posting new and relevant information to get "diggs" can improve your standing in this community.

5. Zimbio - This is a site where you can post your blog articles up on other peoples "wikinzies." Once connected you can ping your blogs and post new content. *UPDATE: This site also submits automatically to Yahoo. Good information since it seems tougher to get ranked on yahoo.*

6. del.icio.us - This is a link sharing site. You can post your favorites links from over the internet and check out other peoples favorite sites. A good place to network and find cool stuff.

7. Myspace - This site has more patrons than hell after a new years eve party. But in order to actually make use of it I recommend FriendBlaster so you can add (literally) up to or over 1 Million friends. Also you can send messages to them all at once. Imagine if only 1% of that traffic responded...thats 10k hits!

8. Twitterfeed - This site lets you autmatically send twitter updates after you post something new on your blog.

9. Squidoo - Since you are reading this you probably already know, but this site gets a lot of traffic and will even help to promote you and lets you earn money from stuff bought off your lenses. Cool huh?

10. Sharethis - This site has code that lets you put the little "share this" button on your web page. Imagine if 1% of your traffic decides to share something they see on your page? I don't think I need to post the math.