Get yourself a (virtual) social life!

You may have received lately an invitation to join some "social network"from one of your friends, and asked yourself weither it was a sect you were asked to join or something even worse.. sects continually innovate when it comes to finding new ways to attract people towards their traps, so nobody would blame you for being careful. But the aim of the message is simply to get you in touch with a new kind or Web platforms, built to let you easily and instantly expand your social reach.

Super-hyped social networking is literally expoding, with new ways to link up withs others added daily. Millions of people post their profiles, photos, likes and dislikes onto Web sites like www.Hi5.com, Friendster.com and LinkedIn.com to connect with people with similar interests. I must say I’ve been a bit resentful about using those: Why do I need to make friends online? I meet plenty of people in the real world – in the school, at parties, etc. In the offline world, at least I know what they look like, whereas, online, it’s a mystery. But since I tried it, I tend to be excited by the hole new world of possibilities theses sites offer!

I have just entered the world of what we might call Generation @. Being online, being a Buzzer, is a way of life for for millions of young people. And increasingly, social networks are their medium. As the first cohort to grow up fully wired and technologically fluent, today's teens and twentysomethings are flocking to Web sites like Buzz-Oven as a way to establish their social identities. Here you can get a fast pass to the hip music scene, which carries a hefty amount of social currency offline. It's where you go when you need a friend to nurse you through a breakup, a mentor to tutor you on your maths homework, an address for the party everyone is going to. For a giant brand like Coke, Mc Donalds and the likes, these networks also offer a direct pipeline to the thirsty but fickle youth market.

Although networks are still in their infancy, experts think they're already creating new forms of social behavior that blur the distinctions between online and real-world interactions. In fact, today's young generation largely ignores the difference. Most adults see the Web as a supplement to their daily lives. They tap into information, buy books or send flowers, exchange apartments, or link up with others who share passions for tennis, say, or opera. But for the most part, their social lives remain rooted in the traditional phone call and face-to-face interaction.


The MySpace ( a preeminent site among these hangouts) generation, by contrast, lives comfortably in both worlds at once.

Personally , I think that people tend, like me, to be exited by theses sites as they just popped up. I think they will visit them less and less often as the hype fades away.

But, I am sure that some form of natural selection is going to operate on these sites, and a few of them, those who will reach a critical mass of subscribers, will simply become a new regular medium of communication, as common as cellphones or Instant Messenging.

PS : As I did for this post, I will sometimes write in english, so that my english-speaking friends have something to read too, and by the same way brush up a little bit on my english-writing skills..It never hurts!