Social network sites

I've been experimenting with 20 social network sites between July – October 2008 and here's a list of my favorite ones :) 

1) MyBlogLog gets my top vote because it's not just another Facebook/MySpace! :)

MBL comes equipped with awesome tools for you to get instant reports on the most read pages on your website, and also how your visitors found out about you 
- whether they found you via search engine, Google images, MySpace, forums, online groups, or via other blog sites :) Absolutely wonderful!


Here's a snapshot of a blog statistics report ;) -

2) Ping.fm is another unique web app that's worth checking out:)

Ping.fm is a centralised Web service to update all the status messages on Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, and quite a few other "social networks".


With Ping.fm, you just need to log in once and update as many of your social network accounts simultaneously

3) Gravatar
A gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is quite simply an avatar image that follows you from weblog to weblog appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites :)

Example:

4) BlogCatalog

If you have a MyBlogLog account, you needn't sign up for BC. 
BlogCatalog is a less sophisticated version of  MyBlogLog clone 
- less features
(eg., no report/statistics generation tool)


Nevertheless, I like BC :) and will continue using it simply because I like connecting with my readers.


Here's a snapshot of the BC dashboard

5) Ning.com allows you to create your very own social network. Isn't that sweet :)
But I have yet to be a proud owner of a social network because the names that I like were all taken

Here's a list of my not-so-favorite social network apps:-

1) Friendster
I recently joined Friendster to reconnect with my old schoolmates. The down side to Friendster is that you can't add your friends - unless you know their e-mail addresses or last name.  

:( dang


2) Yelp
Yelp allows you to share restaurant reviews, hotel reviews, rate products/services (eg, your local dental clinic, car dealers...). I have been looking forward to join Yelp


But unfortunately, the site has not been properly maintained and even after my 20th attempt at signing up at Yelp (over the past 3 weeks), I still get this message:-
"Opps, Yelp is overworked right now"

3) Koornk
Koornk is just another Twitter. There's nothing particularly special about Koornk apart from the cute logo (which I really, really love :) )

(more to come later. stay tuned ;) out for a sinful choc & cheesecake session)