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With the major players in place in the mainstream socnets – Facebook, LinkedIn, Orkut, Hi5, etc. – the fertile ground lies with niche social networks. With white label social network providers, there are all sorts of verticals that are appearing – in fact, CNET has a great list of the 50 most bizarre social networks, including communities for knitters, gardeners, doctors, nurses, seniors, animal lovers, and more.
But a recent announcement has me very intrigued: on September 22, the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency will officially launch a social networking site. The idea is that analysts at the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies will now be able to share information in an open way with each other (obviously behind a highly secure firewall) and that information will no longer be siloed within one organization. The site, called A-Space, is designed to connect individuals and let them do their thinking in more of a public forum, aiding each other in the process.
This is a very smart move that will hopefully allow our government to be able to thwart terrorist and other illegal activities much more swiftly and thoroughly. Done right, this could be expanded to other intelligence agencies across the globe. While Interpol has long had its global databases, a social network for spies will give analysts even more insight. For example, information that was shared via email prior to the September 11 terrorist strikes would now be available to the entire network, creating an opportunity for the collective intelligence to recognize a threat.
Large corporations should take note – this is exactly the kind of platform that will create efficiencies, connect gaps in information, and allow more free-flowing collaboration on a global basis. This is the future of internal communications.
But A-Space? I would have thought that MySpies would have been a little more clever. And instead of the usual applications you see on Facebook, they could spice it up with “Ejector Seat,” or give you a chance to start a coup instead of poking someone. Just a thought.

Over the past few months, I’ve seen a number of individuals using their creativity and intelligence to raise money for good causes. Examples include ChipIns to help defray funeral expenses, make pledges for races, or of course to raise money for cancer research.
Jennifer Leggio (@mediaphyter on Twitter) has come up with the next great idea. She’s participating in a marathon in October, and as part of her efforts, is trying to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Her fundraising goal is $10,000, so she enlisted the help of five bloggers/consultants to help her reach that goal. Chris Brogan, Joseph Jaffe, Geoff Livingston, Aaron Strout, and Greg Verdino.
For less than $2,000 each (at the time this post was written), you can have access to social media consulting services from these very talented and well-written folks. For a full description of each, head over to Mediaphyter. If you’d just like to take my word for it then start the bidding on each below:

• Chris Brogan’s auction
• Joseph Jaffe’s auction
• Geoff Livingston’s auction
• Aaron Strout’s auction
• Greg Verdino’s auction

Let’s bid this up in the name of charity, shall we? Good luck and I hope you have a chance to talk with at least one of these guys. If you miss out now, it may cost you more if you eventually hire them!

I’m generally encouraged by this, as it means that the space is continuing to grow, rather than to wane like some short-lived fad. But at the same time, it can make life a little more complex or cluttered if you’re not ready to deal with it.
But social networks are inherently different from each other. How you use one may not reflect how you use another, nor will contacts be consistent across every one of them. I thought it might be instructive to share how I think about my social networks – particularly focusing on how I consider friend requests in each. I’ve linked to my profiles, if you’d care to connect with me on them.
Facebook
Ah, Facebook. One of the most visible and recognized brands in the social networking space, where “friend” is a verb. For me, Facebook is a combination of business and social contacts.
I’ll immediately accept a friendship request if I know you or follow you on another network. But that’s not to say I’m exclusive in my friending. If we don’t know each other, just introduce yourself and – most importantly – give me some context as to how you know me.
LinkedIn
I use LinkedIn as my professional social network. Like the old three-ring binders of business cards that I kept, LinkedIn is my real-time virtual collection of business cards.
As you can imagine, my requirements for LinkedIn are a bit more stringent. If you’d like to connect with me on LinkedIn, we should have met or at least have had some meaningful interaction. I’ll also accept introductions via people I know.
Twitter
Twitter is probably the loosest of all of my networks. I generally like connecting with more people there because I enjoy the exchange of ideas, links and quick personal interaction that it allows.
While there are some people who add absolutely everyone back, I can’t keep up with the pace and consider some of them spammy. Since there have been a good number of new followers, I’m having trouble adding some back. If you follow me and I haven’t followed you back, don’t take it personally. Just get my attention by sending me an “@” message and I’ll be sure to add you back. It’s as simple as that.
I hope this post was a helpful insight about how I consider friend requests in each network. I’d be interested to know how you handle your own connections on your various social networks. Please leave a comment and educate me.

Admittedly, it’s a challenge. When do we begin to introduce the next generation to all that the digital world has to offer them versus allowing them to ride their bikes, run around outside, and make tents out of blankets and sofa cushions in the family room? On the one hand, they’ll have their whole lives to live in the digital world; on the other, some of their peers may already be getting a head start on them.
Some sites to get you started
One of the major concerns to any parent of wired children is the wide availability of questionable material. This has been addressed by plenty of software blocking programs, but there’s a service called Kidzui that calls itself “The Internet for Kids” that’s worth checking out. It’s age-appropriate for children 3-12, with content that is reviewed by teachers and parents. If a child is searching for a particular video on YouTube, Kidzui ensures that the search results are filtered so they’re not getting anything inappropriate.
The creators of the parenting site Babble have developed a social network for young families called Babble Playground, based on the Ning platform. It’s basically a discussion group 2.0, where you can connect with other families with young children and exchange ideas, share experiences and get to know them a little better.
And once the kids are older and involved with every variety of sports, you can sign them (and yourself) up for weplay. They bill themselves as a social network for youth athletes and their parents and coaches, aiming for the younger tweens as well as a larger community (you can sign up as a ‘Fan’). One feature that’s bound to get noticed is the comprehensive forum, where parents can manage car pools, find out about equipment, get scheduling information and communicate with other athletes’ families. And coaches can communicate directly with the entire team. Forget the old phone trees!
Admittedly, you could use killer app Utterz for most of same activities in weplay. Plus, you can use it for your non-sports-oriented kids. It may take a little more time to set up, but it’s completely flexible and allows you to communicate with video, audio, text and photos. Just think – you can take photos, video and record audio so it automatically updates to your family blog. I’ll be even grandma can follow along.
Two personal examples of preparing my children
One of the things that I’ve done for both of my young sons is bought their domain names. I have no doubt that by the time they’re in school and looking to land a job, much of their life will be documented on a blog, lifestream or other such aggregator, and it would serve them well to control the domain.
Also, when each was born I opened GMail accounts for them. I periodically go in and clear out the spam, but more importantly, I regularly write to them, as I would in a journal, so that some day they’ll be able to read what their dad was thinking as they grew up. What they choose to do with those emails is their business, but I hope that they’ll cherish them for what they are – a father’s love, expressed in bits and bytes. While I may not be a Hemingway or a Edison, I hope that my writing will teach them that we can find ways to remain a close family through technology.

Just as your head is about to start spinning around like Linda Blair in The Exorcist, you wonder if there’s any way to make it stop. When will you be able to turn to your prolific network and utter, “Ego te absolvo”?
In 2006, we created 161 billion gigabytes of information and in 2007, we created 281 billion gigabytes of information. Which means that currently, digital information is being created at a faster pace than that of digital storage. So how is it being curated?
Some tools to help you cope
The good news is that there are a number of people who have realized that this is a growing problem, and they’re here to help. They’re creating aggregators. This isn’t a new term, but it’s definitely a hot space right now. Help people make sense of their own and their friends’ online effluvia, and you’re in good standing.
Here are a few that are emerging that may be worth keeping your eye on.
Spokeo is a social network aggregator that covers about 38 sites. It’s got a clean design and includes some entertainment media networks such such as Blockbuster and Pandora.
While Lijit can function as an aggregator of your friends’ content, I like that it allows you to post a widget on your blog and share your own activity with your readership. This includes the ability to search for content. Each week, Lijit will share your site’s search stats with you in an email.
Riffs is the social recommendation aggregator. It’s a single place to recommend all types of media to your friends – books, CDs, mp3s, DVDs, etc. You can tag items for social searching, let Riffs search your recent iTunes playlist and make purchase recommendations, chat about favorites with other like-minded users. An interesting way to aggregate your multimedia preferences.
FriendFeed has been all the rage lately. I’ve been a beta tester for a while, but only noticed it picking up some steam in the last month or so. FriendFeed is basically another social network where you connect with your friends from various social networks and follow their daily activity in an RSS feed. It tracks only a limited of number of services right now – 28 – but it’s got Netflix and Amazon Wishlists in there as some quirky offerings. I’m definitely getting information overload from all of my friends’ updates in FriendFeed.
SocialThing made a big debut at the South by Southwest Interactive conference last week and is using limited invitations and “private beta” to build buzz (there’s an entirely different post brewing on that subject). It’s got a clean design and some nice user settings, like choosing to view lifestreams by user or by time, but it’s limited in the number of services it covers.
The aggregator to end all aggregators
The single most impressive social network / lifestream aggregator out there is, hands down, Profilactic. Supporting a whopping 155 sites & services, Profilactic allows you to slow the firehose of information coming at you by allowing you to selectively exclude updates within each of your friends’ feeds. It’s got a clippings feature that allows you collect information that you’ve created and that others have created about you – like a digital scrapbook. And finally, you can create a badge and post your information on your site.
When you add that they’ve just signed a six-figure deal with a major social network, it becomes even more impressive.
I’m glad to see that so many people are trying to solve this problem of information overload. Now let’s just hope that we dont’ need aggregators for the aggregators…