Tuesday Thingers: Too Much Networking?

This week's topic for the Tuesday Thingers group is all about social networking:

How do you feel about social networking sites? Do you have any you like more than others? Are there any you don't like? Do you have any that you don't associate with your blogs and/or book reviewing? If you could only belong to one of these sites, which one would it be and why?

Well, I guess I should start off by saying that I don't really consider Library Thing a social networking site, although I know that technically it is one. I first joined LT in order to have a way to catalogue all my books, and that's still how I see it – mainly. I do have a few discussion groups I follow, although I don't often post any messages (yes, I'm one of those famous "lurkers"). The only one I'm really active in is the 50 Book Challenge discussion group – it allows me to keep track of the books I read, and even post little mini-reviews, without worrying too much about how other people are going to react.

I'd be very upset if I had to give up LT. As I say, I love their cataloguing feature – I believe it's the best on the Internet. So I suppose if I had to pick just one site to continue with, LT would be it.

I do have accounts with Facebook, Good Reads, My Space, Shelfari, and Twitter. But of all those the only one I really use with any regularity is Good Reads: I use it to keep track of books I've actually read and books I want to read, whether or not they're actually in my library. Of course, when I started doing this, LT hadn't yet come up with their "Collections" feature. Now that they have, I can list books I don't own as "read but unowned" or "to be read" or "wish list"; so I suppose there's really no reason to keep up with the two separate accounts. But there are a few discussion groups at Good Reads I keep up with, so for the time being I'm going to keep things as is.

And all the other sites? Well, I've always found Shelfari a little awkward. I do like the look of all my books on those virtual "shelves," but the site just seems difficult to maneuver around in. I joined Twitter because I had heard that sometimes publishers give away free books there; but so far, no free books have materialized – and I rarely do any tweeting.

I signed up with My Space several years ago because I had found Grace Slick's My Space page, and had to be a member to look at all the info there. I played with my own account for a while, but soon realized it wasn't anything I'd ever be interested in. Still have the account, but I haven't signed in for months now. I find Facebook a little more interesting, although again, I haven't really looked at my account there for a couple of months. I guess I just assume that if anyone wants to contact me, they'll use email or leave a comment on one of my blogs, since that's probably the surest way of getting my attention. I know it says terrible things about my character, but I have to admit that when all is said and done, I'm just more of a blogger than a social networker.

Tuesday Thingers is hosted by Wendi of Wendi's Book Corner. If you'd like to see more or participate yourself, head on over to her blog and leave a comment.