<p align="left">The likes of the more “traditional,” top-o-
the-food-chain type social networking sites have satisfied and
accelerated the desire that many of us have to connect, engage or
otherwise share thoughts, photos, videos, music, etc. with our
friends, colleagues and otherwise like-minded people. These are useful
products for sure, but they have their limitations—especially
when it comes to customization. Are there alternatives for those of us
wi****ng to have more direct control over what features, options,
designs and capabilities we can offer in our online communities? And
are these places truly “ours?”</p>
<p align="left">The technology now exists to enable people to create
their own branded, customizable websites complete with all the social
tools they might want. Kind of like the powdered milk of community
website creation. That is, instead of “just add water,”
the directions might read, “just add user.” In this case,
a user intent on creating a robust community website. Okay, maybe not
the best metaphor, but you get the idea.</p>
<p align="left">I have an interest in staying connected to my family,
for example, but I don’t have a presence on the big social
networking sites (except LinkedIn which I think works well for keeping
track of work colleagues, past and present) and I knew that I wanted
something more like a traditional website with features that would
allow me to interact and engage with my various, geographically
diverse family members. I also wanted the option to make it private,
or made available to the people I want to give access to by invitation
only.</p>
<p align="left">There are several folks out there that are providing
precisely these services—do-it-yourself, create your own social
website(s) for free. More im****tantly, for those of us who
weren’t raised with a laptop in our bassinets, I discovered that
a handful of these sites don’t require any programming or design
experience and they offer many (in some cases all) of the features I
wanted in order to provide an easy-to-use site without having to write
a single line of code. In fact, “write a single line of
code” is perhaps the most technical thing I have ever said, so
that gives you an idea as to how easy I need such a thing to be. I
have found TheVillage.com to be one such site and the one that I am
using currently.</p>
<p align="left">Once you become familiar with whatever particular
service you choose, you begin to think about the mind-numbingly high
number of op****tunities there are for people to become connected in
meaningful ways with their peers, colleagues, family, friends, fellow
basket weavers, cancer survivors, car enthusiast friends, etc. etc.</
p>
<p align="left">There are seemingly infinite possibilities of what you
can create on your own. Once I started my family website, I then
created a high school reunion site for my class’ upcoming
reunion and another on what inspires people’s creativity. With
such platforms now being offered and currently in operation and
gaining steam all the time, this notion has become what should prove
to be a big ‘ol trend. Not just user-generated content or pages
or communities or videos, but full-blown <em>websites</em> and
<em>networks</em> with all of these capabilities included and all with
your own ideas for what it should look like and how it should act.
Sweet.</p>
<p align="left">The big social networks have granted people the
ability to self-publish and share whatever they want with entire
groups of people without standing face-to-face with them. It stands to
reason that when people are offered a free op****tunity to build their
own websites, help drive their own traffic, email their members en
masse or selectively, turn features on or off, design their pages to
look like they want them to look and countless other tools, they are
going to do it. Many people don’t want to be at the mercy of
whatever is being created <em>for</em> them, they want to make those
decisions themselves and I’m one of those people. The technology
is here and is ready to be employed on a large scale. So, poke around
out there and see what’s doing in the world of do-it-yourself.
Then, get out there and…well…do it! <a href="http://
www.thevillage.com" target="_blank">Create your own FREE website today!
</a></p>
<p align="left"> </p>
|
