Does the name Chris Crocker (www.youtube.com/user/itschriscrocker) mean anything to you? Well, if you’ve been following the recent exploits of singer Britney Spears in the tabloids, you know Crocker is the obsessed fan who posted a video on YouTube and MySpace declaring that people should “Leave Britney alone!” Crocker’s rather bizarre and emotion-filled video caused him to become famous – virtually overnight. In fact, more people have seen Crocker’s videos recently than have watched some top-rated network television shows. Go figure?!?            

Many other everyday people from around the world have also found fame as a result of blogging, videocasting and using online social networking services. William Sledd (http://www.myspace.com/williamsledd), for example, has taken his over-the-top personality and passion for fashion, and has not only developed a huge web-based following, but has landed a television series production deal with NBC/Universal. Meanwhile, countless artists, musicians, actors and other creative professionals are currently using online social networking services as powerful promotional tools to advance their careers. If you’re an ordinary, recently divorced person, and you’re looking to make new friends or advance your career, but not necessarily become famous, you too can benefit from joining and participating on one or more of these innovative and relatively new online social networking services.  

BENEFITS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING  

If you’re looking to meet new friends, perhaps find love, or would like to meet people in your industry who could potentially help advance your career, you’ll quickly discover online social networking is a fun, free and beneficial tool – but there are some definite pitfalls to watch out for! Millions of savvy web surfers have discovered a new way to meet and communicate over the Internet, by taking basic principles of social networking on expanding them into cyberspace. The concept is simple – you start with a handful of your existing friends. Each of those friends has multiple other friends and professional contacts whom you might not know. Those friends of friends also have an abundance of friends and contacts you could potentially benefit from meeting. An online social networking service makes finding and meeting friends, friends of friends, and entirely new people a relatively quick and easy process. Through online social networking Web sites, like MySpace (www.myspace.com), Facebook (www.facebook.com) and LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com), it’s possible to meet and interact with your existing friends, plus make new friends and professional acquaintances who share common interests, or with whom you already share a mutual friend. The process starts by getting yourself online and choosing an online social networking service to join. Then, simply create an online profile (or persona) for yourself using a pre-designed template and by answering a handful of questions about yourself. Once your profile is posted online, you can become active within that online community by making new friends and corresponding with them through public and private email-like messages, and by sharing photos and videos, for example.            

Many people enjoy using services like MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn because they’re free of charge, available 24-hours-per-day, and allow people to be “social” without ever leaving the comfort and safety of their own homes.