Page: Main.OnlineNetworking - Last Modified : 2009-04-24

Pages on networking sites

"Networking" is a large part of what I do, getting to know people professionally and passing on names and contacts to others who have similar interests. A large part of this I do online. Some sites facilitate this, and I use them as tools to help develop and keep track of my network.

Wikipedia has articles on two categories of networking sites: "professional network service " and "social network service " (the latter or even the whole phenomenon being referred to also as "social networking").

The networking sites on which I have pages are as follows

• General (roughly in order of usage):
  • LinkedIn . This is a professional networking site that I have found useful. Guido Sohne, an IT expert in Ghana, invited me back in 2003. I was skeptical at first but it has proved itself.
  • Facebook . I use this fairly regularly. Two colleagues - Tobias Eigen of Kabissa and Martin Benjamin of Kamusi Project - invited me in 2007. Certain features are very useful, such as the group feature that I have made good use of for the International Year of Languages , but many others are too much bother.
  • Ryze . This was the first networking site I joined, but I have not actively used it for a while. Pam McLean of CAWD in the UK invited me back in 2003. It has a less professional feel than LinkedIn but not as dynamic as Facebook.
  • Viadeo . I joined this primarily for professional networking in French, though it hasn't yet turned out to be as useful as I'd hoped.
  • Twitter . Joined in April 2007 just to test it out, but have recently started using it again ... a little.
  • Doostang . Joined in 2008 as another location to post my credentials. (The link is to the site; there is apparently no URL for public access to one's profile page).
  • Zoom  (ZoomInfo). This site aggregates info from online and there was info on me so I "claimed" it and made some edits.
  • Xing. Joined this in Nov. 2008 mainly because this site has a link with Zoom, which I was already on.
  • Spoke . Joined in 2008 as another location to post my credentials. There is some erroneous information that that must have been generated for the page by the system (including a reference to a different Bisharat than the one I work on).
  • Google profile . New service in 2009. This page set up in April 2009.
  • Idealist . Networking site set up by Action Without Borders. Joined and set up profile in April 2009.
• ICT4D-related
  • DDN
  • TakingITGlobal . Joined in Jan. 2009. Was aware of this site but not that it had membership pages and all.

I also have pages on the following sites:

• Del.icio.us . This is a well-known bookmarking site. I haven't been using it very consistently, however.
• Wikipedia user page on en.wikipedia.org . I have contributed a fair amount to Wikipedia (mainly the English edition), most of that in relation to work on support for localization in African languages, but also on selected other topics of academic, personal and professional interest. See also the page on Wikipedia on this site.