Page: Main.OnlineNetworking - Last Modified : 2008-04-09

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 (all site categories mixed):

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

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.