I've written a few columns on topics of social networking and the Internet in the past. Little did I know how popular the phenomenon had become until I was invited to join Facebook. Sites like Facebook.com, Orkut.com, MySpace.com and LinkedIn.com allow you to quickly build a list of your friends and associates, and share any number of personal details with your network, all in the name of keeping in touch.

Each of these sites has their own flair or style, but most have similar feature sets. You begin by editing your own profile, detailing as much or as little about your interests, likes, dislikes and personality as you choose. While this exercise was a little painful to perform for my own part (I'm more of an introvert than others), I muddled through on my adventure using Facebook. Next, you'll need to build your network of friends or contacts. This can be done in a few different ways. You can easily send invitations to people you know to see if your friends, family and coworkers are as adventurous as you are. If a person is not a member of the site, they would need to sign up before being added as a contact. Once connected, your friend would be able to see your profile and any updates that you make to it. They would also be able to send you messages through the site with a few clicks, and most likely share photos or videos that you or your friends upload.

Another way to grow your network is to flip through the lists of your friend's friends on the site. Using this feature on Facebook, you will quickly see that there are other people you know that you might not have initially thought of adding to your network, and a few more clicks will have them on your list. For the socially inclined (again... not really my one of my strong personality traits), I can see how growing your list of contacts can be somewhat of a rush. I've used the LinkedIn site, which caters more to business professionals, for over two years and have managed to add over forty contacts without too much trouble. With Facebook, a site initially popular with the college and university crowd, my friend list grew to 30 in a short week. I'm almost afraid to see what would happen if I tried out MySpace, which has been more than popular with teenagers.

Along with the personal connections you can make and maintain on a social networking site, you can also keep in touch with the larger groups that you may be a part of. Some of the sites allow you to setup and become a member of a group where you can share photos or videos, schedule events and post messages to the group. Groups might be targeted to geographic locations, schools, businesses, community groups or religious groups. Some sites are a little more strict in how these groups are handled, allowing moderators and the ability to restrict membership, and some allow you to set them up however you like. I joined a work-related group on Facebook and thanks to the site's wealth of notifications, within a few days I had several requests from current and prior coworkers to join their friend list... imagine my surprise.

Social networking websites are reported to be changing the way people connect on the Internet. They let you stay in touch with people you know, without having to remember their (possibly ever-changing) e-mail address, and discover new contacts you have never met. You can share your thoughts, photos, favourite music and even your current mood with a few clicks. The group features on these sites allow the quick dissemination of current events and news with ease. I think my short fascination with Facebook is coming to a close, but I'm sure that there are many more people on the site that will continue to use if for years to come. Watching the news, I'm hearing more and more references to these sites, both good and bad. I'm concerned about the amount of information that you are encouraged to reveal, especially if kids are participate. My advice is to talk to your children about what they should and should not share with their network, and then take a second look at what you have revealed about yourself.