Michael Stephens on Social Networking Services

Here, Michael Stephens describes the background of social networking sites and defines the appeal of these sites as follows:
..."identity, presence, relationships, conversations,groups, reputation, and sharing—will all be found by users at various SNS."
Stephens cites the Hennepin Co. Library's MySpace page as a good example of how to reach teen users who have MySpace accounts. Specifically, "Hennepin's page features an embedded Library Search box and the code that the library's MySpace friends
can use to add the search to their own profiles. Rotating images on the page show the faces of various library staff members, adding the human dimension."
I thought the section on Facebook and academic libraries fit in nicely with the perceptions portrayted in Danah Boyd's article mentioned in my previous posting. The librarian's comments about his blog post, and the fact that he linked it to Facebook to increase the possibilities for his FB friends to read it were almost funny to me! College students are very much attached at the hip to Facebook, constantly checking online for status updates, new pictures, who has broken up with who, etc.. that it is the perfect place to publish exciting content that students will hopefully take an interest in reading! Even if something is published on a blog (a popular web 2.0 tool) students are more likely to open up Facebook and take the time to read or comment on postings.
I also had the chance to learn something new from this article. I had not heard much about Ning before, and am curious to learn more about this create your own SNS. I wonder how well it does in competition with Facebook, but supposedly it finds its niche among companies wishing to create an internal SNS.
Finally, yea for the mention of Bookspace! I recently discovered this through my Readers' Advisory class and think it is a great service. Too bad I am not actually a HCPL user.