The right social network that suits you is the one that will take you offline
Last week I went to the BayCHI monthly program meeting where Christian Crumlish from Yahoo, author of the book Design Social Interfaces, came talk about social patterns. He spoke about how people are using social network, what works and what doesn't work (what he calls anti-patterns like this one). This talk was an invitation to think how you are using social networks; I'm not a social network addict and I mainly use Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook in a "offline to online" way: I connect with people I already know in the real-life (except for Twitter, obviously).
Crumlish explained that the right social network that suits you is the one that will give you a good reason to talk to others, bridge to the real life and will take you offline. I mean by that meeting people, sharing new ideas around a coffee, etc. Linkedin, for instance, is really all about network reach - your effective network (your direct connections plus all those associated by degrees of separation) creates the total network reach which enables people to "find you" or you to "find them"...
The social ecosystem is vast and the possibilities are huge, everybody should be able to find its own place to create "online to offline" opportunities. Crumlish mapped it into a well designed diagram that may help to position yourself, as you can see that the potential is definitively underused.
(download)
What about you? Do you have true and significant "online to offline" experience?
Here is a Crumlish's Slideshare presentation to bring you a better understanding of social design pattern.
