Social Media

Considering Social Media (Friday Five from RevGalBlogPals):

1. What have been the benefits for you of social networking (blog, twitter, facebook, etc...) It's interesting to me to see blogs and facebook grouped together, because to me they serve much different purposes. For me, the blog is a discipline -- a way to motivate myself to write each day. I know others read it, but my main purpose is to express my thoughts. It's cool that people read it, but for me it is not conversation (although it can develop into conversation. Facebook, for me, is essentially conversation. It's people talking to each other. Blogging helps me to understand what I'm thinking. Facebook puts me in touch with people I know. Or know of. In my job, it has helped me to get to know people, and to follow what they are doing.
2. Which medium do you use the most? Or if you use them all, for what do you use each of them? I use blogging every day. I check in on Facebook once or twice a day. I just don't twitter at all.
3. If you could invent a networking site (with no limits on your imagination), what would it provide? What would it not provide? I've never thought about it, and don't really know.
4. Who have you met that you would not have met if it were not for the 'miracle' of social networking?I can't think of anyone I've met that I wouldn't have met otherwise. There are people who are "friends" on Facebook who I have heard about through work and haven't met yet. It is strange when you meet a "friend" that you haven't met before, but know through what you do for a living. I was driving by a church in another part of the state and recognized the minister's name on the sign. "Oh, look, there's my "friend." Weird. Maybe that's one change I would make in Facebook. I wouldn't call them "friends." I would call them something else.
5. Who do you secretly pray does not one day try to 'friend/follow' you? Oh, there are those people, but I'm not going to name them here!