Social Networks

I thought I'd start off this new blog on the current fad or phenomenon of the internet: Social Networks.
As I slowly get pulled into their use, I find myself fighting against what I see is their inherent problem: their 'walled garden' approach. I find it extremely awkward and frustrating at the limitation of how I'm completely locked into their network with no visible hope (at present) of being able to extract my information if I decide to move.
With accounts on Bebo (for my Irish friends - it being the most popular in Ireland), MySpace (friends in the States - most popular there), Facebook (currently seems to be making a rapid ascent through the field and drawing all and sundry to it's site), and LinkedIn (work networking), it's a frustrating experience.
In fairness, LinkedIn is a slightly different type of networking so I'll exclude that from this post. Although, as I write, that doesn't make complete sense either as it's still social networking!
Facebook is probably my shining light at present as they've (slightly) opened up access to embed other information in them. With most of my photos already on Picassa and Flickr, I've been able to access and publish these photos to Facebook without having to re-upload them to Facebook also (through their external application modules). Hopefully this is a sign of things to come and a more open framework amongst the networking sites.
Having said that, with Facebook now the primary competition for all the sites (as Rupert Murdoch said recently, "everyone is going to Facebook"), it'll be interesting to see whether the other sites follow suit.

Since writing this, I've also found a link through Lifehacker for a Wired article with the same complaints. Interestingly, the writer doesn't seem completely aware of the more open approach of Facebook....

On a side note, the closest I've seen from Google in this space is their latest addition to Blogger where you can search through your own profile for people of similar interests. It's a long way from what the competition is offering but it'll be interesting to see if this is a push of theirs into this space.