Well, for this assignment, I decided to choose sites that I have personal experience on, which made LiveJournal and deviantART easy choices, but I think for my third site, I’m going to throw in Neopets.
LiveJournal is a great place to meet people. Apart from keeping users in contact with their current network, LJ has a wide variety of ways to make new contacts. Joining communities is a good way to meet new people with similar interests. On the main page, LJ has a Spotlight for different communities, which changes regularly, creating many opportunities for people to join groups they may not have thought of otherwise.
LJ also facilitates finding communities in other ways. Users are able to input any interest and locate other people and communities with that same interest. In addition, users are able to add “interests” to their profile page, and clicking on these creates a list of all the users and communities who list the same interest. There is also the Advanced Search.
The advanced search feature allows you to search for LiveJournal users by age, friends, interests, location and more. This feature is available to Plus and Paid account holders
A Plus account is an account that is still free, but has additional features because the user allows advertisements to appear in their blog. Also, without upgrading to a Plus or Paid account, all users are able to Browse Feeds, which allows them to add a popular feed to their Friend’s List, which is basically an RSS reader for other users and syndicated feeds (feeds by URL are available to Paid accounts). Two other options, Recent Public Posts and Random Journal, allow users to interact at random. The Recent Posts are the most recently updated journals that have public privacy settings, and the Random Journal feature brings up a completely random journal.
DeviantART is another beast entirely. Although dA offers a journal option, the central focus of this site is on the art, which facilitates networking and communication. On the front page, there are four categories of pictures: Newest, Popular, Prints, and Daily Deviations. The newest simply lists whatever the most recently updated pictures are, and the Popular category features the deviations (pictures) that have the most views (hits) for that day. DeviantART allows users to sell prints of their work, and the Prints category on the front page can be viewed by the most recent or the best sellers, and the Daily Deviations are works that are featured for the day for being particularly good. There is a search feature that shows pictures that have been tagged with the given input by the deviant (artist/poet/what have you). These can also be viewed by most popular or newest, and there are links at the bottom of the page that allow users to view a random deviation or a random deviant’s gallery.
Viewing pictures and commenting on said pictures is one of the main ways of building a network on dA. Pictures can be commented on and added to “Favorites.” A deviant’s favorites are displayed on their user page, less prominently than their own gallery, but it is a good way for users to help send traffic to pictures that they admire. Deviants can “watch” each other, and the deviantWATCH is similar to an RSS reader that updates with links to pictures as watched deviants upload them. Deviants can “note” each other, which is a form of private conversation, or they can leave a Devious Comment, which is similar to a Wall posting on Facebook.
Other places on dA where deviants can communicate with each other are in the Today section, which has community updates and popular journal entries, News, which has articles written by deviants that can be read, commented on, and favorited like any other deviation, Chat, which provides instantaneous conversation with other deviants, and the Forums, which allow discussion among deviants on various topics.
Now Neopets is another completely different networking environment. Communication is based around the game—users can buy and trade items with each other, battle each other in the arena, or compete against each other in contests. However, there are avenues for networking. There are the Boards (forums), where users can talk about their pets, the game, or just talk in general to each other. The site also features Guilds, which vary in size, activity, and focus. Some are game oriented, but others are devoted to bringing together people of similar interest. These guilds often run contests, have events, give their members free items, and generally enrich the experience of its members. Connections can be made between different users by makings “Neofriends,” which gives users special options, such as giving items to each other. Also, “Neomail” allows users to communicate with each other directly. The site notifies users when they receive Neomail and/or gifts from Neofriends.
(NOTE: links are conspicuously abscent in this section since most of the communication features require that you have an account to access them, and I don't think any of you really want to make a Neopets account just to check it out.)
These three sites are all very different, but each site offers features appropriate to the service they’re providing. LiveJournal is a very general site that encompasses a wide variety of interests, so most of its features allow users to search for others like themselves to form networks with. DeviantART on the other hand is primarily a site for sharing artwork. This site’s form of networking is based almost entirely out of responding to others’ artwork, forming relationships between artists who like each others’ works. DevART encourages the feeling of a community, and for a deviant’s art to be recognized in such a large community, it is almost necessary for them to form social contacts with other deviants in order to get their art seen and to increase the number of places on the site that link back to their gallery. Neopets also takes a radically different approach to social networking. Because Neopets is primarily a game, the social networking that occurs forms around the game. This site also tends toward a younger audience, so the networking is more basic and less personal, possibly for security reasons.