And, of course, no discussion of on line social networks would be complete without at least touching on possibly the most popular of them all-MySpace.

Though I maintain both a homepage with blog and a discussion group on the website I must confess it isn't one of my favorites and may indeed be of questionable value to the boorstrap entrepreneur.

Still there are pluses and minuses and I will spell them out from my prospective below:
• The site's well-meaning efforts to curb phishing and other unwelcome techniques have not really stopped questionable behavior by members and has rendered at least the bulletin section of the group area of the site largely useless as a way of linking to any site outside MySpace-even your own..
• Many of the users on the massive site, even in expressly defined business forums seem more interested in "hooking up" or some other relationship activity than in discussing business in the first place.
• On the positive side, the site offers both a blog that can be used to keep visitors up to date about what you're doing and why.
• Because enough readers have found my blog that might have otherwise never come across it without its MySpace presence, I'm convinced that, in a numbers game, MySpace is a winner simply in terms of the immense traffic it enjoys.

Note: A newer startup community site called Yuwie is MySpace-like but offers members the opportunity to make some money from the site's existing advertising revenue based on traffic.