Parents' tour of social networks

Wall Street Journal writer Julia Angwin doesn't turn up anything very surprising on her brief tour of MySpace, Xanga, Facebook, Hi5, Bebo, Tagged, and Imbee, but it's great for parents to see that teens do have choices. They do and they don't, actually. It's good that a prominent news outlet shows the breadth and diversity of the social networks, especially with the help of a sidebar linking to nearly two dozen of them (Wikipedia links to many more here ). But – as with instant messaging – kids go where their friends are. That's where they don't *really* have a choice, even if your teenager is a major influencer and can move his or her entire peer group to another site. That group then wouldn't be "with" everyone else in their high school, receiving bulletins and group emails in, for example, MySpace about important stuff going on at or involving their school. Check out Julia's conclusion – I think she's right on the mark with it. Meanwhile, reporter Robin Cowie Nalepa at The State, a Columbia, S.C., paper, took her own week-long tour just of MySpace, with the help of her MySpace "guru" Elizabeth (16).