Social networking: Web 2.0
04.10.2008
Improve your business English online via a social-networking site, such as Facebook, LinkedIn or Xing. Make friends with speakers of English in your field and write comments on their pages. What have you got to lose?
You’ll find bookmark buttons for the most popular Web 2.0 sites on our site. Recommend pages to friends who are learning English. And add your own comments in English!
TIP! The language on these sites is often informal. It’s the next best thing to small talk. Don’t prepare, just type as you would speak.
Social networking sites
Facebook: An unbelievable 100 million people have now signed up to become members of Facebook — and are actively using it. It's still growing. It connects friends, updates members on their contacts' activities via "newsfeeds", and has a photo-sharing function.
LinkedIn: The world's largest professional networking site. More than 25 million registered users, from 150 industries.
MySpace: It was once the largest social networking site, and the sixth most popular website in the world. Until Facebook became even more popular. It offers member profiles, blogs, photos and videos. Teenagers and people in the music industry seem to prefer this site to Facebook, however.
Plaxo: An online address book that automatically updates your contacts' details whenever they change them. It also shows connections between contacts. Supports major address books such as Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird.
StudiVZ: Similar to Facebook. StudiVZ is a social network for students in Germany and is expanding to other European countries.
Twitter: A "microblogging" site that allows members to inform their contacts of their current activities and location via sms or the internet.
Xing: German-based network for professionals with a growing number of international members.
Social news sites
Have you tried out social-news sites, such as Digg or del.icio.us? These sites allow you to share links across the internet, and to add and invite comments, too.
COMMENTS
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Can you let me know what I may be doing wrong?
Thanks
Log in, and then click on "Mein Benutzerkonto", which is in the left navigation at the top - where you can see your name. Then, look at the middle of the page, click on the tab "Bearbeiten" and "Premium Zugang". Fill in your subscription details.
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