Social Networking Sites

Blizzard like conditions in NYC and a day off from work are perfect excuses to not leave the house and peruse the interwebs. 

Below are my opinions and impressions of 4 social media sites.  Just to preface, I am a casual social media user and spend most of my time viewing others' posts rather than participating myself.

Facebook: I was hard pressed to transition from MySpace to FB and waited until the last possible moment to do so.  I was in college when FB came out and I thought it was way too smart for me to enjoy it.  Now that I've had it for 8 years or so, I only use it to read articles about NYC current events and look at 900 pics of babies posted by acquaintances from H.S.  Site works well in keeping users connected with family and friends that are located remotely.  Even better for staying pseudo connected to people from the past, that you don't actually care about beyond being friends with them on FB.

Twitter:  Never felt the need to create an account before and use it only to read tweets about the news and comments from others without signing up.  Great for news breaking stories and responses.  Digging the fact that a user can only post 140 characters.  Nobody's got time to read an overly lengthy post.

Instagram:  Extremely easy to use.  Much faster to post pictures and comment/direct msg friends than FB.  Site attracts a younger audience than FB which is appealing.  Users can seamlessly move from profile to profile to view pictures without lengthy bios or status posts clogging up the feed like FB.  Beneficial to businesses and companies as a way to draw in a younger consumer. Would use more frequently if I had the spare time.  

LinkedIn: Created an account last year and I'm getting back into it now.  Very organized and easy to find past and current colleagues and alumni.  Enjoy the fact that a user's profile is basically an online resume for employers to view.  Haven't figured out how to look at profiles anonymously and think the # of profile views feature is unnecessary.  A solid professional site to keep in touch with business contacts.