I am a bit disapointed in Social Networking lately

I am a member of many networks. I joined them because I believe in the power of the digital word of mouth. I joined them to learn and to teach what I have learned myself. I joined them because I believe in the power of interacting and sharing content.

Unfortunately most networks I know are loaded with copy/paste crap and advertising. The few quality articles posted are buried on most networks. Very few people take the time to comment or to share quality posts.

Unfortunately most site owners do not give a (^$& on what is posted. Everything is allowed on most networks and although the TOS  have rules on many those rules are not enforced on most of them. Unfortunately most social network owners only care about quantity, not quality.

Since few site owners monitor the content most of the networks are as I already stated full of crap. Sad thing is that newbies that join networks that see all the copy/paste articles, the groups full of copy/paste junk and postings of links without any info at all are getting a very bad example of social networking.

It is a shame really because proper social marketing where people interact and share each others content can be the world of difference for any business. For marketers like myself that make an effort to post articles that can help others to build their business it is very frustrating at times that people seldom bother to comment on my articles let alone share them. I keep posting them anyway because they enhance my profile and they are picked up well by search engines and of course I hope despite of the lack of comments that some people do read them and learn something.

As for APSense, I liked it better when it was moderated by admins (despite the fact the admins had no power to delete) and where people could earn credits for posting a comment. There was more interaction than. Despite the fact that there were many comments that did not add any value to the post, there were also some that did.

What I am about to say now probably won't make me popular but it is my honest opinion. On APSense and several other networks there are to few limitations on what free members can do. Like creating groups, posting articles, rev pages and posting links. I think if the number of postings was limited and there were some rules i.e. that each post must have a minimum of x characters to describe the advertised link would improve the quality of the content.

I also think that groups 'to advertise your opportunity' are not a good thing, especially not when you can submit "join program x today" with no info whats o ever why the poster is recommending the program. I believe that groups should be about support or sharing an other interest than advertising.

I really hope after reading this that some members will take the effort on posting some quality unique content and share the things they like and that some networks owners will think about how they can improve quality rather than quantity.

Let us all make an effort to make networks social again.