Well, here I am at WebJunction Minnesota. I'm not sure what to say about this site. Like LinkedIn, it's something that's purely professional for me . . . and like LinkedIn, I suspect that means I'm going to forget to visit it after a while. Social networking--or in this case, professional networking--is just more attractive when you've met the people you're networking with. With WJMN, I suspect the only people I know are the coworker and former coworker that I've gone through the 23 Things programs with, and by now, we're connected on all sorts of websites.
I like the idea of a site specifically for library networking, but I think WJMN needs some time to mature. I glanced over the classes. This is a good idea for letting people know what's available, and ditto for the calendar. However, the website itself could do with a redesign. Overall, the design seemed scattered and I found it difficult to focus on any one section. The Quick Links are "below the fold" and it took me multiple visits to the page before I saw them, and through them, finally found where the groups were listed. After all that, I did join a group: on Library 2.0, of course. I see that you can read group discussions without necessarily joining the group. I like this, as I have a tendency to lurk on groups, and this way, I won't be building up a long list of groups I joined because I found one discussion months ago to be interesting.
At this point, it's probably the courses that set WJMN apart from all the other networking sites out there. Discussions, contacts--those could be found on other sites, including LinkedIn and Ning. Perhaps as more people join WJMN, they'll expand their features, much as these other social networking sites have done.
