Have You Heard? 

You will find that most social networking websites come highly rated, but there are some out there that may not even be worth your time.  In addition to speaking with people that you know personally, you can also seek recommendations online by finding a number of websites that discuss social networking sites.  Many of these websites have reviewed a collection of social networking sites.  In addition to looking for networks for your personal interests, there are public interest websites like http://ww.businessandnetworking.co.uk that do not make profits from their website, but focus on using social networking to help businesses grow.

Have you heard about iTag?
Using your phone for social networking is the next advancement. This site will alert you when your friends are near and allow you to send your location to anyone. http://www.itag.com 

Have you heard about Chit Chat for Facebook?
Chit Chat is a free instant messenger that allows you to chat with all your Facebook contacts in real time with its unique, swift and easy to use tabbed message window interface. Chit Chat allows you to hold multiple conversations without multiple windows.

Accessing the popular Facebook community, over two-hundred million strong and still growing, Chit Chat removes the need to use a web-browser to communicate over Facebook Chat. Most importantly, Chit Chat makes it much easier to catch up with, as well as, make new friends.

The Chit Chat developers have taken a fresh perspective on building a user base from traditional instant messengers, bringing its instant messenger to the web 2.0 environment of Facebook where friends are already connected.

"Users simply use their existing Facebook friends list and don't have any need to create or maintain a new contacts list," said Daniel Offer, Chit Chat co-founder. "Chit Chat is a great new way for friends to stay connected."

Chit Chat for Facebook is available for download from http://www.chitchat.org.uk

Although it is nice to receive recommendations from those that you know the rule of thumb is to review each one carefully to see if it meets your expectations.  With social networking websites, its location, location, location.