Expat 2.0; Social Networking for Expats

It used to be that being transferred to Korea or coming here to teach English, although adventurous, also meant hardship and cultural alienation. Now that Korea’s one of the most wired countries in the world (last I heard it got knocked off the top spot) and pretty much any creature comfort you could think of can be found at costco, department stores, or ebay, the lifestyle you lived back home may not be so different from your lifestyle here. Still, staying connected with family and friends from the homeland is a challenge, but there are certain Internet companies and websites out there that are blurring even these lines, and I’ve created the following list of social networking sites that ease the life of an expat.

1. Skype takes the #1 spot on this list because of how incredibly convenient it makes keeping in touch with family and friends ‘back home.’ Whatever else I say about the virtues of keeping in touch with people via the rest of the sites on this list, this is the only one that lets my Aunt, who knows nothing about computers, pick up the phone, call a local phone number in the US, and reach me on my cell here in Seoul. No other services that I know about are so convenient that you don’t even have to use a computer to utilize them.

2 Facebook/Myspace When I first looked at Facebook I was very skeptical. It didn’t allow for much visual customization of my profile, unlike MySpace. “Where’s the personality???” I thought to myself. However, after a few months, that simplicity and purposeful execution of the site is what kept bringing me back. Soon I stopped going to MySpace altogether out of frustration for how slow it took pages to load due to the image and audio-heavy profiles. My marriage with Facebook is a rocky one though, as their automated security features is very glitchy, so I’ve been banned from posting events because of… well, no one will tell me why. They just say that I violated one of their rules so I am on a probationary period, the length of which they will not inform me of and if I again attempt to do the thing which they won’t tell me that I did, I will be banned from Facebook for good. An added benefit of Facebook is how it’s currently being used to meet other expats in Korea. I’d say it’s the #1 place to go these days to find something to do.

3 LinkedIn Okay, here’s the thing: I love the POTENTIAL of LinkedIn. But LinkedIn’s just not. quite. there. Right now it seems like everyone on there is seeking out something, and not enough people are on LinkedIn just to offer something. When I log in, I feel like the first time I went to one of those EUCC Network Nights. At first I was dazzled by the impressive business cards in the room and all the great new contacts I was making, but after a few times I realized that everyone there is there for the same reason: to get something out of it (usually the person that’s going to hand them their dream job on a silver platter). Now, I fully believe that people can network and connect for mutual benefit, but it takes a little bit different attitude than just being a ‘taker.’ You’ve got to make a mental shift and try to become, first and foremost, a ‘giver.’ I’m still deciding how/if I will continue to use LinkedIn.

4 Your favorite Korea blog probably uses Flickr and you don’t even realize it. It’s quickly becoming THE place for image hosting, and makes it easy to share pics of your life in Korea with friends around the world. You don’t even need to have your own blog to get use out of Flickr. FYI: The Seoul Photo Club operates exclusively around it’s Flickr group site.

5 Wordpress I’m obliged to mention wordpress, as it’s the platform we have run SeoulSteves off of since the beginning. Wordpress is great for people interested in starting a website or blog for a number of reasons. At it’s most basic, anyone coming her to teach English can set up a free account on wordpress.org and have a blog in minutes, so that friends and family can follow their adventures abroad. SeoulSteves pushes the envelope a bit by using as more of a hybrid CMS (content Management System). Regardless, it’s flexibility is undeniable.

Honorable Mentions:

Twitter
Twitter was the inspiration for this post (follow me!), though I haven’t used it long enough to really write anything in depth about it. I signed up for Twitter a long time ago, but after playing around on the very limited website for a while, I lost interest pretty quickly and never came back to it. Until last week. After reading my favorite blog authors rave about it over and over, I resolved to sit down and figure out what all the hype is about (youtube vid). Well, it’s true that you need to do a little research and find some good third-party programs to get the most out of it, but the thing is, Twitter could be a huge boon for expats in Korea. It could, in fact, be the next eslcafe.com, except better because you choose who you want to listen to and have conversations with.

Cyworld/NateOn/Naver
I’ve heard people say Cyworld is good for making Korean friends, and when I was here as a graduate student in 2005 I took a crack at it, but I just couldn’t get into it. I don’t really know why, so I don’t want to hate on them too much, it’s just really not my thing. Still, the two services work out well for a lot of expats, especially those with some Korean language skills. If you’re on NateOn and Naver, though, you can find a lot of community activities to take part in. I’ve gone to art performances, wine tastings, whiskey tastings (like, REALLY good whiskey), and gourmet restaurants, all with discounts, all discovered through cafes on Naver. It’s also not hard to sign up on Naver as a foreigner, but there’s not a lot to do once you’re in if you don’t know some Korean.

Something so Cool I don’t even know about it yet.
So what’s the next big thing? There are a lot of sites out there just for making your own social networks. Maybe someone out there will make one just for expats in Korea. Certain google products are showing promise, and I hear people talk about this thing called Squidoo, but I just don’t get it. But at the same time I have said the same thing about Skype, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, and Wordpress at some point, and now I use them all frequently.

Surprising site I’m not too fond of:

YouTube. That’s right, I said it. YouTube kinda sucks, at least from the perspective of someone that has made videos for uploading to the Internet before. Viddler, on the other hand, is awesome. If you’ve ever made your own videos and put them online, don’t even bother with Youtube. Viddler vids have higher quality video and you can even customize the logo and player. The only reason YouTube is popular because it was the first of it’s kind. But mark my words, change is in the works. Sites like VideoSift and FunnyorDie have already started to steal some of the thunder from the perspective of the video consumer, and Viddler is hands down the best option for video producers. Whomever can tie the two together first is going to win all the marbles. Right now YouTube’s running on fumes. The only reason for it’s continued popularity is that it’s simply the site that everyone knows about for the time being.

(cross-posted at SeoulSteves.com)