We all understand the value of social networks. They help us find jobs, apartments, even friends. Online social networks allow us to connect in the same way but geography is no longer an issue.

One of the most popular sites, Facebook, allows us to stay in touch with our friends, and find new ones, from all around the globe. Another example is LinkedIn, which helps us to discover jobs, business opportunities and get expert advice no matter where we are. Even online photo sharing sites, like Flickr, have groups based on specific interests. These kinds of sites allow us to focus on our interests and not on our location.

Enjoy this video from Commoncraft, Social Networking in Plain English, to get a better understanding of the benefits of online social networks.

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Remember Web2.0? I’m often asked what the difference between it and social media is. My usual reply is that Web2.0 is an evolution of the philosophy of how we build the web. The social media phenomenon, however, is an evolution of the philosophy of how we use the web. Neither can exist without the other and both require their respective practictioners to re-think, well, everything, actually.

Last month’s Mesh Conference in Toronto was all about re-thinking everything. The pre-conference MeshU was an opportunity to re-think the nuts and bolts of Web2.0 for those who actually build the tools and platforms that we social media types use everyday. As a recovering web developer, I was tempted to attend the MeshU sessions to get an html/css/php/mysql/apache geek fix. I managed to resist.

The main Mesh conference was two full days of talking about re-thinking things:

Ethan Kaplan talked candidly about how we (as consumers) and he (as the recording industry) have started to re-think how and why we purchase music, if at all.

Michael Geist led the conference attendees through examples of advocacy and activism online that force us (and policy-makers) to re-think our preconceptions about who has a voice in society.

StumbleUpon’s amazing story of rapid growth and lucrative aquistion, told by founder Garrett Camp, was fascinating, but the application itself requires us to re-think the concepts of sharing and social identity.

Lane Merrifield, founder of Club Penguin, successfully captured the imaginations, and attention, of hundreds of thousands of kids. To do that, he had to re-think the business model – one with no marketing and lots of free stuff.

The morning keynotes I’ve mentioned above weren’t the only opportunities to re-think a few things. The afternoon sessions, too many to list here, encouraged us re-think everything from privacy, reputation management, and communities to the spread of video, the future of the venerable ‘home page’, and building brands online.

If the “re-think a few things” theme that I’ve intentionally beaten to death here sounds familiar, you’ve probably seen Dr. Michael Wesch’s now year-old video, The Machine is Us/ing Us. (embedded below)

I happened to be reminded of the video just a few days after Mesh, and after watching it again for the first time in several months, I couldn’t help but feel that it did a nice job of representing what Mesh is – an opportunity for Canada’s best web-heads to get together and really re-think a few things.

For those of you who don’t know, Chris Anderson, author of the acclaimed book The Long Tail, is also the editor of Wired Magazine. Like so many journalists (and increasingly these days, bloggers) Chris is inundated with email pitches from PR folks, many of which are completely off target.

It got to the point where he decided to take a very public stand on the matter, writing this post on October 29th, 2007,

I’ve had it… Lazy flacks send press releases to the Editor in Chief of Wired because they can’t be bothered to find out who on my staff, if anyone, might actually be interested in what they’re pitching. So fair warning: I only want two kinds of email: those from people I know, and those from people who have taken the time to find out what I’m interested in and composed a note meant to appeal to that. Everything else gets banned on first abuse.

He then published, in their entirety, the email addresses of offenders from the previous month.

What have the consequences been? Well, the post generated a lot of discussion and garnered dozens and dozens of comments, negative and positive, some from former staffers lamenting the fact that, “Everyone in the world aims their spam guns at Wired and the volley is deafening.” The consequence for PR folk has been that it has become incredibly difficult to get placement in Wired; the pipeline just got a whole lot smaller, and fear of being banned has created a chill.

Since throwing whatever you’ve got against the wall and hoping some of it will stick is not longer an option, what are the other opportunities to get the attention of writers and editors at one of the most influential publications in the world?

How about letting them pull the content they want from you?

On April 18th, Wired’s Autopia section ran a story called “Econoboxes Come Roaring Back With Flair”, noting that,

The Ford Fiesta (photo after the jump), which has been kicking around Europe for more than 30 years, gets a redesign based on the Verve concept car. At long last, it will be coming to North American in 2010.

The article used assets, information and linked to the Ford Fiesta SMPR.

Since we can safely assume that the writers and editors of Autopia have figured out the whole RSS thing, they will be automatically notified of updates to the Fiesta SMPR, and that when something is of interest to them, they will run a story on it.

There are many ways of creating and sharing information on the web (like this blog, for example). The best part is that anyone can be a creator and share their interests and experiences from anywhere in the world. Podcasting is no different. In a nutshell, podcasting is TV or radio on the go.

If that explanation doesn’t clear it all up for you, check out another informative and entertaining Commoncraft video, Podcasting in Plain English.

It seems that all things on the internet now have a ’social’ aspect to them and bookmarking is no different. You might use a site like del.icio.us, ma.gnolia or Stumbleupon to keep your sites in order, either way they all share the same basic principles.

To learn how to get started and to make the most out of your social bookmarking skills check out the Commoncraft video below, Social Bookmarking in Plain English.