Why I Love Social Networking

As many of you know I'm an early adopter of new technologies and always seem to sign up for the newest social networking site. I've had a twitter account for a couple of years now, and for the first year or so I was wondering why. But then Twitter just took off this year (duh) and the social networking world is now my pearl filled oyster.

Last week I attended Salesforce.com's annual users conference, Dreamforce. Twitter was a big theme there. Twitter integration for Salesforce, Twitter list to follow your fellow admins, Twitter hashtag to see your name on the screen during the keynotes, Tweetups, and a live Twitter feed in the developer lounge. I was in Twitter heaven.

But then on Saturday I realized why I love Social Networking oh so much.

Saturday morning Chris and I decided to treat ourselves to a late breakfast at Luna Park Cafe and then a shopping trip in the junction. While we were driving home I decided to check my twitter feed.

I noticed right way that a few of the folks I follow (mainly West Seattle Blog) had mentioned that a pod of Orcas were heading towards West Seattle. Neither Chris or I had ever seen Orcas in the wild.

Of course I've seen Shamu before, but I couldn't imagine that was the same.

We ran home, grabbed Jet and the binoculars and went down to Lincoln Park. The entire time I was checking a twitter feed search for Orcas and followed their progress from Alki towards us. After about 45 minutes of watching for them we were starting to get very cold and wet (yes, raining in Seattle, big surprise) and we were about ready to give up when all of a sudden Chris spotted them. We spent the next hour or so watching the chase dolphins around and dodge the ferries. It was amazing. And we were there, because of Social Networking.

The best part was, every person that walked by us said something along the lines of "Have you seen the Orcas? We heard they were down here on (insert Twitter, Facebook, West Seattle Blog).

I love Social Networking.