How To Keep In Touch With Geeks

You've got an elusive geek friend or family member that just isn't the best at returning your calls, or sending you emails even though you sent them(and ten of your friends) that really cute story about the puppy, or the student who challenged his professor and won. You know that they keep in touch with others regularly, but if the phone or email don't work for you, what other options are there in the electronic world?

Instant Messengers: These have been around for a while now and are a pretty tried and true method of keeping in touch online. There are a lot of different services out there, so if there's one geek in particular you're trying to keep in touch with, you'll need to be on the same services as them, and you'll need their username as well. Chances are pretty good that they use multiple services(to help them keep in touch with all their friends on different services), but there are a number of instant messengers out their that will handle multiple services at the same time with a little legwork. Different services include Yahoo!, MSN, AIM, GoogleTalk, and others. Each will have their own messenger to access their own service, but if you are feeling daring you can try one of the applications that works with multiple services such as Pidgin or Trillian.

Social Networks: There are plenty out there to choose from, but the trick is being on the same one as the person you care about. There is a bit of a caveat here for parents: if your kids aren't out of college yet, it's probably best for both you and them if you do not have access to their Facebook or MySpace page. Either you will find something that will cause you a great amount of concern for no real reason, or they will make sure that you don't see everything. It really depends on what site they are on, and how they use it. There's also a fair chance that your kids with either reject your friend request(doesn't mean they don't like you, they just don't want you reading anything on their page), or they will all but abandon that account and not tell you about it. If that happens, don't try and fight it on electronic battlegrounds, your kids will win. Talk it out, especially if they are still under your own roof. Now, for all those people to whom the caveat does not apply: each of the different social networks have their own quirks and charm. Twitter is a popular one, and basically just a list of blurbs(or tweets) about what's going on. You won't find a whole lot of depth there, but it can be nice to know what's new. Facebook is another popular choice, but for someone starting off, it can be rather intimidating. There is a lot that Facebook can do, and with their layout changing frequently, it's easy to get lost if you don't know what you're looking for. The good news is that it does do a lot for you. Any updates that your friends and family on Facebook make are brought right to you. If you don't want to read their results on the latest internet quiz, you can easily tell Facebook to stop showing you those kinds of updates. Their are plenty others out there but for the sake of brevity(ha!) we'll move on at this point.

Blogs: In comparison to the social networks, these are very simple to navigate. These are basically public journals. Services vary greatly in how they can restrict viewing, but they all serve the purpose of logging thoughts quite well. These can be considered to be social networks as well, but the focus here is heavily on writing. Parents, listen up: depending on the service your child uses, they might be more willing to share their blog with you than their Facebook page. Many allow you to keep some thoughts private or limited to certain people, and leave the rest available for the public. Even if you don't plan on writing your own blog, their are advantages to signing up for an account. For example, if someone has made their blog viewable to only their friends, you will have to have an account so that they can identify you as a friend, otherwise the site will just assume that you are a part of the "public" and not show you anything. Popular blog sites include Livejournal, Blogger, and Vox.

Something else to be aware about when exploring these different avenues of communication is the difference between public and private messages. The social networks allow both, so be careful on how you reach out the someone. Sending a private message that's meant to be public will be a slightly embarrassing mistake, but a public message that's meant to be private can be much more embarrassing. If it says "send a message to:" odds are good that it's a private message, but if it says "comment" or "post to" there's a good chance it's public.