By Shari Phiel
Berthoud Recorder

I seem to remember something about computers someday making our lives easier. Well personally, I’m still waiting. First I had to learn how to use all the applications needed to make my life easier. Once that was done, I was sure I was on my way. That’s when I discovered an evil group of people called “hackers,” made up of mostly post-adolescent males, were determined to make my life hell by infecting my poor, innocent home computer with nasty-sounding viruses, worms and bugs.

Following several days spent cleaning my hard drive, multiple calls to technical support and eventually erasing and reinstalling the operating system, I was back on track. Now I’ve mastered the art of configuring my wireless router with some form of encrypted protection, turned on the firewall, set up multiple, concurrent applications for virus and spyware detection, and it was going to smooth sailing from here. Right?

Then came the Internet. Oh sure, at first it was all just fun and games — a little looking up movie times here, a little online shopping there, maybe even the occasional game room visit. Now more than a decade later, I feel as if I’m tethered to my laptop nearly every minute of the day. I rarely leave the house without it. I haul it with me on vacations, weekend trips to the mountains, even Sunday mornings at my favorite coffee shop for a get together with the girls is an opportunity to check e-mails or get some work done. But still, I thought I had it all under control. That is, until someone had the bright idea to start a social networking site.

There are hundreds of them, including general sites like Facebook and MySpace, professional network sites like LinkedIn, specialty sites like MyChurch or CafeMom and the most recent super success, Twitter. What was once the domain of teenagers and computer geeks is now a mainstream, across-the-board necessity for Internet users.

In a recent study released by The Nielsen Company, the same company providing TV ratings since 1950, social networking has been “the global consumer phenomenon of 2008.” The study goes on to say, “Two-thirds of the world’s Internet population visit a social network or blogging site and the sector now accounts for almost 10 percent of all Internet time.”

That’s a lot of people spending a whole lot of time visiting sites for more than just news, sports, shopping and games. In fact, social networking and blogging sites are the fourth most popular activity on the Internet. And all of this traffic is changing not only how we interact with each other but is also changing how businesses market themselves, operate their businesses, and interact with their customers.

Most businesses have some form of a Web presence, but a Web site alone is no longer sufficient. More and more businesses are using those same social networking sites to promote the products and services. Facebook and MySpace are being used for far more than seeing the latest pictures posted by friends and family; and Twitter’s micro-blogging site, which has been a hyperspace wonderland for news media, is now becoming more and more popular with businesses looking to promote sales and new products. 
 
Finding time to manage all of these various sources can be challenging, especially for small business owners. Personally, I’ve found there are just not enough hours in the day to manage my personal blog, Web site, Facebook page, tweets (Twitter messages) while also maintaining many of those same sources for the Berthoud Recorder.
 
What I’m finding is that, like so many things, it’s all about balance. I’ve had to accept that I cannot spend 40 hours a week, nor hire someone else to do so, to maintain all of these various sources and sites. This means I have to carefully pick and choose which sites to work on, develop a rotating schedule, and chose what information is most important to spend time on.

One week I may spend more time commenting on other sites and blogs, the next posting updates and sending tweets and then the next creating slideshows and videos to post.

It’s all about finding the best return on one of the most import investments anyone can make — the investment of time. At least now I finally have a handle on it — well, at least until the next big change comes along.