Are the Number of Social Networking Sites Making Your Head Spin?

Photo courtesy of Flickr user SideLong

While going through my RSS feed reading list on Google Reader tonight I came across a review on Mashable! for a new site called shouldi. (As in "Should I?")

The idea is pretty cool: submit a question and the public responds with advice. Check out Mashable's review if you want to know more about the site.

What this got me thinking about is how much we're inundated with all of these new social networking sites all offering their own special twist on connecting with other people around the world.

You've already got MySpace, Facebook, Yahoo! 360, Friendster and LinkedIn... oh and there's Digg, del.icio.us and StumbleUpon... Bebo, Jaiku, Twitter... you get the point.

What really hammered it all home for me is when I signed up for a MyBlogLog.com profile and there's a place to fill in your IDs for all of these different services for people to see what you're doing across all of these networks. This list contains over 30+ services that you could theoretically have accounts on all of them and somehow you're supposed to keep all of this straight.

My online world used to be simple. I set up a free Yahoo e-mail address and it was good enough for me. Friends would boast how great Hotmail was and I would tell them I was doing just fine with what I had.

Yahoo! 360 came out and since I already had a Yahoo ID, it made logical sense to set up a 360 profile. Friends would boast how great MySpace was, and I would tell them I was doing just fine with what I had.

Then the blog bug bit. Suddenly self-promotion became important and all the advice echoed the same message: you must have an account on all networks on the radar.

Now I have a Facebook profile and a LinkedIn profile, I've got friends writing on my wall and old co-workers looking for references. I've "dugg" more articles than I have dirt in my life, I've been "pownced" by more strangers than I care to admit, and I've been "flickd off" (if that's even a new 'hip' term) by more people's photos than when I used to do commercial photography.
What makes it so tough to keep up with is the fact there is a social networking service designed around every niche and interest out there it seems. Real estate agents have their own network, artists have theirs, athletes have one, librarians have theirs... the list goes on. Hell, there's so many that a Wikipedia entry had to be created just to keep up with the more notable ones.

Part of me wants to Twitter in all capital letters "ENOUGH! I BIT OFF MORE THAN I CAN CHEW!" but in the Web 2.0 world we now live in, I know better.

People had to learn to use the telephone, people had to learn how to send an e-mail, and I will learn how to keep up with all my gazillion online contacts across 50 social networking sites... eventually.