Call it social media, interactive media or simply a good way to waste time, websites aimed at connecting you with others and giving everyone a chance to speak up are the most popular properties on the internet.

According to Alexa, a company that tracks website visits, Facebook is second only to Google in frequency of use. Following them are YouTube, Wikipedia, Twitter and LinkedIn—if you have been on the internet for much time at all, you already know their names and have probably visited one or more of the major social media sites.

What about new social media sites, though?

Newcomers tend to crop up like weeds after a spring rain—but are they worth checking out, or are they just wannabes, trying to capture a piece of the pie? In order to help you through the maze, here is a categorized listing of some social media sites you may want to visit.

Speak Your Mind

Not counting the forerunners of online community—email and bulletin boards—the first wildly popular social media site in the speak-your-mind category was MySpace. It, in turn, gave way to the current heavyweight champion of the world, Facebook. Here are a few you may not (yet) have heard about though:

• Google + . . . if Facebook is the place to connect with your friends, G+ is the place to impress them. It’s like leaving the department store and taking a table at the bistro.
• Orkut . . . it’s a Google property, primarily visited by folks from Brazil, India and Japan. You can join communities, find old friends or make new ones, and generally get a more global perspective on life.
• Ning . . . a social site where you can make money. Members are able to form closed groups around special purposes. You might start a millionaire’s Ning network, for instance, (someone probably already has) where you charge a membership fee for instructing people on how to get rich. Ning, by the way, is Chinese for “peace.”

Other dedicated social media sites are Friendster, Bebo, MyLife, and Renren. There are plenty more. Facebook is not the only game in town.

Post and Pin

There is a fine line between talking and showing. G+ is an excellent example of that line being blurred. Some social media sites, though, are more inclined to specialize in the “show” part and downplay the “tell” part. Given the movement towards online brevity (Twitter, for example), these may be the next big wave:

• Delicious . . . a social bookmarking service, this site is the place to make note of the websites you like, categorize them and share them with the world. If you want, you can make your bookmarks private—that’s not the intention of Delicious, though. The idea is all about sharing and discovering.
• StumbleUpon . . . a discovery engine that helps users find websites of interest. You create a count, checkmark your interests and begin stumbling—every time you click the Stumble button, a new site is presented for your review.
• Pinterest . . . a relative newcomer to the game, this site is getting a bunch of attention. Users select interesting graphics and photos from their internet travels, then use a bookmarklet tool (provided) to pin the ones they like on their Pinterest virtual pinboard.

Other sites in this category are FriendFeed, Diigo, and Dzone.

News Sites

User-generated news clipping allows you to get a finger on the pulse of the people. A few of the most popular of these social media services are:

• Mashable . . . a giant. One of the largest websites in the world, it allows you to view categories of your choice, see what is trending on Twitter, Facebook and more, even search for jobs. If you haven’t been to Mashable, you ought to take the trip.
• Reddit . . . plenty of categories, from common to arcane, Reddit . . . styles itself the “front page of the internet.” Users vote on stories to move them up in position. It is a social phenomenon, and a goldmine for sociology majors.
• BuzzFeed . . . with a trendy magazine sort of feel, this site seeks to find out what is hot and who is talking. The aim is to provide realtime information about the next big story.

Other news sites are ShoutWire, NowPublic, and Digg.

Your turn to experiment

We’ve barely tapped the depth of the potential here, but I hope you get the point: If you have an interest, chances are there is a social media site that will not only cater to your desires—but would love to have you share what you know with others.

Don Sturgill (Roadturn) is the author of Dream Into It: The Roadmap to Freedom.  Roadturn’s topics are centered on Health, Spirit, the Environment and Entrepreneurship.