Social sites for teens, others

A nice service for students and parents: The Fort Worth Star-Telegram's "Whatever Staff" of teens reviewed seven teen-targeting social sites: Bebo, Sconex, StudyBreakers, Tagged, Yfly, YouBlab, and YouthNoise. Only one, Tagged, did they consider better than MySpace (with some, the problem, they found, is that they're too small – social sites need critical mass, so it'd be hard to persuade their friends to join them). Admirably, they did single out YouthNoise, "a social network for social change" founded by Save the Children. Here's what they said: "This site is not better than MySpace, but it offers different things than MySpace. We liked that, instead of pictures and comments, this site encourages ideas and discussion." Meanwhile, another batch of press releases about "niche" social networks this week – Thoos.com for outdoor athletes (they mean runners, paragliders, cyclists, hikers, etc.; GayLooking.com for gay social networking and dating; G2Bay.com, "where people help each other make and save money" (out of Mumbai, India); and SportsDigger.com, connecting "sports fans, teams, and athletes.