The top hot social networking sites

Facebook (175 million members)

Since email and coffee dates are far too complicated, Facebook is now the way to keep in touch with people in a 15km radius. Downside: you will now see the intimate thoughts and family photos of people you've been avoiding. Facebook has many distractions like saving rainforests with pretend gardens, imaginary lollipops to "suck", and quizzes on which woman you were in a past life. While the rest of the world considers the Global Credit Crisis the big issue, for Facebook's millions of users it is the new layout; 1,261,803 users voted against it, 82,670 in favour. Facebook isn't a democracy, so the upgrade stays.

Bebo (40 million members)

See Facebook - but younger with better layout. Psychological torture and bullying for the 21st century. Cell-cam footage of kids beating each other up, forum for controlling mothers to impersonate kids and bully classmates of their darlings. Who's cool and who's not. We love Miley!

MySpace (estd 100 million members )

Best if you're under 25, mainly so you can understand it. Lots of, like, kewl polls, music sampling, news, forums and middle-aged men posing as teenagers.

Flickr (44 million visitors a month)

Hey look at me. Or this insect. Or my Labrador. Flickr has more than eight billion images, and a significant number of these are dogs. You get to comment on people's photos and videos: Cool pic', or ur beautiful'. Spelling is optional - awrsum. Images must be categorised. You might want the world to see your nipples, but people in Germany and Singapore can't. There are chatrooms but these are distracting if you're looking for pictures of dogs, insects or breasts.

LinkedIn (estd 35 million members) and Plaxo (est 20 million members)

Imagine getting trapped in a large Toastmasters or Rotary event where everyone wanted to sell you something. This is business networking. None of this pirates, dogs and breasts nonsense: Where do you work? Who do you know? Social Credit would have thrived.

Cafemom (1 million members )

Desperate Housewives meets Facebook. Controversies over tanning and school lunches.

Blogs (estd 200 million)

Diaries were personal and to improve the writer's inner life; blogging improves other people's lives by talking at them. As you read this significant numbers of New Zealanders are being improved by entering the inner lives, triumphs and disappointments of blog superstars such as Russell Brown and David Farrar.

Yammer ( 20,000 companies)

Work Twitter with businesses as the users - supposed to keep email boxes empty by filling up your phone. Find out what Mandy in Accounts is having for lunch.