Social network sites such as Facebook and MySpace have emerged as a new medium of communication that is both immensely popular and incredibly useful for our day-to-day modern lifestyles.  Unsurprisingly, there are a number of sites promoted directly at Freemasons that are attempting to ride this wave of popularity for social networks.  Some of these have proven to be more successful than others, and I will be giving an overview of four of the more predominant ones and providing you with my initial impressions and thoughts.

  Before we get into looking at these sites, however, let us have a quick overview of some of the possible benefits that such networks might provide brethren.  Firstly, and most obviously, is that they can be a wonderful way to network.  Brethren from all over the globe can come together and share their mutual interest in Freemasonry in an environment that promotes such interest and hopefully keeps out unwanted negative attention - a problem that some of the groups on Facebook, for example, have to deal with on a very regular basis.  Secondly, they can be a wonderful way to share our views, articles, photos, videos in an environment where we know that others will appreciate them.  The manner in which these sites work, with new updates being highlighted to members (and sometimes non-members as well), means that we can keep up to date with current Masonic works and news.   This aspect means that each individual Freemason has more of an opportunity to have their voice heard than ever before; which is definitely a positive that should not be under-estimated, and particularly so for a democratic, egalitarian, fraternity such as ours.

  Those are just two ways that such sites can have a positive impact on our fraternity as a whole, and there are many more that are well worth discussing (feel free to leave some comments or let us know on our forums!).  However, what I wanted to do with this post was introduce you to some sites in particular.  We'll have a look at their strengths, their weaknesses (apologies to the site admins, but 21st Century Freemason does pride itself on being completely open and honest about our opinions!), and give you some links so that you can check them out yourselves.  So, without further ado...

Masonic Planet (www.masonicplanet.com)

  Unfortunately, I'm going to start with a site that I was actually rather underwhelmed with.  To give it fair dues, the site does advertise itself as in 'beta' so hopefully many of these issues will be resolved in the future.  To begin with though, this site does seem to be the most well-populated of the Masonic social networks; with over 1400 members at the time of writing.  However, even through a quick glance at some of the publicly available usernames makes it clear that this site has a problem with spam-accounts.  This problem extends into other elements of the site, such as the members blogs, which have some noticeable spam posts predominately displayed. 

  It seems that this site started out with the best of intentions, and the early posts from 2008 seem to indicate as such - but the problem is that there seems to be little Masonic activity on the site now.  A quick look at the articles section, for example, shows us that all the updates for the past year have been about random celebrity news.  The site has a lot of members, and indeed the majority of them are probably legitimate, but it is so over-run with irrelevant or spam material that anything good gets lost in the very muddy waters.  Indeed, for all intents and purposes this site seems to have had no significant Masonic content added to it for about 8 months or so...and to be perfectly honest, because of this I didn't even bother signing up an account.

MyMasonry (mymasonry.ning.com)

  Moving on quickly then, we come to what I believe is one of the newest Masonic social networks - MyMasonry.  MyMasonry uses the Ning platform, which is a freely available web-development platform designed specifically for the creation of social network sites.  The Ning platform allows you to become member of a number of different 'social networks' through the same user account in a very similar way to how Facebook has groups really.  If we look at it in this manner, Ning is really like an extension of the groups on Facebook - giving them much more customisation capability and general utility.  If you think of MyMasonry as a Facebook group with more of a focus on collective discussion and sharing (like a group) then the individual profiles you won't be too far off the mark. 

  In this manner, the site seems to be working very well.  The design, although generic, is clean and easy to navigate; there are no signs of spam anywhere; and the site has at this moment 381 members and seems to be growing at a steady rate.  Indeed, for those who are familiar with Ning, there are a number of Masonic social networks that have been created through the site - but MyMasonry certainly seems to be the best, and is definitely the most populated.  Overall, a great use of the platform but it does inherit many of its disadvantages.  One of the main disadvantages that I can see, although this may not be as much of an issue for others, is that a news feed of the networks activity is publicly available for anybody who visits the site (even non-members).  This means that who joins, the friend connections made, and the photos you add etc. are all public knowledge.  Think of it as basically having your Facebook news feed being broadcast out to anybody who wishes to see it.  

Three Knocks (www.threeknocks.com)

  This issue with MyMasonry brings us nicely to our next two Masonic social networks, which both operate on a different model in that they require one to be accepted as a member by the admins or invited by someone who is already a member and can thus vouch for them.  In a way, although not literally for various reasons, they are tyled Masonic social networks.  As you might imagine, this brings with it a very different feel and atmosphere.  Three Knocks is the first of these sites that I was able to gain access to, and also has the smallest membership of the four sites highlighted here.  Clocking in at 114 members as of this moment, the site actually has quite a nice intimate feel.  The immediate thing that members will notice upon joining is that the site is predominately populated by French-speaking members.  The second thing that you will notice is that even though this site is considered tyled, there are quite a few female members.  There is a simple reason for this, and that is because Three Knocks allows Freemasons of all jurisdictions and lineages to join.  This is in direct contrast to the next site that I am going to look at, although the two are very similar in all other regards.  Three Knocks offers a more familiar interface to those who use Facebook and we are now in very much traditional social network territory.  Groups, photo/video albums, personal blogs, profile walls, discussion forums - all of these are present and can be added to or created by each member. 

  Unlike the two previous sites, Three Knocks is a distinctly members-only network and all aspects of it are closed to non-members who will only see a sparse log in screen with a note on how to petition for membership.  Alternatively, each member receives two invitations upon being accepted, so you can join if you know somebody else who is a member.  Overall, the site is very impressive and seems to have a diverse collection of Freemasons as members.  You might need to make a judgment call on the different jurisdictions if that is an issue for you, as many 'regular' Freemasons will consider other members of this site to be 'irregular'.  Personally, I feel that this decision is to be commended.  The site allows all those who have experienced what Freemasonry has to offer to come together and share our thoughts, no matter where or with whom exactly they had those experiences.  One particular issue with the site does arise from its French membership-base, in that much of the material is in French and indeed some of the automatic email notices I've received have been in French as well.  But you may just think that this adds to the atmosphere of it all!

Masonic Network (www.masonicnetwork.org)

  The second of the two 'tyled' Masonic social networks of the four, and certainly the one with the most content and members (legitimate and active members that is!), Masonic Network is basically everything you would expect a 'Facebook for Freemasons' to be.  The similarities to Three Knocks are very evident, and the two sites are quite obviously based upon the same infrastructure.  So, as far as utilities are concerned the two are basically identical.  However, Masonic Network does pull ahead with a slightly more clean and bug-free interface and a generally more aesthetically pleasing colour scheme and design.  Where it differs from Three Knocks are in two main areas.  The first and most obvious one is that the user-base is predominately English speaking, and they currently have 695 members, so there is a lot more content on the site and almost all of it is in English.  Secondly, and this is where the two will veer off culturally over time, Masonic Network only accepts what they consider to be regular Freemasons - which basically means UGLE affiliated jurisdictions.  Again, whether this is a positive or a negative I am going to leave up to you; but it is this difference between the two sites that is going to bring with it the biggest cultural divide over time. 

  Another benefit of Masonic Network is the marketplace, which is a nice way for brethren to sell or swap items with one another and it seems that they are for the most part reasonably priced.  One difference between Masonic Network and Three Knocks that should also be noted is that Masonic Network is the only one of the two to attempt to monetise their 'tyled' social network.  Google Ads and a prominent Donate button are an aspect of the site that is probably one of the first things that many who would wish to start such a network might consider.  This is by no means a negative thing, particularly because the site will of course require upkeep costs in the form of domain and hosting fees, however it is a difference worth noting.  Three Knocks, at this point in time anyway, has no such money-making aspects to it.   

  Basically, between the last two sites listed here there is little need for any other Masonic social networks - at least not any based on easily available CMS infrastructure.  I recommend that any brethren reading this who are interested in the cutting-edge of Freemasonry check them both out (and indeed MyMasonry as well as there are some interesting things on there) - if you do not mind joining a site that allows Freemasons of all kinds then do sign up to Three Knocks and have a look.  All it will require is that you answer some basic questions that you will be familiar with (that is, if you do not already know a member).  Masonic Network just asks you to send your lodge details and they claim to then follow that up by checking that you are actually a member of said lodge.  If you were only going to join one, and you are an English speaking brethren, I would have to recommend Masonic Network over the others; simply because it provides you with exactly what you will be expecting.  But that is not to discredit Three Knocks or MyMasonry at all, because I believe that both of them are very good sites and commend those responsible for them as well.  For anybody who has used Facebook and thought that Freemasonry could make good use of such a platform, there are now at Masonic versions out there that deserve your attention - if only for curiosities sake!  

  If anybody knows of any other sites then please do leave a comment about them here or on our forums.  I'm interested in looking at any other examples that are out there, if only for completeness sake.  In the next series of our Freemasonry 2.0 blog posts I will be turning our eye to Freemasonry on Twitter, and in conjunction with this canvassing some of the more active and popular Masonic blogs that are out there...