I’ve had 2 emails this week from people who I used to work with asking me to join Naymz – a new kind of professional social network. Always a little skeptical, my first thought when the lovely Joanna’s invite popped up was, uh oh, here’s another Quechup. And then Nik’s email popped up. So having not heard of Naymz, decided to do some investigation. (You’ll also note a Linked In invite which I happily accepted as I know Murray well and am comfortable with the Linked In networking thing).

Back to the search: I actually found the most relevant info and a heart-warming tale on Ben Poole’s blog who had signed up for Naymz and received nothing but spam. Not a great advert you’d think but track down to the comments.

There’s the co-founder of Naymz responding personally to the criticism. Not some flunky but the big man himself. And the conversation continues. And continues and each time he answers the criticism openly and honestly and points to content on the site to help answer. And the question I’m asking, “I’m on Linked In, why do I need another business social network?” is helpfully answered. A great example of listening to the interweb conversations and actively particpating. Certainly put a positive slant on my view of Naymz.

But despite this, I’m also a little worried of social network overload what with Linked In, Facebook, Twitter, IM, my Google Reader (inbox zero achieved again today!), my blog, the research/inspiration emails I sign up to and not forgetting my work email, hotmail and gmail accounts. Do I need another? Will I ever get anything done? Can I be bothered to ask all my friends for the 3rd time to be my friend/part of my plans for world domination (er, sorry, professional network)? Or can I afford not to manage my online reputation and am I already seduced by the desire to want a big shiny “10″ on my page?

I’ll mull it over. Be interested to know your view.