Building relationships is often discussed when it comes to Social Media. Lately, I have been struggling finding a balance with some relationships both private and professional. Sometimes, I’ll admit, its me, and yet sometimes, its the other party. The keyword here is balance and its a skill that I submit needs to be practiced.

Are you treating your friendships and relationships as a service contract that comes with an Early Termination Fee? Believe me, sometimes I wish I could! Alas that would be counterproductive don’t you think? The agreements we make with most service companies that have early termination clauses usually goes sour when the service becomes less of a service and more of a hassle. Are you providing value and service to your friends and clients? Performance may be another issue and ‘shiny new gadget’ syndrome may one as well.

So how does this translate into Social Media? There’s always new Social Media tools being launched. How we use these tools is really the question. As we interact with one another, do we give it our all or are we willy nilly in those relationships. Fair Weather Johnsons?

A percentage of the people you meet online and offline might not have Twitter accounts, but just because they’re not on Twitter doesn’t mean they haven’t heard of these eight micro-blogging websites that look and “feel” like Twitter. It’s like this: your friend might not have a Twitter account, but he could be an active Plurker.

It’s a no-brainer that a lot of people are hooked on Twitter, but these eight websites are getting the spotlight due to their amazing features. It won’t be long before people hear about these websites too. Remember when Myspace was the in-thing until people found out about Facebook? Hey, it could happen again.

Facebook — Who hasn’t heard of Facebook? About 300 million people around the globe have Facebook accounts and 120 million people from that group are active users; hence, it’s easy to be seen and heard on this site. The social networking site boasts a Twitter-like micro-blogging tool that allows more than 140 characters, commonly referred to as Status Updates. Like Twitter, you can post a phrase or quote, a photo, a link, or a video, which your friends will be able to see, and just like the famed micro-blogging site, you can update your page through your mobile phone.

Unlike Twitter; however, micro-blogging or posting daily messages isn’t the only way to get friends. You can build Facebook pages, make a group about a certain cause, or if you are into more technical activities, you can build an application. The chances of going viral are easier compared to Twitter.

Tumblr — Tumblr looks pretty much like Twitter due to the speech bubble interface, but it gives you freedom to post not just links, videos, and photos, you can attach audio files as well, making Tumblr an optional location to post your podcasts. On Tumblr, you can “Like” a certain post made by your friend—this function makes it easier for you to track what kind of information is favored by your followers. Another helpful function is the “Re-blog” option which makes it easier for users to repost their blog for the day onto another tumble-log.

Plurk – If you’re into an organized form of micro-blogging, Plurk is one of the most famous social media websites that makes use of a timeline interface. Plurk can be connected with other social networking sites such as Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, Friendster and Multiply, and will automatically update these websites whenever you post something new on your Plurk. Plurk, like Twitter, allows 140 characters for each post. If you would like to post a video or a photo, simply type in the link of the photo and Plurk will automatically change them into thumbnails. The use of Karma points is a unique feature found on Plurk—whenever you update your profile, add and invite friends, and simply, interact with other Plurkers, you gain more Karma points. These Karma points can be used for using emoticons within Plurk—another feature not found on Twitter.

Jaiku — If you’re into microblogging but don’t want the world to see what you’ve been up to lately, Jaiku gives you the option to either set your profile to private or to let other people see your stream. On Jaiku, you can also set an icon accompanying your post—if you can’t say it, show it. Jaiku’s features are somewhat similar to Twitter, so it might seem it isn’t much of a threat to the other website; however, Jaiku has been attracting millions of people who just can’t stand the little blue bird.

Glue — Glued to a certain TV show, movie, or song, music album, band or basically just anything worth getting glued to? Glue is a place where you can tell people whether you “Like” or “Dislike” a certain movie, song, album, or anything that has been getting a lot of press coverage. Glue helps in keeping you track of what’s hip and what’s hot on the internet.

GupShup — Love “tweeting” through your mobile phone? A new SMS-based social networking service is giving you the chance to shout out whatever you have in your head straight to all your friends’ mobile phones for FREE—but, you will have to be in India to utilize this function. Gupshup is a famous micro-blogging, social networking site in India that lets users share their thoughts using their cell-phones without any cost. Users may also opt to send their quotes to the website, but the SMS method is highly preferred by users.

Hictu — Anything to declare?—that’s the tagline of this invitation-only website. Although the Hictuans might not outnumber the Twitter legion due to this restricted feature, Hictu is actually getting a lot of members thanks to user-sent invites and its tempting features. Hictu is a microblogging service that not only lets you post quotes and statements, you can also stream audio, videos, and photos on your very own micro-blog.

Ping.fm — If you spend majority of your time blogging, surfing the internet, and trying out apps on your favorite social networking sites, you are officially a social network addict—and as a social network addict, Ping.fm is one of the best social networking tools for you. Ping.fm lets you link to the most famous social networks on the internet and whenever you are in the mood for a little updating, simply update your Ping account and the magical elves behind Ping.fm updates your social networks automatically. How convenient is that?

Next time you hear the phrase, “No, I don’t Tweet,” why don’t you try asking if they have accounts in these 8 powerful micro-blogging websites that might, emphasis on the MIGHT, overshadow Twitter because of their versatility and wide range of features that Twitter does not have.