Social Networking is something big, huge, that made a big impact on our daily lives and makes a huge part of our daily routine. It is a place where you interact and meet people over the web. Social Networking has the ability of interacting with people not only your friends but also people you don't know on-line, sharing with other people your details, date of birth, name, surname, age. This is a structure made of nodes tied together by interdependency like friendship, relationships, common interests, beliefs and more.
This goes way back in time round 1978 were BBS standing for Bulletin Board Systems were being used. These use to exchange data over phone line. Later in 1994 Geocities was founded, Geocities was the first social network sites to be created. 3 years later there was sixdegrees another type of social network that allows people to create their own profile and have friends just listed. In the 20th century different types of social networks were created. Friendster which was created in 2002 was another social network which allow people to contact other members. It was also used for dating, discovering new events, bands and hobbies. This was mostly popular in South-east Asia. A year later there was Myspace and hi5 and the biggest change was in 2004 where Facebook was created. Originally Facebook was created by Harvard students, they used it so that Harvard college students could connect with each other. However this was expanded into other colleges in Boston area, Ivy League and Stanford University and added support for student to other universities and later to anyone who's age was above 13. Although as seen on several reports that are around 7.5 million who violated this term and accessed Facebook under the age of 13. In January 2009 this was ranked as the most used social network service. In the mean time twitter was launched and now that we are in 2011 Google+ will soon be open for public as it is still undergoing some tests.
I remember using IRC years ago. This was based on internet text messaging known as chatting designed for group communications each group was called a channel and if for example you wanted to join a chat with Maltese people you type #Malta. That was a different type of social network type. Modern social networks offer sharing of pictures, videos, tagging other people and more. Nowadays I remember a few months ago there was a tremor in Malta I confirmed it by seeing people posting on Facebook. Things spread faster on Facebook then on local news.
As I said before Facebook was launched in 2004. As seen by latest statistics by 2011 around 750 million users are active on Facebook. Users first register an account. Users have to declare themselves as being older than 12 years old. Then they can set their personal account having a profile and add friends, exchange messages, tagging and much much more. Workplaces and collages can be organized and one can join that group. Mark Zucherberg founded facebook together with his room-mates and some other computer students. Facebook recently also introduced video chat which is based on Skype technology. Video chat is only limited to a number of users but in the future it will be open for everyone.
In my opinion Facebook was what made an explosion to social networking.Seven years ago I use to make use of Hi5 but when I migrated my stuff Facebook around 4 years ago it was a huge impact and big difference. I remember there where days when I had to log on Facebook every single day. I also think that Facebook made a big hit because people are very nosey sometimes and want to know what's happening in everyday's people lives and with Facebook one can get to know what's happening as if someone went in a relationship people change their statues if they broke up its another statues change, if they are having a massive party they post it on their wall every single thing that they do, people post it on their wall. Nowadays companies, businesses and organization no matter the size are using Facebook as publicity and advertisement about their company.
Google +
A few months ago Google+ emerged. This is another social network that is already evolving amongst people. Till know already around 10Million users are G+ users. Google+ didn't automatically let anyone join in, people needed an invite to be able to join Google+ and it wasn't open for people all the time. So each time Google+ opens a number of people join in. Google+ is known for hangouts, sparks and Circles.
- Circles - These are like groups which allow you to group people according to your preferences. Like you can have a circle or friends, a circle of enemies, a circle or work mates and another one of families. Circles allow you to post things which can either be viewed by everyone or else you can specify the circle you want to share it with. A good example of this would be you are want to ask someone about a client at work and you share your question with only the work mates circle.
- Hangouts - This allows you to start a web-cam session with a particular circle. 10 persons at a time can join a hangout and when a particular person is talking that person will appear with a big camera. You will need a Plug-in in before you start using hangouts.
- Sparks - With sparks you can search about any interest that you like and share it with others.
Conclusion
Social Networks evolved in an extreme way and they keep improving. I enjoy spending time on Google+ and Facebook however sometimes I do stop and think about certain issues like privacy. There are certain privacy settings that one can set. In my opinion people who exaggerate with postings and pictures are videos. Certain privacy is reduced as you never know in which hands your information will end. What if people want to use your picture for bad use or need your address for something? Therefore although social networking is fun it has the negative side of it. To contradict this issue however who doesn't want to risk privacy can opt to not have a profile.
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