Social Networking

There sure was a time when relatives and people close to ones heart moved away and they never got to see each other again. There was a time when keeping in contact with people we love became a little bit easier with the use of telephones, then came a time of e-mail and now we finally have enough proof to believe that social networking technology is the easiest way to keep in contact with everyone you want to. The relationships between people are much better now because people do not have to remember to call people and see how they are doing, or visit them to keep in touch with them all they have to do is log on to their account and shoot a one line greeting saying "Hey, how are you doing?" and that is all it takes to keep people in touch. As we discussed in class there are many ways there technologies are being used in work places, government, army etc. People are using these social networking technologies to find jobs, find people that can help them progress in their careers etc. As pointed in the article, "40 percent of Twitter messages 'pointless babble" most of these messages and posts on these social networking are just silly one line "what you are doing's", but this babble might help some one know that their family is doing okay and might help someone get a job.
As many uses there are to social networking, there is an "evil side" to it, people get stalked and sometimes we hear stories of people who meet people online and think they know them and end up getting in a lot of trouble. Since online networking is an easy way to mask one's identity, everyone should be careful when talking to someone they do not know.

Check out social networking sites

Even though there are so many social networking sites out there, the definition and the purpose of these sites remain the same. The most common thing I found in all the sites I have visited, like Myspace, Facebook, Friendster and Twitter is that they all have Home, Profile, Photos and a group of friends. I think these are the basic tools for any social networking site. My first impression of Myspace was that it was mostly teenagers who had accounts on this site. That explains why I had Myspace in high school. It gives you a chance to show off your creative styles by letting you select from a large range of backgrounds, different fonts for your name, or adding songs.

And then we have facebook and twitter. Everyone from a high school kid to a high ranking official have atleast of of these accounts. While facebook makes it more personal by giving you a chance to keep your profile and everything on it private, twitter bears it all for the world to see. Once you say something in your tweets, its out there. While in facebook you usually add people you know or have seen around, in twitter one doesnt neccassarily need to be a friend to follow what you are doing. This is the reason why twitter is used by a lot of celebrities, it gives them a chance to put their real person out there without the obligation of replying to any of the tweets their fans send them.

Finally friendster, I have heard of it before but never actually got a chance to make an account in it. I recently made an account for this class and so far its very close to facebook with the profile, friends and photos. This networking site is for more personalized space where having just your friends and connecting with them after a long time seems like a great idea.