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| THE BRAND FIGHT BETWEEN SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES |
Social media describes websites that allow users to share content, media, etc. Common examples are the popular social networking sites like Friendster, Facebook, MySpace, etc. Social media also includes YouTube, Photobucket, Flickr, and other sites aimed at photo and video sharing. News aggregation and online reference sources, examples of which are Digg and Wikipedia, are also counted in the social media bucket. Micro-blogging sites such as twitter can also be included as social media. In a broader sense, social network service usually means an individual-centered service whereas online community services are group-centered. Social networking sites allow users to share ideas, activities, events, and interests within their individual networks.
The main types of social networking services are those which contain category places (such as former school year or classmates), means to connect with friends (usually with self-description pages) and a recommendation system linked to trust. Popular methods now combine many of these, with Facebook and Twitter widely used worldwide; MySpace and LinkedIn being the most widely used in North America and Twitter, Facebook, Orkut and LinkedIn in India.
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| NETWORKS WORLD WIDE |
Early social networking on the World Wide Web began in the form of generalized online communities such as Theglobe.com (1994), Geocities (1995) and Tripod.com (1995). In the late 1990s, user profiles became a central feature of social networking sites, allowing users to compile lists of "friends" and search for other users with similar interests. Sites began to develop more advanced features for users to find and manage friends. This newer generation of social networking sites began to flourish with the emergence of Friendster in 2002. It was followed by MySpace and LinkedIn and finally, Bebo.
One aspect of social networking that can be detrimental to society is that dependence on these networks often leads to poor interpersonal communications. When people spend so much time communicating with others through a computer screen, they lose face-to-face social contact skills. A significant part of how people communicate with each other is through body language and facial expressions. When that aspect of communication is removed a number of problems can occur. Drawbacks of electronic communications:
There is a tendency for comments to be more spontaneous and less thoughtful.
There is a higher likelihood that humor or sarcasm will be misunderstood.
People tend to say things through social networks that they normally wouldn't in person.
Surveys Indicate Overwhelming Teen Use of Social Networks
According to a 2007 Pew Internet Research Report, over half (55 percent) of teens now use online social networking sites .
‘FACEBOOK’ example:
Facebook has become a phenomenon for the social networking set, and what makes that so amazing is that Facebook did not even exist until 2004. What impact does Facebook have on today's technologically advanced society? It allows people who probably never would have met each other in person to communicate, it creates new relationships and friendships, and it places distance between people who could communicate in person but instead choose to communicate online, instead.
At a glance, a user can learn everything from what gender a Facebook member is, to what religion they believe in, what school they attend, and their likes and dislikes, all with the click of a mouse. This seems to say that our society is much more open now, and much more open to posting intimate information online, but it also is rather anonymous in a way, because users never see, meet, or touch the person they communicate with, and so, even though they know intimate details, they do not really know the person at all.
Writer Fabian continues, "Facebook and My Space are virtual experiences. People are free to be someone they aren't. Peer review doesn't exist. You don't literally touch anyone--not even by a smile, to say nothing of a handshake. No one is accountable to anyone else. And so forth" (Fabian, 2008). Thus, Facebook is kind of a "fantasy land" where people can make up anything they want to command attention, they can live an alternative life if they choose, and no one is the wiser. The fact that people accept these profiles at face value, and choose people as friends based on these profiles says a lot about our society. For all our worries about information and identity theft, people are still seemingly naive when it comes to sites like Facebook, where they post intimate details with no thoughts to the consequences
In conclusion, expansion and diversification of a knowledge base and its role in innovation, globalization, the global economy, technology and mobility of human capital are a result of ties and interactions between and among nodes. Social Networking has broken barriers effectively.
--RIBHU CHAKRABORTY
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