Topic 2.3 Social Networking

Social networking is so popular! 

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This week's topic is not only interesting, but it is also fun. Social networking is everywhere on the Internet, actually everywhere you go. Online users want to share their experiences and everyday life activities with others. According to boyd and Ellison (2007), “What makes social network sites unique is... that they enable users to articulate and make visible their social networks”. So in other words, social networking allows people to make them known to the world.

There are many popular social networking applications, such as: Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm, Linkedin, MySpace, QQ, Hi5 and so one. However, one of the most significant and well-known social networking sites is Facebook. Facebook is the World's second biggest social networking tool people turn to. Obviously, Google is number one. However, for a very short time, last March 2010, Facebook was number one. According to Rosen (2010, p. 139), Facebook attracts more than 400 million people a day! This is absolutely incredible. People not only use the Desktop to interact socially, they also use mobiles and other devices to go on Facebook. Facebook is not only popular for making friends and sharing images, links and profiles. Facebook also attracts millions of users to their favourite game, Farmville. There are more than 50 million players interacting in this game. Clearly, this game not only benefits the users but also the creators of Farmville.

The problem however with Facebook is that all your personal information is out there to everyone. People can view your profile, your birthday details, your political preferences, occupation, etc. Even the images people share, can be used by Facebook. The question users do need to ask, ‘Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I have to argue, that it can have a negative impact if the information comes in the wrong hands. It is therefore vital that Facebook users read the Privacy statement. Because, Facebook is entitle to access personal details. To accentuate, Facebook states the following: 

In order to provide you with useful social experiences off of Facebook, we occasionally  need to provide General Information about you to pre-approved third party websites and applications that use Platform at the time you visit them (if you are still logged in to Facebook) (Facebook, 2010). 

Twitter is another very popular micro blogging service. People can tweet about their everyday life all the time, anytime, anywhere. Short messages can include anything from minor to really important information. Everyone tweet about something. Notably, people can only type up to 140 characters per tweet (Rosen, 2010, p. 347). So, there are a lot of short messages constantly. Arguably, Twitter can be a great social networking tool to inform people and update people on the latest world news and developments.

Reference

boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1). Retrieved from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html

Facebook. (2010). Privacy Policy. Retrieved from http://www.facebook.com/policy.php

Rosen. M. J. (2010). Donor-centered planned gift marketing: (AFP Fund Development Series). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.