Sudha Hariharan
Whats social networking? Well in simple term its expanding your circle of friends on the Net.A simple definition for a social network is the circles of people you know--- your close friends, your family, your colleagues or people from your community. The Internet offers an opportunity for developing a social network with people who share something in common with you, but whose paths you wouldn't have necessarily crossed because they reside in other states or countries.
Social networking on the Internet took off in popularity several years ago. Now there are over 200 sites where you can make new friends, find a date, exchange photos or make new business connections.
Popular Social Networking Sites:
Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.
Anyone can join Facebook
All that's needed to join Facebook is a valid email address. To connect with coworkers or classmates, use your school or work email address to register. Once you register, join a regional network to connect with the people in your area.
Facebook is made up of many networks, each based around a company, region, or school. Join the networks that reflect your real-life communities to learn more about the people who work, live, or study around you.
Friendster
With more than 45 million members worldwide, Friendster is a leading global online social network focussing on helping people stay in touch with friends and discover new people and things that are important to them. Online adults, 18 and up, choose Friendster to connect with friends, family, school, groups, activities and interests. Friendster prides itself in delivering a clean, user-friendly and interactive environment where users can easily connect with anyone around the world. Friendster has a growing portfolio of patents granted to the company on social networking.
Headquartered in
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is an online network of more than 11 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries.
When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional accomplishments. Your profile helps you find and be found by former colleagues, clients, and partners. You can add more connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you.
Your network consists of your connections, your connections’ connections, and the people they know, linking you to thousands of qualified professionals.
Through your network you can:
- Find potential clients, service providers, subject experts, and partners who come recommended
- Be found for business opportunities
- Search for great jobs
- Discover inside connections that can help you land jobs and close deals
- Post and distribute job listings
- Find high-quality passive candidates
- Get introduced to other professionals through the people you know
LinkedIn is free to join: they also offer paid accounts that offer more tools for finding and reaching the right people, whether or not they are in your network.
MySpace:
is an online community that lets you meet your friends' friends.
Create a private community on MySpace and you can share photos, journals and interests with your growing network of mutual friends!
MySpace is for everyone:
- Friends who want to talk Online
- Single people who want to meet other Singles
- Matchmakers who want to connect their friends with other friends
- Families who want to keep in touch--map your Family Tree
- Business people and co-workers interested in networking
- Classmates and study partners
- Anyone looking for long lost friends!
Orkut
Orkut is an online community designed to make your social life more active and stimulating. Orkut's social network can help you maintain existing relationships with pictures and messages, and establish new ones by reaching out to people you've never met before.
Orkut makes it easy to find people who share your hobbies and interests, look for romantic connections or establish new business contacts. You can also create and join a wide variety of online communities to discuss current events, reconnect with old school mates or even exchange your favorite recipes.
Who you interact with is entirely up to you. Before getting to know an Orkut member, you can read their profile and even see how they're connected to you through the friends network.
To join Orkut, simply sign in with your Google Account and you can begin to create your own profile right away.
Why is Orkut so popular?
Orkut, sounds interesting doesn’t it? With other popular websites such as Yahoo! 360, Friendwise, Classmates, and MySpace, there are many who wonder how Orkut became the name of this popular online community. Orkut is named after the individual who created it. That man was an employee of Goggle and he is known as Orkut Buyukkokten.
If the name of the website doesn’t automatically draw you in, there is a good chance that the website features will. Like many other social networking websites, Orkut has a number of different member benefits. These benefits are what makes it worthwhile to become a member of this popular social networking website. As popular as Orkut is and as much as you would like to join, there are special procedures that you must follow. Unfortunately, Google does not allow just anyone to become a member, you must be invited.
Current community members are the only ones who can extend you an invite. This means that you should not waste your time trying to convince Google to let you join. Being invited to join Orkut really isn’t as difficult as it may sound. Orkut is so popular that there is a good chance that you know someone, if not personally than online, who can extend you an invite.
Although many internet users refrain from joining Orkut, just because of the invitation requirements, there is a good reason for limited membership. Orkut is a social networking website that is free to use. Unfortunately, free means that many people would wish to use the website. Many online social networking sites, that are free to use, have literally become ridiculous. A large number of internet users get joy out of creating fake accounts and causing online controversy. Google decided to make Orkut a special membership online website to prevent instances like that from happening.
Different purposes
Orkut, like many other online social networking websites, has a number of different purposes. Of course, the main purpose of Orkut is to allow you to connect with your friends, especially the ones that have extended an invitation to you, but you can do much more than that. Once a member of Orkut, you can easily famialrize yourself with other website members who share the same interests as you do. This will not only help you make new friends, but it may also result in the finding of your next romantic partner. That is what is nice about Orkut, once you are a member, just about anything is possible.
If you are interested in learning more about Orkut, before trying to obtain an invite, you will want to visit their online website. You can do this by going to www.orkut.com.
Stay cautious
The obvious information not to publicly reveal is your actual address and phone number. In many cases you may not even want to provide your email address. It's not wise to fill in any form with your exact birthday, the true city where you were born or your mother's family name. There are all the types of information used by banks and credit card companies to verify your identify. A clever thief will troll social sites gathering this sort of information in order to steal an identity. So, be mindful when you join a social networking site that not everyone who contacts you is a trustworthy individual.
If you're interested in giving social networking a try, browse a site you want to join as a "guest" for a while or ask some of your friends what sites they belong to. Fill out only the minimal profile information when you first join. You can always add more data later when you've become comfortable with the social interaction you have on that site. Also remember to remove information from your profile when you leave a site to which you don't intend to return.
Social networking on the Internet can be fun and rewarding by expanding your circle of friends, especially in hobby or interest areas on any social networking site. But just as in real life, be mindful of your confidential information and with whom you share that information.
You may already know that blogging—keeping a public "Web log" or personal journal online—is common among teens and even younger kids.
How Kids Can Use it Safely?
Now kids can also create personal Web pages on social networking Web sites hosted by services like Windows Live Spaces, MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, and others. These Web pages can often be viewed by anyone with access to the Internet.
With these services, which are extremely popular among teenagers, kids can fill out profiles that can include:
| • | Photos |
| • | Videos |
| • | Personal information such as full names, locations, and cell phone numbers |
Often the services that host the social networking sites provide several different ways for people to communicate with one another, including blogging and instant messaging features.
Kids use social networking sites to connect with kids who might live halfway around the world and with kids whom they pass every day in the hallways at school.
Popular social networking sites, including MySpace and Facebook, are changing the human fabric of the Internet and have the potential to pay off big for investors, but -- given their youthful user base -- they are unusually vulnerable to the next 'new new' thing. As quickly as users flock to one trendy Internet site, they can just as quickly move on to another, with no advance warning, according to Wharton faculty and Internet analysts.
MySpace, with 70 million visitors, has become the digital equivalent of hanging out at the mall for today's teens, who load the site with photos, news about music groups and detailed profiles of their likes and dislikes. Other social network sites include Facebook, geared to college students, LinkedIn, aimed at professionals, and Xanga, a blog-based community site. In all, an estimated 300 sites, including smaller ones such as StudyBreakers for high schoolers and Photobucket, a site for posting images, make up the social network universe.
Social network sites are powerful, but mercurial, particularly since most are aimed at teenagers and young adults. "It's a complete crap shoot. Look how many of these have come along and how many were touted as the next big thing. How many have disappeared completely or find themselves in some strange little unexplainable niche?"
Next Target: Cell Phones
For the moment, MySpace and Facebook are hot. News Corp. paid $580 million last year for MySpace as part of a $1.3 billion Internet acquisition spree. Facebook just received an additional $25 million in venture capital.
Both companies are planning to extend their reach beyond the computer screen to cell phones. Cingular Wireless, Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless are starting a service that will allow users to post messages on Facebook's home pages or search for other users' phone numbers and email addresses from a cell phone. MySpace has a pact with Helio, a wireless joint venture between SK Telecom and Earthlink, that will allow users to send photos and update their blogs or profiles by cell phone.
Social networks have power beyond ad revenue to act as a customer relationship
Unexpected consequences
The popularity of social networking sites may also have unexpected consequences for users. A gay student attending a Christian college was expelled after administration officials viewed photos of the student in drag on Facebook. Twenty middle school students in
As a web-based business, social networks do have some advantages over traditional companies in tracking user behavior in order to detect problems early. These sites also need to remain subtle in their approach to marketing if they are to build on their current success. While they provide banner and text ads, even more valuable word-of-mouth promotion lurks in the buzz within user profile pages.
Despite the huge success of sites like MySpace, Friendster and Reunion.com, millions of people have not yet seen the advantages of social networking. Perhaps it is due to the awkward situations where users find themselves wary of the friendships offered by strangers ,.Here are some of these benefits you will enjoy if you utilize these sites correctly.
- Refined Search: only social networking sites offer internet users with a search directory that you can use to locate particular individuals or groups. You can search by categories like location, industry, interests and other unique preferences. This way, you do not waste your time and resources establishing connection with people you and your business have nothing in common with.
- Affordable visibility: since most of these social networking sites are free, you should maximize them. Make sure that the profile you created will be interesting for the readers. Also, you should make it more personalized by adding interesting articles, images, videos and even reviews of your products.
- Receptive Members: the concept of social networking sites lies on the premise that members have at least one thing in common. Because of this, it is not surprising that you will receive messages from people you do not really know or likewise, you could be interested in establishing contact with some of the members who might interest you.
- Built-in Group: starting a discussion is not difficult with social networking sites compared to growing one on your site. With the millions of visitors and members, you will have no problem with attracting participants. Discussion groups are also the best place to do some soft selling. You can accomplish this by lending your expertise on particular subjects.
- Expand Network Easily: the key to establishing a successful online business is being visible to other people outside your network. The fact that you are connected to these people because of an existing connection with one of your contacts, make you more trustworthy. Compared to approaching someone on the street, social networking sites would provide you with considerable marketing advantage.
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How to help kids use sites effectively
Social networking can provide a helpful way for kids to express their emotions or even to perform unofficial background checks on other kids they meet at parties and at school. For example, after they meet another kid in person, a kid might visit that other kid's Web site to find out if he or she might be someone they'd like to be friends with.
Unfortunately, the information that kids post on their pages can also make them vulnerable to predators.
Here are several ways you can help your kids can use social networking Web sites more safely.
| • | Set your own house Internet rules. As soon as your children begin to use the Internet on their own, it is a good idea to come up with a list of rules that you all can all agree on. These rules should include whether your children can use social networking Web sites and how they can use them. For more information on setting rules, see Using family contracts to help protect your kids online. |
| • | Ensure your kids follow age limits on the site. The recommended age for signing up for social networking sites is usually 13 and over. If your children are under the recommended age for these sites, do not let them use the sites. It is important to remember that you cannot rely on the services themselves to keep your underage child from signing up. |
| • | Educate yourself about the site. Evaluate the site that your child plans to use and read the privacy policy and code of conduct carefully. Also, find out if the site monitors content that people post on their pages. Also, review your child's page periodically. For more suggestions, see Tips on blogging safely for parents and kids. |
| • | Insist that your children never meet anyone in person that they've communicated with only online, and encourage them to communicate only with people they've actually met in person. Kids are in real danger when they meet strangers in person whom they've communicated with only online. You can help protect your children from that danger by encouraging them to use these sites to communicate with their friends, but not with people they've never met in person. It might not be enough to simply tell your child not to talk to strangers, because your child might not consider someone they've "met" online to be a stranger. For more advice on protecting your children on the Internet, see Online predators: What you can do to minimize the risk. |
| • | Ensure your kids don't use full names. Have your children use only their first names or a nickname, but not a nickname that would attract the wrong kind of attention. Also, do not allow your children to post the full names of their friends. |
| • | Be wary of other identifiable information in your child's profile. Many social networking sites allow kids to join public groups that include everyone who goes to a certain school. Be careful when your children reveal this and other information that could be used to identify them, such as where they work or the name of the town they live in, especially if it is a small one. |
| • | Consider using a site that is not very public. Some social networking sites allow you to password-protect your site or use other methods to help limit viewers to only people your child knows. With MSN Spaces, for example, you can set permissions for who can view your site, ranging from anyone on the Internet to only people you choose. |
| • | Be smart about details in photographs. Explain to your children that photographs can reveal a lot of personal information. Encourage your children not to post photographs of themselves or their friends with clearly identifiable details such as street signs, license plates on their cars, or the name of their school on their sweatshirts. |
| • | Warn your child about expressing emotions to strangers. You've probably already encouraged your kids not to communicate with strangers directly online. However, kids use social networking Web sites to write journals and poems that often express strong emotions. Explain to your children that these words can be read by anyone with access to the Internet and that predators often search out emotionally vulnerable kids. For more information, see 10 things you can teach kids to improve their Web safety. |
| • | Communicate with your children about their experiences. Encourage your children to tell you if something they encounter on one of these sites makes them feel uncomfortable or threatened. Stay calm and remind your kids they are not in trouble for bringing something to your attention. |
| • | Remove your child's page. If your children refuse to abide by the rules you've set to help protect their safety, you can contact the social Web site your child uses and ask them to remove the page. You may also want to investigate Internet-filtering tools (such as MSN Premium's Parental Controls) as a complement to—not a replacement for—parental supervision. |
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