Social network service
Encyclopedia
A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social network
s or social relation
s among people, who, for example, share interests and/or activities. A social network service consists of a representation of each user (often a profile), his/her social links, and a variety of additional services. Most social network services are web-based and provide means for users to interact over the Internet
, such as e-mail
and instant messaging
. Online community
services are sometimes considered as a social network service, though 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 that 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, Nexopia
(mostly in Canada); Bebo
, VKontakte, Hi5
, Hyves
(mostly in The Netherlands), Draugiem.lv (mostly in Latvia), StudiVZ
(mostly in Germany), iWiW
(mostly in Hungary), Tuenti
(mostly in Spain), Nasza-Klasa
(mostly in Poland), Decayenne
, Tagged, XING
, Badoo
and Skyrock
in parts of Europe; Orkut
and Hi5
in South America
and Central America
; and Mixi
, Multiply, Orkut
, Wretch
, renren and Cyworld
in Asia and the Pacific Islands and Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
and Google+
are very popular in India and Pakistan.
There have been attempts to standardize these services to avoid the need to duplicate entries of friends and interests (see the FOAF
standard and the Open Source Initiative
). A 2011 survey found that 47% of American adults use a social network.
, ARPANET
, LISTSERV
, and bulletin board services (BBS
). Many prototypical features of social networking sites were also present in online services such as America Online, Prodigy, and CompuServe
. Early social networking on the World Wide Web
began in the form of generalized online communities such as Theglobe.com
(1995), Geocities
(1994) and Tripod.com
(1995). Many of these early communities focused on bringing people together to interact with each other through chat rooms, and encouraged users to share personal information and ideas via personal webpages by providing easy-to-use publishing tools and free or inexpensive webspace. Some communities - such as Classmates.com
- took a different approach by simply having people link to each other via email addresses. In the late 1990s, user profile
s became a central feature of social networking sites, allowing users to compile lists of "friends" and search for other users with similar interests. New social networking methods were developed by the end of the 1990s, and many 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 SixDegrees.com
in 1997, followed by Makeoutclub
in 2000, Friendster
in 2002, and soon became part of the Internet mainstream. Friendster was followed by MySpace
and LinkedIn
a year later, and, finally, Bebo
. Attesting to the rapid increase in social networking sites' popularity, by 2005, it was reported that MySpace
was getting more page views than Google
. Facebook
, launched in 2004, has since become the largest social networking site in the world.Today, it is estimated that there are now over 200 active sites using a wide variety of social networking models.
and reciprocal altruism
are encouraged through cooperation
. Information is particularly suited to gift economy
, as information is a nonrival good and can be gifted at practically no cost.
Facebook
and other social networking tools are increasingly the object of scholarly research. Scholars in many fields have begun to investigate the impact of social-networking sites, investigating how such sites may play into issues of identity
, privacy
,
social capital
, youth culture, and education
.
Several websites are beginning to tap into the power of the social networking model for philanthropy
. Such models provide a means for connecting otherwise fragmented industries and small organizations without the resources to reach a broader audience with interested users. Social networks are providing a different way for individuals to communicate digitally. These communities of hypertexts allow for the sharing of information and ideas, an old concept placed in a digital environment.
Many people are predicting that social networking tools will replace search engines for many tasks, such as product comparison and review.
In 2011, HCL Technologies conducted research that showed that 50% of British employers had banned the use of social networking sites/services during office hours.
In recent years, it has also become common for a wide variety of organizations to create profiles to advertise products and services.
that share common interests or affiliations, upload or stream live videos, and hold discussions in forums. Geosocial networking
co-opts Internet mapping services to organize user participation around geographic features and their attributes.
There is also a trend for more interoperability between social networks
led by technologies such as OpenID
and OpenSocial
.
Lately, mobile social networking has become popular. In most mobile communities, mobile phone users can now create their own profiles, make friends, participate in chat rooms, create chat rooms, hold private conversations, share photos and videos, and share blogs by using their mobile phone. Some companies provide wireless services that allow their customers to build their own mobile community and brand it, but one of the most popular wireless services for social networking in North America is Facebook Mobile.
At the forefront of emerging trends in social networking sites is the concept of "real-time web
" and "location-based." Real-time allows users to contribute content, which is then broadcasted as it is being uploaded - the concept is analogous to live radio and television broadcasts. Twitter
set the trend for "real-time" services, wherein users can broadcast to the world what they are doing, or what is on their minds within a 140-character limit. Facebook
followed suit with their "Live Feed" where users' activities are streamed as soon as it happens. While Twitter focuses on words, Clixtr
, another real-time service, focuses on group photo sharing wherein users can update their photo streams with photos while at an event. Facebook, however, remains easily the greatest photo sharing site - Facebook application and photo aggregator Pixable
estimates that Facebook will have 100 billion photos by Summer 2011.
Companies have begun to merge business technologies and solutions, such as cloud computing
, with social networking concepts. Instead of connecting individuals based on social interest, companies are developing interactive communities that connect individuals based on shared business needs or experiences. Many provide specialized networking tools and applications that can be accessed via their websites, such as LinkedIn
. Others companies, such as Monster.com
, have been steadily developing a more "socialized" feel to their career center sites to harness some of the power of social networking sites. These more business related sites have their own nomenclature for the most part but the most common naming conventions are "Vocational Networking Sites" or "Vocational Media Networks", with the former more closely tied to individual networking relationships based on social networking principles.
Foursquare
gained popularity as it allowed for users to "check-in" to places that they are frequenting at that moment. Gowalla
is another such service that functions in much the same way that Foursquare does, leveraging the GPS in phones to create a location-based user experience. Clixtr, though in the real-time space, is also a location-based social networking site, since events created by users are automatically geotagged, and users can view events occurring nearby through the Clixtr iPhone
app. Recently, Yelp announced its entrance into the location-based social networking space through check-ins with their mobile app; whether or not this becomes detrimental to Foursquare or Gowalla is yet to be seen, as it is still considered a new space in the Internet technology industry.
One popular use for this new technology is social networking between businesses. Companies have found that social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are great ways to build their brand image. According to Jody Nimetz, author of Marketing Jive, there are five major uses for businesses and social media: to create brand awareness, as an online reputation management tool, for recruiting, to learn about new technologies and competitors, and as a lead generation
tool to intercept potential prospects. These companies are able to drive traffic to their own online sites while encouraging their consumers and clients to have discussions on how to improve or change products or services.
The advent of social networking platforms may also be impacting the way(s) in which learners engage with technology in general. For a number of years, Prensky's (2001) dichotomy of Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants has been considered a relatively accurate representation of the ease with which people of different ages--in particular those born before and after 1980--use technology. Prensky's theory has been largely disproved not least on account of the burgeoning popularity of social networking sites and other metaphors such as White and Le Cornu's Visitors and Residents (2011) are gaining greater currency.
The use of online social networks by libraries is also an increasingly prevalent and growing tool that is being used to communicate with more potential library users, as well as extending the services provided by individual libraries.
to mobilize an estimated 200,000 participants to march on Washington with a cost savings of up to 85% per participant over previous methods.
The August 2011 England riots
were similarly considered to have escalated and been fuelled by this type of grassroots organization.
is a web hosting service that specifically hosts the user creation of web-based social networking services, alongside related applications. Such services are also known as vertical social networks due to the creation of SNSes that cater to specific user interests and niches; like larger, interest-agnostic SNSes, such niche networking services may also possess the ability to create increasingly niche groups of users. An example for this is Ning.
and Facebook
sell online advertising
on their site. Their business model is based upon large membership count, and charging for membership would be counterproductive. Some believe that the deeper information that the sites have on each user will allow much better targeted advertising than any other site can currently provide.
Social networks operate under an autonomous business model, in which a social network's members serve dual roles as both the suppliers and the consumers of content. This is in contrast to a traditional business model, where the suppliers and consumers are distinct agents. Revenue is typically gained in the autonomous business model via advertisements, but subscription-based revenue is possible when membership and content levels are sufficiently high.
have been raised growing concerns amongst users on the dangers of giving out too much personal information and the threat of sexual predator
s. Users of these services also need to be aware of data theft
or viruses
. However, large services, such as MySpace
and Netlog
, often work with law enforcement to try to prevent such incidents.
In addition, there is a perceived privacy threat in relation to placing too much personal information in the hands of large corporations or governmental bodies, allowing a profile to be produced on an individual's behavior on which decisions, detrimental to an individual, may be taken.
Furthermore, there is an issue over the control of data—information that was altered or removed by the user may in fact be retained and/or passed to third parties. This danger was highlighted when the controversial social networking site Quechup
harvested e-mail addresses from users' e-mail accounts for use in a spamming
operation.
In medical and scientific research, asking subjects for information about their behaviors is normally strictly scrutinized by institutional review board
s, for example, to ensure that adolescents and their parents have informed consent
. It is not clear whether the same rules apply to researchers who collect data from social networking sites. These sites often contain a great deal of data that is hard to obtain via traditional means. Even though the data are public, republishing it in a research paper might be considered invasion of privacy
.
Privacy on social networking sites can be undermined by many factors. For example, users may disclose personal information, sites may not take adequate steps to protect user privacy, and third parties frequently use information posted on social networks for a variety of purposes. "For the Net generation, social networking sites have become the preferred forum for social interactions, from posturing and role playing to simply sounding off. However, because such forums are relatively easy to access, posted content can be reviewed by anyone with an interest in the users' personal information".
Following plans by the UK government to monitor traffic on social networks schemes similar to E-mail jamming
have been proposed for networks such as Twitter and Facebook. These would involve "friending" and "following" large numbers of random people to thwart attempts at network analysis.
This allows users to purge undesirables from their list extremely easily and often without confrontation since a user will rarely notice if one person disappears from their friends list. It also enforces the general positive atmosphere of the website without drawing attention to unpleasant happenings such as friends falling out, rejection and failed relationships.
To edit information on a certain social networking service account, the social networking sites require you to login
or provide a password
. This prevents unauthorized user(s) from adding, changing, or removing personal information, pictures, and/or other data.
profile created in the name of Josh Evans by Lori Janine Drew led to the suicide of Megan Meier
. The event incited global concern regarding the use of social networking services for bullying purposes.
In July 2008, a Briton, Grant Raphael, was ordered to pay a total of GBP £22,000 (about USD $44,000) for libel and breach of privacy. Raphael had posted a fake page on Facebook
purporting to be that of a former schoolfriend Matthew Firsht, with whom Raphael had fallen out in 2000. The page falsely claimed that Firsht was homosexual and that he was dishonest.
At the same time, genuine use of social networking services has been treated with suspicion on the ground of the services' misuse. In September 2008, the profile of Australian Facebook user Elmo Keep was banned by the site's administrators on the grounds that it violated the site's terms of use. Keep is one of several users of Facebook who were banned from the site on the presumption that their names aren't real, as they bear resemblance the names of characters like Sesame Street's Elmo.
A certain number of actions have been engaged by governments to better understand the problem and find some solutions. A 2008 panel concluded that technological fix
es such as age verification and scans are relatively ineffective means of apprehending online predators. In May 2010, a child pornography
social networking site with hundreds of members was dismantled by law enforcement. It was deemed "the largest crimes against children case brought anywhere by anyone."
is that it is occasionally used to emotionally abuse individuals. Such actions are often referred to as trolling. It is not rare for confrontations in the real world to be translated online. Trolling can occur in many different forms, such as (but not limited to) defacement of deceased person(s) tribute pages, name calling, playing online pranks on volatile individuals and controversial comments with the intention to cause anger and cause arguments. Trolling is not to be confused with cyber-bullying
.
, is a relatively common occurrence and it can often result in emotional trauma for the victim. Depending on the networking outlet, up to 39% of users admit to being “cyber-bullied”. Danah Boyd
, a researcher of social networks quotes a teenager in her article, Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites. The teenager expresses frustration towards networking sites like MySpace because it causes drama and too much emotional stress. There are not many limitations as to what individuals can post when online. Individuals are given the power to post offensive remarks or pictures that could potentially cause a great amount of emotional pain for another individual.
Many teens and social networking users may be harming their interpersonal communication by using sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Stated by Baroness Greenfield, an Oxford University Neuroscientist, "My fear is that these technologies are infantilizing the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment." The convenience that social network sites give users to communicate with one another can also damage their interpersonal communication. Sherry Turkle, the founder and director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, stated, “Networked, we are together, but so lessened are our expectations of each other that we feel utterly alone. And there is the risk that we come to see others as objects to be accessed--and only for the parts we find useful, comforting, or amusing.” Furthermore, social network sites can create insincere friendships, Turkle also noted, “They nurture friendships on social-networking sites and then wonder if they are among friends. They become confused about companionship.”
Social networking can also affect the extent to which a person feels lonely. In a Newsweek article, Johannah Cornblatt explains “Social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace may provide people with a false sense of connection that ultimately increases loneliness in people who feel alone.” John T. Cacioppo, a neuroscientist at the University of Chicago, claims that social networking can foster feelings of sensitivity to disconnection, which can lead to loneliness. However some scholars have expressed that concerns about social networking are often exaggerated and poorly researched .
It has been reported that social networking patents are important for the establishment of new start-up companies. It has also been reported, however, that social networking patents inhibit innovation. On June 15, 2010, the United States Patent and Trademark Office
awarded Amazon.com
a patent for a "Social Networking System" based on its ownership of PlanetAll
. The patent describes a Social Networking System as
The patent has garnered attention due to its similarity to the popular social networking site Facebook.
(NLRB). The National Labor Relations Act
protects workers from being fired for "protected concerted activity," which prevents worker's for being fired for collective action, while allowing companies the right to fire workers for individual actions they take against the company. Companies are concerned with the potential damage comments online can do to public image due to their visibility and accessibility, but despite over 100 cases being presented thus far to NLRB only 1 has led to a formal ruling, leaving uncertainty as to the boundaries of what types of speech the NLRB will ultimately put in place.
), probation, and university officials to prosecute users of said sites. In some situations, content posted on MySpace has been used in court.
Facebook is increasingly being used by school administrations and law enforcement agencies as a source of evidence against student users. The site, the number one online destination for college students, allows users to create profile pages with personal details. These pages can be viewed by other registered users from the same school, which often include resident assistants and campus police who have signed up for the service. One UK police force has sifted pictures from Facebook and arrested some people who had been photographed in a public place holding a weapon such as a knife (having a weapon in a public place is illegal).
and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
has a virtual island on Second Life
where people can explore underground caves or explore the effects of global warming.
Likewise, NASA has taken advantage of a few social networking tools, including Twitter
and Flickr
. They are using these tools to aid the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee
, whose goal it is to ensure that the nation is
on a vigorous and sustainable path to achieving its boldest aspirations in space.
Social networks connect people at low cost; this can be beneficial for entrepreneur
s and small business
es looking to expand their contact bases. These networks often act as a customer relationship management tool for companies selling products and services. Companies can also use social networks for advertising in the form of banners and text ads. Since businesses operate globally, social networks can make it easier to keep in touch with contacts around the world.
One example of social networking being used for business purposes is LinkedIn
.com, which aims to interconnect professionals. LinkedIn has over 100 million users in over 200 countries.
Another is the use of physical spaces available to members of a social network such as Hub Culture
, an invitation-only social network for entrepreneurs, and other business influentials, with Pavilions in major cities such as London, UK. Having a physical presence allows members to network in the real world, as well as the virtual, adding extra business value.
Applications for social networking sites have extended toward businesses and brands are creating their own, high functioning sites, a sector known as brand networking
. It is the idea a brand can build its consumer relationship by connecting their consumers to the brand image on a platform that provides them relative content, elements of participation, and a ranking or score system. Brand networking is a new way to capitalize on social trends as a marketing tool.
Most of these social networks, just like online dating services, require users to give out certain pieces of information. This usually includes a user's age, gender, location, interests, and perhaps a picture. Releasing very personal information is usually discouraged for safety reasons. This allows other users to search or be searched by some sort of criteria, but at the same time people can maintain a degree of anonymity similar to most online dating services. Online dating sites are similar to social networks in the sense that users create profiles to meet and communicate with others, but their activities on such sites are for the sole purpose of finding a person of interest to date. Social networks do not necessarily have to be for dating; many users simply use it for keeping in touch with friends, and colleagues.
However, an important difference between social networks and online dating services is the fact that online dating sites usually require a fee, where social networks are free.
This difference is one of the reasons the online dating industry is seeing a massive decrease in revenue due to many users opting to use social networking services instead. Many popular online dating services such as Match.com
, Yahoo Personals, and eHarmony.com are seeing a decrease in users, where social networks like MySpace
and Facebook
are experiencing an increase in users.
The number of Internet users in the U.S. that visit online dating sites has fallen from a peak of 21% in 2003 to 10% in 2006. Whether its the cost of the services, the variety of users with different intentions, or any other reason, it is undeniable that social networking sites are quickly becoming the new way to find dates online.
reports that almost 60 percent of students who use social networking talk about education topics online, and more than 50 percent talk specifically about schoolwork. Yet the vast majority of school districts have stringent rules against nearly all forms of social networking during the school day — even though students and parents report few problem behaviors online.
Social networks focused on supporting relationships between teachers and their students are now used for learning, educator professional development, and content sharing. Ning for teachers, TermWiki
, Learn Central, TeachStreet
and other sites are being built to foster relationships that include educational blogs, eportfolios, formal and ad hoc communities, as well as communication such as chats, discussion threads, and synchronous forums. These sites also have content sharing and rating features.
Social networks are also emerging as online yearbook
s, both public and private. One such service is MyYearbook
, which allows anyone from the general public to register and connect. A new trend emerging is private label yearbooks accessible only by students, parents, and teachers of a particular school, similar to Facebook
's beginning within Harvard.
systems inside social networks create new opportunities for global finance. Hub Culture
operates a virtual currency Ven
used for global transactions among members, product sales and financial trades in commodities and carbon credits. In May 2010, Carbon pricing contracts were introduced to the weighted basket of currencies and commodities that determine the floating exchange value of Ven. The introduction of carbon to the calculation price of the currency made Ven the first and only currency that is linked to the environment.
The role of social networks is especially of interest to pharmaceutical companies who spend approximately "32 percent of their marketing dollars" attempting to influence the opinion leaders of social networks.
A new trend is emerging with social networks created to help its members with various physical and mental ailments. For people suffering from life altering diseases, PatientsLikeMe
offers its members the chance to connect with others dealing with similar issues and research patient data related to their condition. For alcoholics and addicts, SoberCircle gives people in recovery the ability to communicate with one another and strengthen their recovery through the encouragement of others who can relate to their situation. DailyStrength
is also a website that offers support groups for a wide array of topics and conditions, including the support topics offered by PatientsLikeMe
and SoberCircle. SparkPeople
offers community and social networking tools for peer support during weight loss.
to use for social networking services. The projects include Anahita Social Networking Engine, Diaspora
, Appleseed Project, OneSocialWeb and StatusNet. These technologies are often referred to as Social engine
or Social networking engine software.
Social network
A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...
s or social relation
Social relation
In social science, a social relation or social interaction refers to a relationship between two , three or more individuals . Social relations, derived from individual agency, form the basis of the social structure. To this extent social relations are always the basic object of analysis for social...
s among people, who, for example, share interests and/or activities. A social network service consists of a representation of each user (often a profile), his/her social links, and a variety of additional services. Most social network services are web-based and provide means for users to interact over the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, such as e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
and instant messaging
Instant messaging
Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
. Online community
Online community
An online community is a virtual community that exists online and whose members enable its existence through taking part in membership ritual. An online community can take the form of an information system where anyone can post content, such as a Bulletin board system or one where only a restricted...
services are sometimes considered as a social network service, though in a broader sense, social network service usually means an individual-centered service whereas online community
Online community
An online community is a virtual community that exists online and whose members enable its existence through taking part in membership ritual. An online community can take the form of an information system where anyone can post content, such as a Bulletin board system or one where only a restricted...
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 that 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
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
and Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
widely used worldwide, Nexopia
Nexopia
Nexopia.com is a popular Canadian social networking website based in downtown Edmonton, created by Timo Ewalds. It was designed as a general interactive site for people aged 14 and up, but the age limit recently was lowered to 13. Users are able to create and design their own profiles, friends...
(mostly in Canada); Bebo
Bebo
Bebo is a social networking website launched in July 2005. It is currently owned and operated by Criterion Capital Partners after taking over from AOL in June 2010....
, VKontakte, Hi5
Hi5 (website)
hi5 is a social networking website based in San Francisco, California. The company was founded in 2003 by Ramu Yalamanchi. By 2008, comScore reported that hi5 had become the third most popular social networking site in terms of monthly unique visitors....
, Hyves
Hyves
Hyves is a social networking site in the Netherlands with mainly Dutch visitors and members and competes in this country with sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Hyves was founded in 2004 by Raymond Spanjar, Koen Kam, and Floris Rost van Tonningen....
(mostly in The Netherlands), Draugiem.lv (mostly in Latvia), StudiVZ
StudiVZ
StudiVZ is a social networking platform for students and is based in Berlin, Germany. The name is an abbreviation of the German expression Studentenverzeichnis, which means students' directory.The service is largely comparable to other social networking sites...
(mostly in Germany), iWiW
IWiW
iWiW is a Hungarian social networking web service started on April 14, 2002 as WiW . , it has 2,6 million registered users with real names. Every user can provide personal information such as the place they live in, date of birth, schools and universities they attended, workplaces, interests and...
(mostly in Hungary), Tuenti
Tuenti
Tuenti is a Spain-based, invitation-only private social networking website that has been referred to as the "Spanish Facebook." Tuenti, pronounced in Spanish, sounds like Twenty in English...
(mostly in Spain), Nasza-Klasa
Nasza-klasa.pl
- External links :* *...
(mostly in Poland), Decayenne
Decayenne
Decayenne is an invitation-only on-line social network service founded in 2001 in Düsseldorf by Phillip Eissing, Alexander Eissing, Marco Schierhorn, and Ioannis Voudouris. Its member pool aims at exclusivity and is composed of mostly Europeans and Americans...
, Tagged, XING
Xing
Xing may refer to:* an abbreviation for crossing, primarily used in North America* Qiao Xing Universal Telephone Inc. * XING, a social network platform* Xing County, in Shanxi, China* Xing - A Korean boyband...
, Badoo
Badoo
Badoo is a multi-lingual social networking website, managed out of its Soho, London headquarters, but owned by a company in Cyprus and ultimately by Russian entrepreneur Andrey Andreev...
and Skyrock
Skyrock
Skyrock.com is a social networking site offering its members a free web space where they can create a blog, add a profile, and exchange messages with other registered members...
in parts of Europe; Orkut
Orkut
Orkut is a social networking website that is owned and operated by Google Inc. The service is designed to help users meet new and old friends and maintain existing relationships...
and Hi5
Hi5 (website)
hi5 is a social networking website based in San Francisco, California. The company was founded in 2003 by Ramu Yalamanchi. By 2008, comScore reported that hi5 had become the third most popular social networking site in terms of monthly unique visitors....
in South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
and Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
; and Mixi
Mixi
mixi, Inc. is one of several social networking websites in Japan, founded in 2004. As of May 2008, mixi had over 21.6 million users and an 80% share of the social networking market in Japan...
, Multiply, Orkut
Orkut
Orkut is a social networking website that is owned and operated by Google Inc. The service is designed to help users meet new and old friends and maintain existing relationships...
, Wretch
Wretch (website)
Wretch is a Taiwanese community web site; in Chinese, its name means Anonymous Lil' Site or Nameless Lil' Station. It is the most well-known blog community in Taiwan with thousands of users registered. Wretch provides free album, and blog hosting services. Four languages, including English, are...
, renren and Cyworld
Cyworld
Cyworld is a South Korean social network service operated by SK Communications , a subsidiary of SK Telecom .Members cultivate relationships by forming Ilchon or "friendships" with each other through their minihompy....
in Asia and the Pacific Islands and Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a business-related social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. , LinkedIn reports more than 120 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories. The site is available in English, French,...
and Google+
Google+
Google+ is a social networking and identity service, operated by Google Inc.The service was launched on June 28, 2011, in an invite-only "field testing" phase. The following day, existing users were allowed to invite friends who were over 18 years of age to the service to create their own accounts....
are very popular in India and Pakistan.
There have been attempts to standardize these services to avoid the need to duplicate entries of friends and interests (see the FOAF
FOAF (software)
FOAF is a machine-readable ontology describing persons, their activities and their relations to other people and objects. Anyone can use FOAF to describe him or herself...
standard and the Open Source Initiative
Open Source Initiative
The Open Source Initiative is an organization dedicated to promoting open source software.The organization was founded in February 1998, by Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond, prompted by Netscape Communications Corporation publishing the source code for its flagship Netscape Communicator product...
). A 2011 survey found that 47% of American adults use a social network.
History
The potential for computer networking to facilitate new forms of computer-mediated social interaction was suggested early on. Efforts to support social networks via computer-mediated communication were made in many early online services, including UsenetUsenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
, ARPANET
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...
, LISTSERV
LISTSERV
LISTSERV was the first electronic mailing list software application, consisting of a set of email addresses for a group in which the sender can send one email and it will reach a variety of people...
, and bulletin board services (BBS
Bulletin board system
A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to connect and log in to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, a user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging...
). Many prototypical features of social networking sites were also present in online services such as America Online, Prodigy, and CompuServe
CompuServe
CompuServe was the first major commercial online service in the United States. It dominated the field during the 1980s and remained a major player through the mid-1990s, when it was sidelined by the rise of services such as AOL with monthly subscriptions rather than hourly rates...
. Early social networking on the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
began in the form of generalized online communities such as Theglobe.com
TheGlobe.com
theGlobe.com was an internet startup founded in 1994 by Cornell students Stephan Paternot and Todd Krizelman. A social networking service, theGlobe.com made headlines by going public on November 13, 1998 and posting the largest first day gain of any IPO in history up to that date...
(1995), Geocities
GeoCities
Yahoo! GeoCities is a web hosting service, currently available only in Japan.GeoCities was originally founded by David Bohnett and John Rezner in late 1994 as Beverly Hills Internet . In its original form, site users selected a "city" in which to place their web pages...
(1994) and Tripod.com
Tripod.com
Tripod.com is a web hosting service owned by Lycos. Originally aiming its services to college students and young adults, it was one of several sites trying to build online communities during the dot-com bubble...
(1995). Many of these early communities focused on bringing people together to interact with each other through chat rooms, and encouraged users to share personal information and ideas via personal webpages by providing easy-to-use publishing tools and free or inexpensive webspace. Some communities - such as Classmates.com
Classmates.com
Classmates.com is a social network service created in 1995 by Randy Conrads who founded Classmates Online, Inc.The social media website was originally designed to assist members in finding friends and acquaintances from kindergarten, primary school, high school, college, work and the United States...
- took a different approach by simply having people link to each other via email addresses. In the late 1990s, user profile
User profile
A user profile is a collection of personal data associated to a specific user. A profile refers therefore to the explicit digital representation of a person's identity...
s became a central feature of social networking sites, allowing users to compile lists of "friends" and search for other users with similar interests. New social networking methods were developed by the end of the 1990s, and many 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 SixDegrees.com
SixDegrees.com
SixDegrees.com was a social network service website that lasted from 1997 to 2001 and was based on the Web of Contacts model of social networking. It was named after the six degrees of separation concept and allowed users to list friends, family members and acquaintances both on the site and...
in 1997, followed by Makeoutclub
Makeoutclub
Makeoutclub.com is widely considered the first niche-audience social network. Launched in 1999 by web designer Gibby Miller, and preceding Friendster, Myspace, and Facebook - Makeoutclub was vital to the early development of profile-based communities, introducing features and concepts which...
in 2000, Friendster
Friendster
Friendster is a social gaming site that is based in Malaysia, KL. The company now operates mainly from the three Asian countries namely in the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore....
in 2002, and soon became part of the Internet mainstream. Friendster was followed by MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
and LinkedIn
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a business-related social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. , LinkedIn reports more than 120 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories. The site is available in English, French,...
a year later, and, finally, Bebo
Bebo
Bebo is a social networking website launched in July 2005. It is currently owned and operated by Criterion Capital Partners after taking over from AOL in June 2010....
. Attesting to the rapid increase in social networking sites' popularity, by 2005, it was reported that MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
was getting more page views than Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
, launched in 2004, has since become the largest social networking site in the world.Today, it is estimated that there are now over 200 active sites using a wide variety of social networking models.
Social impact
Web-based social networking services make it possible to connect people who share interests and activities across political, economic, and geographic borders. Through e-mail and instant messaging, online communities are created where a gift economyGift economy
In the social sciences, a gift economy is a society where valuable goods and services are regularly given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards . Ideally, simultaneous or recurring giving serves to circulate and redistribute valuables within the community...
and reciprocal altruism
Reciprocal altruism
In evolutionary biology, reciprocal altruism is a behaviour whereby an organism acts in a manner that temporarily reduces its fitness while increasing another organism's fitness, with the expectation that the other organism will act in a similar manner at a later time...
are encouraged through cooperation
Cooperation
Cooperation or co-operation is the process of working or acting together. In its simplest form it involves things working in harmony, side by side, while in its more complicated forms, it can involve something as complex as the inner workings of a human being or even the social patterns of a...
. Information is particularly suited to gift economy
Gift economy
In the social sciences, a gift economy is a society where valuable goods and services are regularly given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards . Ideally, simultaneous or recurring giving serves to circulate and redistribute valuables within the community...
, as information is a nonrival good and can be gifted at practically no cost.
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
and other social networking tools are increasingly the object of scholarly research. Scholars in many fields have begun to investigate the impact of social-networking sites, investigating how such sites may play into issues of identity
Identity (social science)
Identity is a term used to describe a person's conception and expression of their individuality or group affiliations . The term is used more specifically in psychology and sociology, and is given a great deal of attention in social psychology...
, privacy
Privacy
Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...
,
social capital
Social capital
Social capital is a sociological concept, which refers to connections within and between social networks. The concept of social capital highlights the value of social relations and the role of cooperation and confidence to get collective or economic results. The term social capital is frequently...
, youth culture, and education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
.
Several websites are beginning to tap into the power of the social networking model for philanthropy
Philanthropy
Philanthropy etymologically means "the love of humanity"—love in the sense of caring for, nourishing, developing, or enhancing; humanity in the sense of "what it is to be human," or "human potential." In modern practical terms, it is "private initiatives for public good, focusing on quality of...
. Such models provide a means for connecting otherwise fragmented industries and small organizations without the resources to reach a broader audience with interested users. Social networks are providing a different way for individuals to communicate digitally. These communities of hypertexts allow for the sharing of information and ideas, an old concept placed in a digital environment.
Many people are predicting that social networking tools will replace search engines for many tasks, such as product comparison and review.
In 2011, HCL Technologies conducted research that showed that 50% of British employers had banned the use of social networking sites/services during office hours.
Basics
Social networking sites share some conventional features. Most often, individual users are encouraged to create profiles containing various information about themselves. Users can often upload pictures of themselves to their profiles, post blog entries for others to read, search for other users with similar interests, and compile and share lists of contacts. In addition, user profiles often have a section dedicated to comments from friends and other users. To protect user privacy, social networks usually have controls that allow users to choose who can view their profile, contact them, add them to their list of contacts, and so on.In recent years, it has also become common for a wide variety of organizations to create profiles to advertise products and services.
Additional features
Some social networks have additional features, such as the ability to create groupsGroup (online social networking)
A group is a feature in many social network services which allows users to create, post, comment to and read from their own interest- and niche-specific forums, often within the realm of virtual communities...
that share common interests or affiliations, upload or stream live videos, and hold discussions in forums. Geosocial networking
Geosocial networking
Geosocial Networking is a type of social networking in which geographic services and capabilities such as geocoding and geotagging are used to enable additional social dynamics. User-submitted location data or geolocation techniques can allow social networks to connect and coordinate users with...
co-opts Internet mapping services to organize user participation around geographic features and their attributes.
There is also a trend for more interoperability between social networks
Social network aggregation
Social network aggregation is the process of collecting content from multiple social network services, such as MySpace or Facebook. The task is often performed by a social network aggregator, which pulls together information into a single location, or helps a user consolidate multiple social...
led by technologies such as OpenID
OpenID
OpenID is an open standard that describes how users can be authenticated in a decentralized manner, eliminating the need for services to provide their own ad hoc systems and allowing users to consolidate their digital identities...
and OpenSocial
OpenSocial
OpenSocial is a set of common application programming interfaces for web-based social network applications, developed by Google along with MySpace and a number of other social networks.It was released November 1, 2007....
.
Lately, mobile social networking has become popular. In most mobile communities, mobile phone users can now create their own profiles, make friends, participate in chat rooms, create chat rooms, hold private conversations, share photos and videos, and share blogs by using their mobile phone. Some companies provide wireless services that allow their customers to build their own mobile community and brand it, but one of the most popular wireless services for social networking in North America is Facebook Mobile.
Emerging trends in social networking
As the increase in popularity of social networking is on a constant rise, new uses for the technology are constantly being observed.At the forefront of emerging trends in social networking sites is the concept of "real-time web
Real-time web
The real-time web is a set of technologies and practices that enable users to receive information as soon as it is published by its authors, rather than requiring that they or their software check a source periodically for updates....
" and "location-based." Real-time allows users to contribute content, which is then broadcasted as it is being uploaded - the concept is analogous to live radio and television broadcasts. Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
set the trend for "real-time" services, wherein users can broadcast to the world what they are doing, or what is on their minds within a 140-character limit. Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
followed suit with their "Live Feed" where users' activities are streamed as soon as it happens. While Twitter focuses on words, Clixtr
Clixtr
Clixtr Inc. is a startup company based in San Francisco, California. The Clixtr iPhone application was selected as one of the top 50 startups of 2009 by TechCrunch. Clixtr launched at TechCrunch50 on September 15, 2009...
, another real-time service, focuses on group photo sharing wherein users can update their photo streams with photos while at an event. Facebook, however, remains easily the greatest photo sharing site - Facebook application and photo aggregator Pixable
Pixable
Pixable is a photo discovery application and company headquartered in New York City. The application aggregates and ranks photos across different online photo repositories allowing users to search, browse, edit, and access all the photos connected to them in one location.-History:Pixable was...
estimates that Facebook will have 100 billion photos by Summer 2011.
Companies have begun to merge business technologies and solutions, such as cloud computing
Cloud computing
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network ....
, with social networking concepts. Instead of connecting individuals based on social interest, companies are developing interactive communities that connect individuals based on shared business needs or experiences. Many provide specialized networking tools and applications that can be accessed via their websites, such as LinkedIn
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a business-related social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. , LinkedIn reports more than 120 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories. The site is available in English, French,...
. Others companies, such as Monster.com
Monster.com
Monster.com is one of the largest employment websites in the world, owned and operated by Monster Worldwide, Inc. Monster is one of the 20 most visited websites out of 100 million worldwide, according to comScore Media Metrics...
, have been steadily developing a more "socialized" feel to their career center sites to harness some of the power of social networking sites. These more business related sites have their own nomenclature for the most part but the most common naming conventions are "Vocational Networking Sites" or "Vocational Media Networks", with the former more closely tied to individual networking relationships based on social networking principles.
Foursquare
Foursquare (service)
Foursquare, stylized as foursquare, is a location-based social networking website for mobile devices, such as smartphones. Users "check-in" at venues using a mobile website, text messaging or a device-specific application by selecting from a list of venues the application locates nearby...
gained popularity as it allowed for users to "check-in" to places that they are frequenting at that moment. Gowalla
Gowalla
Gowalla is a location-based social network. Users 'check in' at Spots in their local vicinity, either through a dedicated mobile application or through the mobile website. As a reward users will sometimes receive virtual "items" from check-ins. Items have developed to become a promotional tool for...
is another such service that functions in much the same way that Foursquare does, leveraging the GPS in phones to create a location-based user experience. Clixtr, though in the real-time space, is also a location-based social networking site, since events created by users are automatically geotagged, and users can view events occurring nearby through the Clixtr iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
app. Recently, Yelp announced its entrance into the location-based social networking space through check-ins with their mobile app; whether or not this becomes detrimental to Foursquare or Gowalla is yet to be seen, as it is still considered a new space in the Internet technology industry.
One popular use for this new technology is social networking between businesses. Companies have found that social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are great ways to build their brand image. According to Jody Nimetz, author of Marketing Jive, there are five major uses for businesses and social media: to create brand awareness, as an online reputation management tool, for recruiting, to learn about new technologies and competitors, and as a lead generation
Lead generation
Lead generation, or lead gen is a marketing tool used, particularly in internet marketing, to generate consumer interest or inquiry into products or services of a business. Leads can be generated for a variety of purposes - list building, e-newsletter list acquisition or for winning customers....
tool to intercept potential prospects. These companies are able to drive traffic to their own online sites while encouraging their consumers and clients to have discussions on how to improve or change products or services.
Social networks and science
One other use that is being discussed is the use of social networks in the science communities. Julia Porter Liebeskind et al. have published a study on how new biotechnology firms are using social networking sites to share exchanges in scientific knowledge. They state in their study that by sharing information and knowledge with one another, they are able to "increase both their learning and their flexibility in ways that would not be possible within a self-contained hierarchical organization." Social networking is allowing scientific groups to expand their knowledge base and share ideas, and without these new means of communicating their theories might become "isolated and irrelevant".Social networks and education
Social networks are also being used by teachers and students as a communication tool. Because many students are already using a wide-range of social networking sites, teachers have begun to familiarize themselves with this trend and are now using it to their advantage. Teachers and professors are doing everything from creating chat-room forums and groups to extend classroom discussion to posting assignments, tests and quizzes, to assisting with homework outside of the classroom setting. Social networks are also being used to foster teacher-parent communication. These sites make it possible and more convenient for parents to ask questions and voice concerns without having to meet face-to-face.The advent of social networking platforms may also be impacting the way(s) in which learners engage with technology in general. For a number of years, Prensky's (2001) dichotomy of Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants has been considered a relatively accurate representation of the ease with which people of different ages--in particular those born before and after 1980--use technology. Prensky's theory has been largely disproved not least on account of the burgeoning popularity of social networking sites and other metaphors such as White and Le Cornu's Visitors and Residents (2011) are gaining greater currency.
The use of online social networks by libraries is also an increasingly prevalent and growing tool that is being used to communicate with more potential library users, as well as extending the services provided by individual libraries.
Social networks and grassroots organizing
Social networks are being used by activists as a means of low-cost grassroots organizing. Extensive use of an array of social networking sites enabled organizers of the 2009 National Equality MarchNational Equality March
The National Equality March was a national political rally that occurred October 11, 2009 in Washington, D.C.. It called for equal protection for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states and the District of Columbia...
to mobilize an estimated 200,000 participants to march on Washington with a cost savings of up to 85% per participant over previous methods.
The August 2011 England riots
2011 England riots
Between 6 and 10 August 2011, several London boroughs and districts of cities and towns across England suffered widespread rioting, looting and arson....
were similarly considered to have escalated and been fuelled by this type of grassroots organization.
Social networks and employment
A final rise in social network use is being driven by college students using the services to network with professionals for internship and job opportunities. Many studies have been done on the effectiveness of networking online in a college setting, and one notable one is by Phipps Arabie and Yoram Wind published in Advances in Social Network Analysis.Social network hosting service
A social network hosting serviceSocial network hosting service
A social network hosting service is a web hosting service that specifically hosts the user creation of web-based social networking services, alongside related applications...
is a web hosting service that specifically hosts the user creation of web-based social networking services, alongside related applications. Such services are also known as vertical social networks due to the creation of SNSes that cater to specific user interests and niches; like larger, interest-agnostic SNSes, such niche networking services may also possess the ability to create increasingly niche groups of users. An example for this is Ning.
Business model
Few social networks currently charge money for membership. In part, this may be because social networking is a relatively new service, and the value of using them has not been firmly established in customers' minds. Companies such as MySpaceMySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
and Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
sell online advertising
Online advertising
Online advertising is a form of promotion that uses the Internet and World Wide Web to deliver marketing messages to attract customers. Examples of online advertising include contextual ads on search engine results pages, banner ads, blogs, Rich Media Ads, Social network advertising, interstitial...
on their site. Their business model is based upon large membership count, and charging for membership would be counterproductive. Some believe that the deeper information that the sites have on each user will allow much better targeted advertising than any other site can currently provide.
Social networks operate under an autonomous business model, in which a social network's members serve dual roles as both the suppliers and the consumers of content. This is in contrast to a traditional business model, where the suppliers and consumers are distinct agents. Revenue is typically gained in the autonomous business model via advertisements, but subscription-based revenue is possible when membership and content levels are sufficiently high.
Privacy
Privacy concerns with social networking servicesPrivacy concerns with social networking services
Privacy concerns with social networking services have become a controversial and much publicised topic since the creation and increasing popularity of social networking sites such as Bebo, Myspace and the currently most used social networking site, Facebook...
have been raised growing concerns amongst users on the dangers of giving out too much personal information and the threat of sexual predator
Sexual predator
The term sexual predator is used pejoratively to describe a person seen as obtaining or trying to obtain sexual contact with another person in a metaphorically "predatory" manner. Analogous to how a predator hunts down its prey, so the sexual predator is thought to "hunt" for his or her sex partners...
s. Users of these services also need to be aware of data theft
Computer insecurity
Computer insecurity refers to the concept that a computer system is always vulnerable to attack, and that this fact creates a constant battle between those looking to improve security, and those looking to circumvent security.-Security and systems design:...
or viruses
Computer virus
A computer virus is a computer program that can replicate itself and spread from one computer to another. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, including but not limited to adware and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability...
. However, large services, such as MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
and Netlog
Netlog
Netlog is a Belgian social networking website specifically targeted at the European youth demographic....
, often work with law enforcement to try to prevent such incidents.
In addition, there is a perceived privacy threat in relation to placing too much personal information in the hands of large corporations or governmental bodies, allowing a profile to be produced on an individual's behavior on which decisions, detrimental to an individual, may be taken.
Furthermore, there is an issue over the control of data—information that was altered or removed by the user may in fact be retained and/or passed to third parties. This danger was highlighted when the controversial social networking site Quechup
Quechup
Quechup is a social networking website that came to prominence in 2007 when it used automatic email invitations for viral marketing to all the e-mail addresses in its members address books...
harvested e-mail addresses from users' e-mail accounts for use in a spamming
E-mail spam
Email spam, also known as junk email or unsolicited bulk email , is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by email. Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk. One subset of UBE is UCE...
operation.
In medical and scientific research, asking subjects for information about their behaviors is normally strictly scrutinized by institutional review board
Institutional review board
An institutional review board , also known as an independent ethics committee or ethical review board , is a committee that has been formally designated to approve, monitor, and review biomedical and behavioral research involving humans with the aim to protect the rights and welfare of the...
s, for example, to ensure that adolescents and their parents have informed consent
Informed consent
Informed consent is a phrase often used in law to indicate that the consent a person gives meets certain minimum standards. As a literal matter, in the absence of fraud, it is redundant. An informed consent can be said to have been given based upon a clear appreciation and understanding of the...
. It is not clear whether the same rules apply to researchers who collect data from social networking sites. These sites often contain a great deal of data that is hard to obtain via traditional means. Even though the data are public, republishing it in a research paper might be considered invasion of privacy
Invasion of privacy
United States privacy law embodies several different legal concepts. One is the invasion of privacy, a tort based in common law allowing an aggrieved party to bring a lawsuit against an individual who unlawfully intrudes into his or her private affairs, discloses his or her private information,...
.
Privacy on social networking sites can be undermined by many factors. For example, users may disclose personal information, sites may not take adequate steps to protect user privacy, and third parties frequently use information posted on social networks for a variety of purposes. "For the Net generation, social networking sites have become the preferred forum for social interactions, from posturing and role playing to simply sounding off. However, because such forums are relatively easy to access, posted content can be reviewed by anyone with an interest in the users' personal information".
Following plans by the UK government to monitor traffic on social networks schemes similar to E-mail jamming
E-mail jamming
Email jamming is the use of sensitive words in emails to jam the authorities that listen in on them by providing a form of a red herring and an intentional annoyance. It is used by some civil rights activists in an attempt to thwart government spy networks such as ECHELON...
have been proposed for networks such as Twitter and Facebook. These would involve "friending" and "following" large numbers of random people to thwart attempts at network analysis.
Data mining
Through data mining, companies are able to improve their sales and profitability. With this data, companies create customer profiles that contain customer demographics and online behavior. A recent strategy has been the purchase and production of “network analysis software”. This software is able to sort out through the influx of social networking data for any specific company. Facebook has been especially important to marketing strategists. Facebook’s controversial and new “Social Ads” program gives companies access to the millions of profiles in order to tailor their ads to a Facebook user’s own interests and hobbies. However, rather than sell actual user information, Facebook sells tracked “social actions”. That is, they track the websites a user uses outside of Facebook through a program called “Facebook Beacon”.Notifications on websites
There has been a trend for social networking sites to send out only 'positive' notifications to users. For example sites such as Bebo, Facebook, and Myspace will not send notifications to users when they are removed from a person's friends list. Likewise, Bebo will send out a notification if a user is moved to the top of another user's friends list but no notification is sent if they are moved down the list.This allows users to purge undesirables from their list extremely easily and often without confrontation since a user will rarely notice if one person disappears from their friends list. It also enforces the general positive atmosphere of the website without drawing attention to unpleasant happenings such as friends falling out, rejection and failed relationships.
Access to information
Many social networking services, such as Facebook, provide the user with a choice of who can view their profile. This prevents unauthorized user(s) from accessing their information. Parents who want to access their child's MySpace or Facebook account have become a big problem for teenagers who do not want their profile seen by their parents. By making their profile private, teens can select who may see their page, allowing only people added as "friends" to view their profile and preventing unwanted viewing of the profile by parents. Most teens are constantly trying to create a structural barrier between their private life and their parents.To edit information on a certain social networking service account, the social networking sites require you to login
Login
Login is the method whereby a user obtains access to a computer system.Login may also refer to:*Magazines:** LOGiN, published by Enterbrain** ;login:, published by USENIX* Login, Carmarthenshire, an hamlet in Carmarthenshire...
or provide a password
Password
A password is a secret word or string of characters that is used for authentication, to prove identity or gain access to a resource . The password should be kept secret from those not allowed access....
. This prevents unauthorized user(s) from adding, changing, or removing personal information, pictures, and/or other data.
Potential for misuse
The relative freedom afforded by social networking services has caused concern regarding the potential of its misuse by individual patrons. In October 2006, a fake MyspaceMyspace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
profile created in the name of Josh Evans by Lori Janine Drew led to the suicide of Megan Meier
Suicide of Megan Meier
Megan Taylor Meier , was an American teenager from Dardenne Prairie, Missouri, who committed suicide by hanging three weeks before her fourteenth birthday. A year later, Meier's parents prompted an investigation into the matter and her suicide was attributed to cyber-bullying through the social...
. The event incited global concern regarding the use of social networking services for bullying purposes.
In July 2008, a Briton, Grant Raphael, was ordered to pay a total of GBP £22,000 (about USD $44,000) for libel and breach of privacy. Raphael had posted a fake page on Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
purporting to be that of a former schoolfriend Matthew Firsht, with whom Raphael had fallen out in 2000. The page falsely claimed that Firsht was homosexual and that he was dishonest.
At the same time, genuine use of social networking services has been treated with suspicion on the ground of the services' misuse. In September 2008, the profile of Australian Facebook user Elmo Keep was banned by the site's administrators on the grounds that it violated the site's terms of use. Keep is one of several users of Facebook who were banned from the site on the presumption that their names aren't real, as they bear resemblance the names of characters like Sesame Street's Elmo.
Risk for child safety
Citizens and governments have been concerned by a misuse by child and teenagers of social networking services, in particular in relation to online sexual predators.A certain number of actions have been engaged by governments to better understand the problem and find some solutions. A 2008 panel concluded that technological fix
Technological fix
A technological fix or technical fix refers to an engineering or technical solution to a problem caused by human nature. Frequently the solution is an impractical and/or humorous proposal such as the Internet Protocol Evil bit or the "suitable application of high explosives" to interpersonal problems...
es such as age verification and scans are relatively ineffective means of apprehending online predators. In May 2010, a child pornography
Child pornography
Child pornography refers to images or films and, in some cases, writings depicting sexually explicit activities involving a child...
social networking site with hundreds of members was dismantled by law enforcement. It was deemed "the largest crimes against children case brought anywhere by anyone."
Trolling
A common misuse of social networking sites such as FacebookFacebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
is that it is occasionally used to emotionally abuse individuals. Such actions are often referred to as trolling. It is not rare for confrontations in the real world to be translated online. Trolling can occur in many different forms, such as (but not limited to) defacement of deceased person(s) tribute pages, name calling, playing online pranks on volatile individuals and controversial comments with the intention to cause anger and cause arguments. Trolling is not to be confused with cyber-bullying
Cyber-bullying
Cyber-bullying is the use of the Internet and related technologies to harm other people, in a deliberate, repeated, and hostile manner. As it has become more common in society, particularly among young people, legislation and awareness campaigns have arisen to combat it.-Definition:The term...
.
Online bullying
Online bullying, also called cyber-bullyingCyber-bullying
Cyber-bullying is the use of the Internet and related technologies to harm other people, in a deliberate, repeated, and hostile manner. As it has become more common in society, particularly among young people, legislation and awareness campaigns have arisen to combat it.-Definition:The term...
, is a relatively common occurrence and it can often result in emotional trauma for the victim. Depending on the networking outlet, up to 39% of users admit to being “cyber-bullied”. Danah Boyd
Danah Boyd
danah boyd also known as Danah Michele Boyd, is an American social media researcher known for her public commentary on the use of social networking sites by youth...
, a researcher of social networks quotes a teenager in her article, Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites. The teenager expresses frustration towards networking sites like MySpace because it causes drama and too much emotional stress. There are not many limitations as to what individuals can post when online. Individuals are given the power to post offensive remarks or pictures that could potentially cause a great amount of emotional pain for another individual.
Interpersonal communication
Interpersonal communication has been a growing issue as more and more people have turned to social networking as a means of communication. "Benniger (1987) describes how mass media has gradually replaced interpersonal communication as a socializing force. Further, social networking sites have become popular sites for youth culture to explore themselves, relationships, and share cultural artifacts".Many teens and social networking users may be harming their interpersonal communication by using sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Stated by Baroness Greenfield, an Oxford University Neuroscientist, "My fear is that these technologies are infantilizing the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment." The convenience that social network sites give users to communicate with one another can also damage their interpersonal communication. Sherry Turkle, the founder and director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, stated, “Networked, we are together, but so lessened are our expectations of each other that we feel utterly alone. And there is the risk that we come to see others as objects to be accessed--and only for the parts we find useful, comforting, or amusing.” Furthermore, social network sites can create insincere friendships, Turkle also noted, “They nurture friendships on social-networking sites and then wonder if they are among friends. They become confused about companionship.”
Psychological effects of social networking
As social networking sites have risen in popularity over the past years, people have been spending an excessive amount of time on the Internet in general and social networking sites in specific. This has led researchers to debate the establishment of Internet addiction as an actual clinical disorder.Social networking can also affect the extent to which a person feels lonely. In a Newsweek article, Johannah Cornblatt explains “Social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace may provide people with a false sense of connection that ultimately increases loneliness in people who feel alone.” John T. Cacioppo, a neuroscientist at the University of Chicago, claims that social networking can foster feelings of sensitivity to disconnection, which can lead to loneliness. However some scholars have expressed that concerns about social networking are often exaggerated and poorly researched .
Patents
There has been rapid growth in the number of US patent applications that cover new technologies related to social networking. The number of published applications has been growing rapidly since 2003. There are now over 3500 published applications. As many as 7000 applications may be currently on file including those that haven't been published yet. Only about 400 of these applications have issued as patents, however, due largely to the multi-year backlog in examination of business method patents and the difficulty in getting these patent applications allowed.It has been reported that social networking patents are important for the establishment of new start-up companies. It has also been reported, however, that social networking patents inhibit innovation. On June 15, 2010, the United States Patent and Trademark Office
United States Patent and Trademark Office
The United States Patent and Trademark Office is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that issues patents to inventors and businesses for their inventions, and trademark registration for product and intellectual property identification.The USPTO is based in Alexandria, Virginia,...
awarded Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
a patent for a "Social Networking System" based on its ownership of PlanetAll
PlanetAll
PlanetAll was a social networking, calendaring, and address book site launched in November 1996. It was founded by a group of Harvard Business School and MIT graduates including and...
. The patent describes a Social Networking System as
A networked computer system provides various services for assisting users in locating, and establishing contact relationships with, other users. For example, in one embodiment, users can identify other users based on their affiliations with particular schools or other organizations. The system also provides a mechanism for a user to selectively establish contact relationships or connections with other users, and to grant permissions for such other users to view personal information of the user. The system may also include features for enabling users to identify contacts of their respective contacts. In addition, the system may automatically notify users of personal information updates made by their respective contacts.
The patent has garnered attention due to its similarity to the popular social networking site Facebook.
Worker's rights
What types of speech workers are protected from being fired for on social networking websites has been an issue for American companies with over 100 complaints as of 2011 on this topic having been made to the National Labor Relations BoardNational Labor Relations Board
The National Labor Relations Board is an independent agency of the United States government charged with conducting elections for labor union representation and with investigating and remedying unfair labor practices. Unfair labor practices may involve union-related situations or instances of...
(NLRB). The National Labor Relations Act
National Labor Relations Act
The National Labor Relations Act or Wagner Act , is a 1935 United States federal law that limits the means with which employers may react to workers in the private sector who create labor unions , engage in collective bargaining, and take part in strikes and other forms of concerted activity in...
protects workers from being fired for "protected concerted activity," which prevents worker's for being fired for collective action, while allowing companies the right to fire workers for individual actions they take against the company. Companies are concerned with the potential damage comments online can do to public image due to their visibility and accessibility, but despite over 100 cases being presented thus far to NLRB only 1 has led to a formal ruling, leaving uncertainty as to the boundaries of what types of speech the NLRB will ultimately put in place.
Investigations
Social networking services are increasingly being used in legal and criminal investigations. Information posted on sites such as MySpace and Facebook has been used by police (forensic profilingForensic profiling
Forensic profiling refers to the study and the exploitation of traces in order to draw a profile relevant to the supporting of various security tasks, mostly in the criminal justice system. The term forensic in this context refers to "information that is used in court as evidence" . The traces...
), probation, and university officials to prosecute users of said sites. In some situations, content posted on MySpace has been used in court.
Facebook is increasingly being used by school administrations and law enforcement agencies as a source of evidence against student users. The site, the number one online destination for college students, allows users to create profile pages with personal details. These pages can be viewed by other registered users from the same school, which often include resident assistants and campus police who have signed up for the service. One UK police force has sifted pictures from Facebook and arrested some people who had been photographed in a public place holding a weapon such as a knife (having a weapon in a public place is illegal).
Government applications
Social networking is more recently being used by various government agencies. Social networking tools serve as a quick and easy way for the government to get the opinion of the public and to keep the public updated on their activity. The Centers for Disease Control demonstrated the importance of vaccinations on the popular children's site WhyvilleWhyville
About Whyville=Whyville is an educational Internet site geared towards children from ages 8-15. Its goal is to engage its users in learning about a broad range of topics, from science and business to art and geography....
and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration , pronounced , like "noah", is a scientific agency within the United States Department of Commerce focused on the conditions of the oceans and the atmosphere...
has a virtual island on Second Life
Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
where people can explore underground caves or explore the effects of global warming.
Likewise, NASA has taken advantage of a few social networking tools, including Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
and Flickr
Flickr
Flickr is an image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community that was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to...
. They are using these tools to aid the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee
Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans Committee
The Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans Committee was a group reviewing the human spaceflight plans of the United States...
, whose goal it is to ensure that the nation is
on a vigorous and sustainable path to achieving its boldest aspirations in space.
Business applications
The use of social networking services in an enterprise context presents the potential of having a major impact on the world of business and work .Social networks connect people at low cost; this can be beneficial for entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
s and small business
Small business
A small business is a business that is privately owned and operated, with a small number of employees and relatively low volume of sales. Small businesses are normally privately owned corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorships...
es looking to expand their contact bases. These networks often act as a customer relationship management tool for companies selling products and services. Companies can also use social networks for advertising in the form of banners and text ads. Since businesses operate globally, social networks can make it easier to keep in touch with contacts around the world.
One example of social networking being used for business purposes is LinkedIn
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a business-related social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. , LinkedIn reports more than 120 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories. The site is available in English, French,...
.com, which aims to interconnect professionals. LinkedIn has over 100 million users in over 200 countries.
Another is the use of physical spaces available to members of a social network such as Hub Culture
Hub Culture
Hub Culture is a social network service that operates the global digital currency Ven, and according to its website, is "the first to merge online and physical world environments." It was founded in November 2002. The Hub Culture group of companies is privately held with offices in Bermuda, Geneva,...
, an invitation-only social network for entrepreneurs, and other business influentials, with Pavilions in major cities such as London, UK. Having a physical presence allows members to network in the real world, as well as the virtual, adding extra business value.
Applications for social networking sites have extended toward businesses and brands are creating their own, high functioning sites, a sector known as brand networking
Brand networking
Brand networking is the engagement of a social networking service around a brand by providing consumers with a platform of relevant content, elements of participation, and a currency, score, or ranking. Brands are using brand networking to create communities that serve as a fully encompassing...
. It is the idea a brand can build its consumer relationship by connecting their consumers to the brand image on a platform that provides them relative content, elements of participation, and a ranking or score system. Brand networking is a new way to capitalize on social trends as a marketing tool.
Dating applications
Many social networks provide an online environment for people to communicate and exchange personal information for dating purposes. Intentions can vary from looking for a one time date, short-term relationships, and long-term relationships.Most of these social networks, just like online dating services, require users to give out certain pieces of information. This usually includes a user's age, gender, location, interests, and perhaps a picture. Releasing very personal information is usually discouraged for safety reasons. This allows other users to search or be searched by some sort of criteria, but at the same time people can maintain a degree of anonymity similar to most online dating services. Online dating sites are similar to social networks in the sense that users create profiles to meet and communicate with others, but their activities on such sites are for the sole purpose of finding a person of interest to date. Social networks do not necessarily have to be for dating; many users simply use it for keeping in touch with friends, and colleagues.
However, an important difference between social networks and online dating services is the fact that online dating sites usually require a fee, where social networks are free.
This difference is one of the reasons the online dating industry is seeing a massive decrease in revenue due to many users opting to use social networking services instead. Many popular online dating services such as Match.com
Match.com
Match.com is an online dating company which reportedly has more than 20 million members, made up of a 49/51 male/female ratio, and Web sites serving 25 countries in more than 8 different languages. Its headquarters are in Dallas, Texas and the company also has offices in West Hollywood, Tokyo, Rio,...
, Yahoo Personals, and eHarmony.com are seeing a decrease in users, where social networks like MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
and Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
are experiencing an increase in users.
The number of Internet users in the U.S. that visit online dating sites has fallen from a peak of 21% in 2003 to 10% in 2006. Whether its the cost of the services, the variety of users with different intentions, or any other reason, it is undeniable that social networking sites are quickly becoming the new way to find dates online.
Educational applications
The National School Boards AssociationNational School Boards Association
The National School Boards Association, or NSBA, is a nonprofit organization operating as a federation of state associations of school boards across the United States. Founded in 1940, NSBA represents 95,000 local school board members who govern 14,890 local school districts serving more than 47...
reports that almost 60 percent of students who use social networking talk about education topics online, and more than 50 percent talk specifically about schoolwork. Yet the vast majority of school districts have stringent rules against nearly all forms of social networking during the school day — even though students and parents report few problem behaviors online.
Social networks focused on supporting relationships between teachers and their students are now used for learning, educator professional development, and content sharing. Ning for teachers, TermWiki
TermWiki
TermWiki.com is a major social learning network that allows users to learn, discover, share, and store personal terms and glossaries in 1487 domains in 97 languages. The site emphasizes collaboration, with a forum, a question/answer module, messaging features that encourage user interaction, and...
, Learn Central, TeachStreet
Teachstreet
TeachStreet, Inc. is a web site providing information to students on local and online classes and teachers including pricing information, location, and teacher background and training. It also provides online business management tools for teachers and schools...
and other sites are being built to foster relationships that include educational blogs, eportfolios, formal and ad hoc communities, as well as communication such as chats, discussion threads, and synchronous forums. These sites also have content sharing and rating features.
Social networks are also emerging as online yearbook
Yearbook
A yearbook, also known as an annual, is a book to record, highlight, and commemorate the past year of a school or a book published annually. Virtually all American, Australian and Canadian high schools, most colleges and many elementary and middle schools publish yearbooks...
s, both public and private. One such service is MyYearbook
MyYearbook
-History:myYearbook was initially created by two high school students, David and Catherine Cook, and their older brother Geoff, during Spring Break of 2005. Catherine persuaded Geoff, who founded EssayEdge.com and ResumeEdge.com from a dorm in 1997, to invest in their project...
, which allows anyone from the general public to register and connect. A new trend emerging is private label yearbooks accessible only by students, parents, and teachers of a particular school, similar to Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
's beginning within Harvard.
Finance applications
The use of virtual currencyVirtual currency
Virtual currency is used to purchase virtual goods within a variety of online communities; which include social networking websites, virtual worlds and online gaming sites....
systems inside social networks create new opportunities for global finance. Hub Culture
Hub Culture
Hub Culture is a social network service that operates the global digital currency Ven, and according to its website, is "the first to merge online and physical world environments." It was founded in November 2002. The Hub Culture group of companies is privately held with offices in Bermuda, Geneva,...
operates a virtual currency Ven
Ven
Ven may refer to:* Ven, Sweden, a Swedish island*Ven, Tajikistan* Ven , a hamlet in the Netherlands* Ven , a hamlet in the Netherlands* Ven, Heeze-Leende, a hamlet in the Netherlands...
used for global transactions among members, product sales and financial trades in commodities and carbon credits. In May 2010, Carbon pricing contracts were introduced to the weighted basket of currencies and commodities that determine the floating exchange value of Ven. The introduction of carbon to the calculation price of the currency made Ven the first and only currency that is linked to the environment.
Medical applications
Social networks are beginning to be adopted by healthcare professionals as a means to manage institutional knowledge, disseminate peer to peer knowledge and to highlight individual physicians and institutions. The advantage of using a dedicated medical social networking site is that all the members are screened against the state licensing board list of practitioners.The role of social networks is especially of interest to pharmaceutical companies who spend approximately "32 percent of their marketing dollars" attempting to influence the opinion leaders of social networks.
A new trend is emerging with social networks created to help its members with various physical and mental ailments. For people suffering from life altering diseases, PatientsLikeMe
PatientsLikeMe
PatientsLikeMe is a data-driven social networking health site that enables its members to share condition, treatment, and symptom information in order to monitor their health over time and learn from real-world outcomes. Members are able to find and connect with patients like them, gain social...
offers its members the chance to connect with others dealing with similar issues and research patient data related to their condition. For alcoholics and addicts, SoberCircle gives people in recovery the ability to communicate with one another and strengthen their recovery through the encouragement of others who can relate to their situation. DailyStrength
DailyStrength
DailyStrength is a social networking website where users provide one another with emotional support by discussing their struggles and successes with each other. The site contains online communities that deal with different medical conditions or life challenges...
is also a website that offers support groups for a wide array of topics and conditions, including the support topics offered by PatientsLikeMe
PatientsLikeMe
PatientsLikeMe is a data-driven social networking health site that enables its members to share condition, treatment, and symptom information in order to monitor their health over time and learn from real-world outcomes. Members are able to find and connect with patients like them, gain social...
and SoberCircle. SparkPeople
SparkPeople
SparkPeople is a company which develops and maintains several healthy living websites.SparkPeople's goal is to show people that they can use health and fitness to improve other areas of their lives, both personal and professional.-SparkPeople.com:...
offers community and social networking tools for peer support during weight loss.
Social and political applications
Social networking sites have recently showed a value in social and political movements. In the Egyptian revolution, Facebook and Twitter both played a pivotal role in keeping people connected to the revolt. Egyptian activist have credited social networking sites with providing a platform for planning protest and sharing news from Tahrir Square in real time. By presenting a platform for thousands of people to instantaneously share videos of mainly events featuring brutality, social networking proves to be a vital tool in revolutions.Open source software
There are a number of projects that aim to develop free and open source softwareFree and open source software
Free and open-source software or free/libre/open-source software is software that is liberally licensed to grant users the right to use, study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code...
to use for social networking services. The projects include Anahita Social Networking Engine, Diaspora
Diaspora (software)
Diaspora is a free personal web server that implements a distributed social networking service. Installations of the software form nodes which make up the distributed Diaspora social network....
, Appleseed Project, OneSocialWeb and StatusNet. These technologies are often referred to as Social engine
Social engine
A social engine is a hybrid between a Social Network and a Search Engine.The term social engine is the shortened version of the term social networking engine which provides a software development framework for developing social applications and a platform for hosting them...
or Social networking engine software.
See also
- Distributed social networkDistributed social networkA distributed social network is an Internet social network service that is decentralized and distributed across different providers. The emphasis of the distribution is on portability, interoperability and federation capability...
- Enterprise bookmarkingEnterprise bookmarkingEnterprise bookmarking is a method for Enterprise 2.0 users to tag, organize, store, and search bookmarks of both web pages on the Internet and data resources stored in a distributed database or fileserver...
- Gender differences in social network service useGender differences in social network service useMen and women use social network services differently and in different frequencies. In general, several researchers have found that women tend to use SNSs more than men and for different and more social purposes.-Historical connections:...
- Geosocial networkingGeosocial networkingGeosocial Networking is a type of social networking in which geographic services and capabilities such as geocoding and geotagging are used to enable additional social dynamics. User-submitted location data or geolocation techniques can allow social networks to connect and coordinate users with...
- Lateral diffusionLateral diffusionLateral diffusion is the process whereby information can be spread from one node in a social network to another, often in a selective way, and can rapidly traverse an entire population, but preferentially to those nodes likely to be interested, or needing to know. Messages or information are also...
- List of social networking websites
- List of virtual communities with more than 100 million users
- Mobile social networkMobile social networkMobile social networking is social networking where one or more individuals of similar interests or commonalities, conversing and connecting with one another using the mobile phone. Much like web based social networking, mobile social networking occurs in virtual communities. A current trend for...
- Personal NetworkPersonal NetworkA Personal Network is a set of human contacts known to an individual, with whom that individual would expect to interact at intervals to support a given set of activities....
- Professional network serviceProfessional network serviceA professional network service is a type of social network service that is focused solely on interactions and relationships of a business nature rather than including personal, nonbusiness interactions.Notable examples include LinkedIn, Viadeo, XING and Wisestep.com.-See also:* Business...
- Social aspects of televisionSocial aspects of televisionThe social aspects of television are influences this medium has had on society since its inception. The belief that this impact has been dramatic has been largely unchallenged in media theory since its inception...
- Social bookmark link generatorSocial bookmark link generatorA Social bookmark link generator is a third party software which generates a code that can be added to Web pages and/or Blogs to facilitate bookmarking the web content on bookmarking websites....
- Social identitySocial identityA social identity is the portion of an individual's self-concept derived from perceived membership in a relevant social group. As originally formulated by Henri Tajfel and John Turner in the 1970s and 80s, social identity theory introduced the concept of a social identity as a way in which to...
- Social networkSocial networkA social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...
- Social network aggregationSocial network aggregationSocial network aggregation is the process of collecting content from multiple social network services, such as MySpace or Facebook. The task is often performed by a social network aggregator, which pulls together information into a single location, or helps a user consolidate multiple social...
- Social networking in the PhilippinesSocial networking in the PhilippinesSocial networking is one of the most active web-based activities in the Philippines, with Filipinos being declared as the most active users on a number of web-based social network sites such as Friendster, Facebook, Multiply, Twitter, , , PinoyKubo , Tayotayolang , Cubeesocial and...
- Social softwareSocial softwareSocial software applications include communication tools and interactive tools. Communication tools typically handle the capturing, storing and presentation of communication, usually written but increasingly including audio and video as well. Interactive tools handle mediated interactions between a...
- Social televisionSocial televisionSocial Television is a general term for technology that supports communication and social interaction in either the context of watching television, or related to TV content. It also includes the study of television-related social behavior, devices and networks...
- User profileUser profileA user profile is a collection of personal data associated to a specific user. A profile refers therefore to the explicit digital representation of a person's identity...
- Virtual communityVirtual communityA virtual community is a social network of individuals who interact through specific media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals...
- Web 2.0Web 2.0The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
In the media
- In December 2010, Time Magazine named Facebook CEO Mark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark Elliot Zuckerberg is an American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-creating the social networking site Facebook, of which he is chief executive and president...
as person of the year. - The Social NetworkThe Social NetworkThe Social Network is a 2010 American drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin. Adapted from Ben Mezrich's 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires, the film portrays the founding of social networking website Facebook and the resulting lawsuits...
- a 2010 drama biographical film about the origin of Facebook.
Further reading
- Alemán, Ana M. Martínez; Wartman, Katherine Lynk, "Online social networking on campus: understanding what matters in student culture", New York and London : RoutledgeRoutledgeRoutledge is a British publishing house which has operated under a succession of company names and latterly as an academic imprint. Its origins may be traced back to the 19th-century London bookseller George Routledge...
, 1st edition, 2009. ISBN 0-415-99019-X - Barham, Nick, Disconnected: Why our kids are turning their backs on everything we thought we knew, 1st ed., Ebury Press, 2004. ISBN 0-09-189586-3
- Baron, Naomi S., Always on : language in an online and mobile world, Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-19-531305-5
- Cockrell, Cathy, "Plumbing the mysterious practices of 'digital youth': In first public report from a 'seminal' study, UC Berkeley scholars shed light on kids' use of Web 2.0 tools", UC Berkeley News, University of California, Berkeley, NewsCenter, 28 April 2008
- Davis, Donald Carrington, "MySpace Isn't Your Space: Expanding the Fair Credit Reporting Act to Ensure Accountability and Fairness in Employer Searches of Online Social Networking Services", 16 Kan. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 237 (2007).
- Else, Liz; Turkle, SherrySherry TurkleSherry Turkle is Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a sociologist...
. "Living online: I'll have to ask my friends", New ScientistNew ScientistNew Scientist is a weekly non-peer-reviewed English-language international science magazine, which since 1996 has also run a website, covering recent developments in science and technology for a general audience. Founded in 1956, it is published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidiary of...
, issue 2569, 20 September 2006. (interview) - Glaser, Mark, Your Guide to Social Networking Online," PBSPublic Broadcasting ServiceThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
MediaShift, August 2007 - Powers, William, Hamlet’s Blackberry : a practical philosophy for building a good life in the digital age, 1st ed., New York : Harper, 2010. ISBN 978-0-06-168716-7
- Video on the History of social networks by WikiLecture
- C. Infant Louis Richards , "Advanced Techniques to overcome privacy issues and SNS threats" October, 2011