Social Networking: What Next - Report Example

SOCIAL NETWORKING: WHAT NEXT? Introduction The advent of the internet has revolutionized the communication landscape given that it has enabled peoplefrom different geographical locations to link with others from any part of the world. Through the use of the internet, people can connect or link with each other on the basis of friendship, kinship, relationships as well as other social partnership among others. This is seen as a viable form of communication and is often referred to as social networking. As such, this paper seeks to critically analyse the main features that characterize this concept of social networking and the extent to which it has impacted on way people from different geographical locations link with others. Literature Review Definition: Social networking can be defined as the process through which people can create their profiles and be able to connect to others through the use of social sites or websites in a bid to form a personal network of friends (Barker & Valerie, 2009). Users can register for free via their emails and they are also provided with free online space as well as publishing tools. People can communicate through the use of instant messaging facilities provided by the websites. The users can include photographs, music files, blogs as well as animation to their profiles which can be visible to others. However, this option can be limited to friends only but in some cases, any subscriber to the social network can also access this particular information about another person. The history of social network sites: The history of social networks can be traced back to 1997 when the first social site, SixDegrees.com was launched. This site allowed the users to create profiles and this is a feature which was previously not available on other dating as well as community sites such as AIM and ICQ. It can be seen that though these sites enabled the especially classmates to affiliate with others, they could not create their profiles and this change was introduced when SixDegrees.com was established. This site helped people to connect people from various parts of the world given that it attracted millions of users. However, the site folded in 2001 when it failed to sustain its operations. It can also be noted that from 1997 to 2001, there were quite a number of community tools that emerged and these supported a variety of combinations of profiles and these included AsianAvenue, BlackPlanet, and MiGente. The users could create personal, dating as well as professional profiles which enabled them to identify with friends without seeking for approval from them. LiveJournal for instance had one sided connections where friends followed their journals and managed privacy settings. The Korean virtual world site, Cyworld was established in 1999 ant it introduced SNS features in 2001.on the other hand, the Swedish web community LunarStorm rebranded itself as an SNS in 2000 and it contained lists of friends, diary pages as well as guest books. However, the turning point in the history of SNSs was marked by Ryze.com in 2001when it was established since it could allow people to leverage their business networks through a social site forum. It started off as an affiliate for members of business and technology in San Francisco and it incorporated sites like Tribe.net, LinkedIn, and Friendster which supported each other without directly competing against each other. As such, Ryze failed to garner popularity, Tribe.net attracted only a niche user base and LinkedIn grew up to become a powerful business service while Friendster became very popular during that time. The Rise (and Fall) of Friendster Launched in 2002 as a complement of Ryze, Friendster was designed to compete with Match.com, an online dating site and its primary focus was to help friends meet other friends on line. It experienced a significant growth since its inception but the main problem it encountered is that its servers as well as databases could not handle the huge volume of data which resulted in technical hiccups. Many people in US left as a result of these technical problems though it was gaining popularity in other parts of the world such as Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, and other Asian countries. SNSs Hit the Mainstream Many SNSs were launched in 2003 upwards which prompted the social software analyst Clay Shirky (2003) to come up with the term YASNS: "Yet Another Social Networking Service." These solicited for more audiences in different areas such as professional sites like LinkedIn, Visible Path, and Xing (formerly openBC) which mainly focused on business people. Other SNSs like Dogster helped strangers to get connected on the basis of their shared interests whereas sites like MyChurch unified church members. These sites also incorporated features like photo sharing, Last.FM (music sharing) as well as You Tube for video sharing. MySpace was launched in 2003 and was able to capitalize on Friendsters alienation of its early users which prompted its growth. The relationship between the bands and the fans helped MySpace to experience rapid growth given that the bands wanted to be able to contact fans while the fans wanted the connection with the bands to identify with their friends. MySpace reciprocated to user demands by incorporating the features that were on demand by allowing the users to personalize their pages. As such, the site rapidly grew as a result of the need by the audiences to connect with their favourite bands. Even under ages were allowed given that the policies were refined to accommodate the cluster of these users. MySpace was purchased for $580 million and it attracted a lot of media attention though it was later implicated for interactions between elders and minors. A Global Phenomenon As a result of the fact that MySpace attracted media attention both in US and abroad, it can be seen that SNSs were growing in popularity the world over. The instant messaging service became very popular which contributed to the rise of blogging services. For instance, in the US, SNS features like Xanga, LiveJournal, and Vox attracted a significantly large number of audiences. Expanding Niche Communities These open SNSs were launched to support small or niche communities at first before being expanded to meet the needs of a broader audience. Contrary to other previous SNSs, Facebook for instance primarily designed to support a network of college students. It was launched in 2004 and a user had to have an email address portraying the harvard.edu features. People from other institutions were also allowed to have email addresses depicting the addresses of their respective institutions in order to be eligible to join. This was mainly done in a bid to keep the site relatively closed and open to a few people who belonged to this community only. As of September 2005, Facebook expanded to incorporate almost everyone and the .com email address was still required for the sign up process. It can be noted that Facebook users are unable to make their profiles public to other users and the other feature that makes this social site distinct from the other is that outsider developers are able to build applications which allow users to personalize their profiles. Currently, Facebook is renowned as one of the most popular social network site the world over with millions of users. However, some SNSs seek to narrow their audience numbers in order to provide customized services to a niche segment of the users. These include aSmallWorld and BeautifulPeople and these restrict the number of users since they are primarily meant to target elite users. Others are activity centered like Couchsurfing, BlackPlanet, and MyChurch. These are often limited by the targeted demography. Whilst there is no reliable data that shows the exact number of people who use SNSs, marketing research has indicated that the SNSs are exponentially growing in their popularity the world over. As such, corporations have been prompted to invest money in creating, purchasing, promoting and advertising of SNSs. However, other companies are seen blocking their employees to access such sites. For instance, the US army prohibits the soilders to access MySpace while government employees in Canada are not allowed to access facebook. In the same vein, the US congress has proposed a law that bans the youths from accessing SNSs at school and in libraries. The growth of SNS has indicated a shift in the organization of online communities where they are primarily meant to fulfill the needs not interests of the people. Social network sites are structured as individual networks with the individual person at the center of the community unlike public discussion forums that are shaped by the topic under discussion. The world is viewed as comprising of networks not groups and the SNSs have significantly helped in organizing the framework for online communities. Figure 1. Timeline of the launch dates of many major SNSs and dates when community sites re-launched with SNS features The differences between social media and social network Though these terms are used interchangeably or seen as synonymous, there is a difference between them. If the word social is removed from the two terms, on media and networking are the two terms left and these are not obviously the same. As such, social media is a channel for communication while social networking is a strategy or device that is used for connecting various individuals from different places across the globe. These two terms can be categorized as Web 2.0. for instance, LinkedIn is a tool for social networking given that it enables people to hook as well as businesses as well as individuals who share the same interests. It can be observed that You Tube for instance is a good example of social media website given that it allows the individuals to visually express themselves. It is a medium that allows people to share their visions, knowledge as well as experiences through video presentations. Videos in particular can be watched or distributed through you tube and people can make comments about what they consume from this website. However, there are some sites which offer both social media and social networking in one website such as Twitter and Facebook. Facebook allows an individual to broadcast pictures while at the same time promoting a link among people from different walks of life. In other words, it can be noted that there is a correlation between social media and social networking as they often go hand in hand. The future of social networking A summary of top ten insights into the future of social networking 1) There is likely to be a closer connection between the physical and digital worlds than before as a result of the ever changing developments in the new information and communication technology. 2) Facebook, Twitter and other major social networks can be used as platforms for economic growth for companies if they leverage on the use of this social site. A good example can be drawn from Stocktwits, Tweetdeck and Zynga which have gained huge profits from using these platforms. 3) Face book is likely to be one of the leading social commerce stores where more that 700 million users can purchase products of their choice online. 4) Companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon will be able to provide the right information at the right time to the right time based on the information they are collecting about the users of their sites. 5) Mobile technology is likely to dominate all forms of digital communication. 6) Human relations will no longer be physically bound as people can network from any area. 7) People will no longer be passive media consumers since the new features enable them to become part of the virtual world. 8 ) new social media will prompt companies to invest money in companies such as Google and Facebook in customizing the information needs of the people. 9) Organisations will be able to measure the role of social media through the frequency of engagement by the users on these social media networks. 10) Services are likely to be crowd sourced. For instance, a variety of information can be obtained from one website. Conclusion Over and above, it can be noted that the internet through specially designed social sites has greatly changed the communication landscape across the whole world. Social networking in particular as well as social media are two broad phenomena that have been born out of the advent of new information and communication technology. Though people often confuse the two concepts of social networking and social media as similar, it can be observed that a closer analysis of the two shows that they are different. A social medium is a channel of communication while a social network deals with networks that are established among people through the use of social network sites such as Facebook. These allow people from different parts of the globe to link with each other. It is my strong conviction that we are slowly moving away from geographical boundaries where people’s culture from different places will be severely affected. It may be difficult to retain the essence of culture since information can be easily exchanged without any barrier. This leads to acculturation which is one negative aspect of social networking. People’s identity is lost and it seems difficult to curtail this impending disaster. References Barker, Valerie. (2009). Older Adolescents Motivations for Social Network Site Use: The Influence of Gender, Group Identity, and Collective Self-Esteem. CyberPsychology & Behavior. 1-5 (journal article) boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), article 11. Paetzold ,Mike .(2009). http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Difference-Between-Social-Media-and-Social-Networking&id=3255140. Noff, Ayelet .(2009). http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2011/06/14/whats-next-in-social-media/. Read More