Impact of Social Networks and Blogs on Peoples Internet Usage - Term Paper Example

Student Name ID # Professor Name Date Impact of Social Networks and Blogs on People’s Internet Usage The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of the blogs and social media on the use of the Internet. In the past few years, the use of social web sites has increased to an amazing extent. In fact, some of the social web sites such as Facebook and Twitter have become family names. This paper discusses the impact of social websites on people’s usage of the Internet. This paper will discuss some of the positive and negative aspects of social web sites. The basic purpose is to analyze their influence blogs and social networks on people’s daily usage of the Internet. At this time, almost all the people believe that the Internet is a valuable tool or technology for accessing worldwide markets as well as extending their reach to the worldwide customers in a better way. On the other hand, numerous attributes of the way business organizations or individuals perform their daily tasks and carry on at this time are determined through the gigantic web of electronic networks that was in the past acknowledged as the information superhighway but at the moment it is called the Internet. The Internet is a huge set of networks that is commonly used to connect millions of businesses, educational institutions, government agencies, and individuals. In addition, nowadays almost all the people make use of the Internet daily for different purposes; some of the common uses of the internet are given below[MKk11]: To talk with and meet other people around the globe (it comes under social networks, which will be discussed in detail below) To get access to a wealth of information, news, articles, research results and so on For online shopping for goods and services of their choice (for instance customer uses a web site to place order and get that product) Banking, funds transfer and investment (opening an online bank account, another example is PayPal, which is used by the people to send and receive payments) For taking online classes (in this scenario, people can use the internet to take online classes, to communicate with teachers and other class fellows) For finding ways of entertainment and free time, for instance, social networks, online games, music, movies, videos, books, and magazines. No doubt, the Internet is one of the most well-liked and modern subjects among a variety of research and studies carried out to determine the effects of the Internet. Keeping in mind the organizations’ continuously increasing interest in the Internet, many studies regarding business to customers and Internet shopping have been conducted to discover the major aspects which can have influence over buying behaviors and decisions made by the customers on the Internet. Some of the useful aspects can include the psychographic and demographic attributes of consumers and the quality of products or services[Bih06]. As discussed above, the majority of business organizations are at the present extensively making use of the internet to reach global markets. In this scenario, they create a page on Facebook, twitter or any other similar web site (also known as the social network web site). Basically, a social network website (Such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn etc.) allows its users to make a profile using the services and tools provided by the web site, In this way they provide their personal information and interests uphold a list of friends and relatives and express their preferences for items like music, movies or books. On the other hand, the Web-based structure of social networks makes it ideal for use in a variety of forms that can take advantage of the users' social and personal data. At the moment, these social networking sites (SNSs) have a great impact on the social life of many people, even more than millions of people that make use of these web sites directly. An organization can create a page on any social network site such as Facebook. Hence, when a customer of that organization will access that page he will tell other customers. In this way an organization can achieve popularity among a large number of people. In addition, the majority of organizations use the data available on these social networks to build new business strategies. They use this data to identify what customers like and dislike. In the same way, blogs are developed to attract the people towards a specific domain. A blog is written by an influenced author and people read their blogs and get an idea about different things. Though, the research has shown that these blogs and the social media have significant impact on the use of the Internet. In fact, the majority of people now make use of the Internet for only accessing social media web sites and blogs. Without a doubt, the social media has become a significant aspect of people’s lives and they make use of the Internet to use social media web sites[Dub11]. A social website is a platform which allows people to create their profile, create and maintain friend list, communicate with other people and share their information. In fact, it also offers a large number of opportunities to people. In spite of the fact that it is an individual’s private or professional profile, they are in actual fact magnificent procedure for making new relationships online and communicating with friends, colleagues for the reason that a social web is a kind of website where individuals and groups are able to build up an online profile, after that they enter their interests into the profile, and they can add or insert connections to other profiles. In addition, the people using social web sites are able to distribute/share private information, such as blog entries, photographs and videos. There is an example of social website that is MySpace. This social web site is very famous equally with music groups and individuals, who want to share information about their tour dates, and distribute their songs on their profile pages (Bowles; Turban, Leidner, McLean, & Wetherbe; Kulshreshtha, Kumar, & Sehgal). In addition, one of the most important advantages of social websites is that they are very supportive and useful method to stay in touch with many people (friends, relatives, colleagues etc.). In this scenario, if an individual has interesting news which he/she desires to share with other people (friends, relatives or community), with social web it turns out to be very simple since he/she can add/enter it on his/her personal bulletin board and it will be distributed or transferred to the people to whom he desires to share. In this way, the social networking sites play a major role in meeting with new people, whatever the purpose of it (a business deal or friendship) (Parrack; Dubai School of Government; Schultz, Schwepker, & Jr). In their paper, (Phillips & Phillips) add to the scope of social web by saying it a collection of corporations, businesses, individuals/users, or other social entities that are connected through a set of widely significant associations, for instance co-working, friendship, otherwise information exchange and communications to successfully accomplish preferred outcomes by sharing/distributing expertise, resources, knowledge, and information. Moreover, a social network typically offers its users a number of opportunities for finding, establishing novel social or business related association for collaboration, social support, exchanging social capital such as, services and goods, economic resources discovering and application of information sharing, and creating social wealth (Phillips & Phillips). According to (Liebowitz, 2005), at the present the social networking technology is offering a major role in e-commerce, business communication, e-business, financial growth and dealing with other business activities. Since the adoption and execution of the computer-mediated technology for the social networks present ways that help users share and discuss corporate information such as a range of products and services offered, the quality of the products or services, and prices to enhance the corporation’s reputation and make popular the services they present (Liebowitz). In addition, a most well-liked and popular instance of virtual community (social networking) is eBay that is a virtual marketplace through which millions of users and customers from all over the world buy and sell products or services, discuss and share common interests, discuss the products and optimum practices, get assistance and feedback from other customers, and market the products and services that assist in developing business status. In this scenario, (Lea, Yu, Maguluru, & Nichols) discuss that this kind of virtual communities and social networks help improve financial system by growing transactions connected to various seen loosely connected various communities of people and small businesses (Lea, Yu, Maguluru, & Nichols). In addition, social networking websites facilitate users to communicate with people who exchange or distribute similar ideas or information. Although these websites were originally produced to assist social associations, dealers are recognizing the prospect of these sites to offer the mechanisms to encourage valuable services and products of the business. In this scenario, a very popular social networking website in the U.S. is Facebook, which comprises more than 500 million worldwide users. Additionally, the social networking websites similar to Facebook, Flickr and MySpace have turned into a well-liked method to distribute and publicize a web based material. Their huge fame has directed to viral marketing methodologies that try to offer useful content, services, effective products and thoughts through these social networking websites. Though, there exists less information openly accessible about viral marketing in the real world as well as not many studies and researches have demonstrated how valuable business data and information moves over an existing web based social network website. On the other hand, the web based social networking capabilities have currently turned into a well-liked manner to exchange and distribute business data. In this scenario, the registered and regular users of social networking websites like Flicker, MySpace, and Facebook form systems/networks of their colleagues. Additionally, people over here distribute, discover, and distribute website data at a huge level. Thus, due to the large popularity of these websites corporations utilize them for their business marketing. In addition, they are also used for viral marketing of website content, business products, and supporting operations for instance, several movie studios store and offer promos for their videos on MySpace website (Cha, Mislove, & Gummadi; Lemel). Some of the researchers believe that the social web has a negative impact on society. They argue that people use these social web sites from work which affect their working. Some of the researchers argue that the majority of students use social web sites at schools and institutes, which can affect their studies. These are serious negative effects of the social web on society (Pernisco; O'Keeffe & Clarke-Pearson; Bowles). On the other hand, the majority of researches talk in the favor of social web. They believe that the social web has a positive impact on the society. In fact, it is the easiest and quickest way to stay in touch with friends and colleagues. Additionally, the majority of business organizations is using the social web as a most useful marketing tool. In their paper, (Kulshreshtha, Kumar, & Sehgal) carried out a survey to determine the pos the social web negative impacts of social web on society. This survey revealed that more than 62% of social network users regularly use social web from home, while approximately 27% access social web sites from institute/office and only 6% of them access social web sites from cyber cafe. In addition, the research also revealed that more than 60% of college/institutes have imposed ban on accessing social websites in place, while approximately 40% colleges/institutes have not imposed ban on accessing social websites. The most important fact that this survey revealed that approximately 39% people agree that the social web has negative impact on society however more than 61% believe that it is a wonderful tool for building and maintaining social relationship (Kulshreshtha, Kumar, & Sehgal). Conclusion This paper has discussed some of the important aspects associated with the social web. This paper has discussed some of the advantages and opportunities that have offered by the social web for different people. This paper has shown that at the present time social web is being used by a large number of people for different purposes. However, one of the key purposes remains to make new friends, interact with family and friends and maintain relationship. In addition, the majority of business organizations has also started making use of this wonderful tool for marketing and advertisement purposes. The purpose of every technology is to facilitate people. However, it depends on humans how they make use of this technology. If they use positively then it can make society and if they use negatively it can have negative effects on society. This paper has shown that the social web has a positive impact on society. Works Cited MKk11: , (Kulshreshtha, Kumar and Sehgal; Pernisco), Bih06: , (Lea, Yu and Maguluru), Dub11: , (Dubai School of Government; Parrack), Read More