Social networking sites are one of the strongest forces pushing the “Web 2.0” Internet movement. The phrase “Web 2.0” was created in 2004 by O’Reilly Media and is used to describe a change in the way Internet users are interacting with the Internet and different Web sites. While there are many parts to “Web 2.0,” social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook are one of the main driving forces behind this Internet movement, and have become some of the most popular and highly visited web sites on the Internet. You can find an online community or social network for just about any interest you have or by country and language. African Americans can meet new people and share stories on BlackPlanet.com or car lovers can swap and rate pictures or get advice on Cardomain.com. There are hundreds of these sites but there are just a few that stand out as Internet leaders in social networking.
MySpace – Currently the 3rd most popular Web site in all of the United States, MySpace is by far the most popular social networking site around. It is directed and used mostly to teenagers and young adults. MySpace was one of the hottest and frequently discussed Internet acquisitions. News Corporation is now the parent company and is headquartered in New York City. MySpace allows users to create an online profile of themselves and link to their friends profiles. It allows you to upload personal photos, videos, music and other personal information. Along with the extreme popularity of MySpace, they have definitely had some of the most highly news covered controversies. Many young teenagers publish very personal information about themselves including pictures and detailed information about where they live, where they go to school, etc. While they only intended for their friends to view this information, Internet predators have been known to use MySpace as a place to research their victims. MySpace has implemented many different techniques over the years to try to protect minors on their site including adding a minimum age restriction, making it so people over a certain age cannot view minor’s profiles, preventing known sex offenders in the United States from creating a profile and many others. Despite these concerns, MySpace’s popularity continually increases and reportedly attracts 230,000 new users every single day.
Facebook – Originally geared towards college and university students, Facebook is now become popular for all ages but is still most common to college aged users. Facebook is the sixth most visited site in the United States and is the number one site for photo sharing, even more common than Flickr which is its main purpose. Facebook began as a project for sophomore Harvard student, Mark Zuckerberg and registered over half of the campus at Harvard. It gained a lot of popularity through Ivy League schools and within a year, had over 1 million registered users. While Facebook is still owned by its creator, Mark Zuckerberg, after the acquisition of MySpace there were many offers to Facebook including a reported offer of $2.3 billion by Internet giant, Google. With 18 million users, Facebook is the place to be if you’re a college student looking to network out.
LinkedIn - This social networking site is business oriented and mostly used by professionals to network with other professionals and previous co-workers, employers, etc. LinkedIn has been nicknamed “MySpace for grownups.” LinkedIn allows users to maintain a list of contact details for people they know and trust in a business sense. LinkedIn also provides features that allow you to post or search for a job, give a personal recommendation for one of your connections and also network to meet people through your existing connections. At the beginning of 2007, LinkedIn had more than 9 million registered users.
Classmates.com – Although Classmates.com isn’t quite as popular as MySpace or Facebook, it was one of the earliest social networking sites. Its traffic ranks at 499 but has over 40 million active members. Classmates.com helps members find, connect and keep in touch with friends and acquaintances that they may have lost contact with from kindergarten clear through college, and also includes work histories and United States military. A basic member registration is free but a more advanced membership will require a subscription. The Gold membership will allow you to contact long lost friends, allow you to plant reunions and events and also form a network group.
Stumbleupon – This social networking site allows users to recommend or not recommend any web site out there. Stumbleupon is a web browser plug-in. So while cruising the web, you can easily click the Thumps Up or Thumbs down button on the Stumbleupon toolbar. Highly ranked sites are recommended by Stumbleupon and receive more traffic. One of the up and coming social networking sites, Stumbleupon has over 2 million members as of March 16, 2007.
