Why Social Networking Sites Are So Popular
After the Internet Bubble of the mid-1990s, the World Wide Web went through a major transformation. Out of the ashes came the next generation of the internet phenomenon called Web 2.0. This spawned a series of websites centered on personal interaction. Social Networking allows individuals to stay in connection with family, friends, and niche groups. These sites are usually free, real time, and programmed to be user friendly for ease of use. Therefore, you will find every age, race, and social economical group using this type of website. Some of the most popular sites are MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, hi5, and there are many others that you may have not heard of…yet.
Summary of the most popular social networking websites:
Facebook.com: Currently the most popular of the social networking industry. It was initially intended for college students -- it branched out, and now allows everyone membership. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Its membership is approx. 200 million.
MySpace.com: The gold standard of social networking. It boasts approx. 250+ million members. This site is massive, boasting the largest membership of any social networking site on the Internet. MySpace is a social networking website with an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music, and videos for teenagers and adults internationally.
Linkedin.com: 35 million members -- a powerful business-oriented social networking site. It is a tool that is mainly used for professional/business networking.
Twitter.com: A free social networking service that allows users to send updates or tweets (text-based posts that are up to 140 characters long) via SMS, instant messaging, email, or the Twitter website. The site has become very popular over the last year.
Flickr: This social networking site is an image and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community platform.
digg.com: Digg is a website made for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the Internet, by submitting links and stories, and voting and commenting on submitted links and stories, in a social and democratic spirit.
It is hard to say that Social Networking websites brought the World Wide Web back from the brink of destruction. The Internet Bubble dealt the web a mighty blow. But, social networking websites are a major reason for its revitalization. If you have not taken the time to explore some of the sites listed above, please do so. They are great tools for personal and professional networking.
To see an example of a social networking site that we recently designed, click here.
Happy Networking! :-)