Tupokigwe AS IT: Social Networking

The definition of social networking is when a group of people come together and from into specific groups. Social sites such as Twitter and Facebook have various ways in which they form different groups.Social networking also refers to connecting to people via different individuals to form a new connection, so the cycle continues as people follow, or add people via an individual. usually when you (add, follow) people it is usually because there is a common interest that both of them have such as where you live, place of origin, education and so on.

Facebook

Facebook was launched in February 2004, that is privately owned by Facebook Inc.

One of the features of Facebook is that it allows the author to search for friends or other people that they are interested in. just like in the definition social networking is finding people who have the same interest as the author, this can be very good for having pen pals and meeting new people who have the same interests.

In addition to that it can create more than friendship, it can also be used as a dating site, e.g. on when writing information about you, it can say whether they are looking for friends or a relationship. Facebook also offers the author to choose what they want to share, these things include:
They can upload pictures from their files or they can take an instant Webcam picture if they have the Webcam on their laptop, computer, or on their phone. This makes it very easy to share photos with others very quickly without any hassle, and it keeps the Facebook page busy. The next feature is that Facebook allows videos to be uploaded from the author files or they can add a link to YouTube which enables them to share what they like about the video, or any video that has the author within it. Again this is a very easy application to use and its very fast to upload and to share with friends. There is an application on Facebook which allows the author to make events, this is a very good way of inviting friends because all the people the author may want to invite might be on Facebook. Secondly when making an event the people who have been invited can state whether they can come, if they are not coming, or if they are not sure, this can be very useful to plan how may people may be coming to the event ,and it is a good way of reducing the time to send invitation's, if there are any problems that happen they can easily write on the event wall, and the administrators of the event can reply to any demands that they may have. In Facebook it is very easy to to join groups. all the author has to do is "like" the group that they browse for, they can join in the conversations that happen within the group, as well as meet new people with similar interests. it is also possible to start your own group, as invite as many people as the author wants. this can be good for business who want to advertise their businesses, or a new artists who is in need of publication, sites such as Facebook are good for this type of advertisement. Lastly one of the main reason why Facebook is very popular is that it is good for free communication. who needs a phone when you can easily chat to the person when they are online or the author can write on their wall, that will be the first thing that they see.

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Twitter

Twitter has been known to be a growing revolution for the internet. Twitter enables the user to send and receive other peoples updates via different devices, such as email, phones, etc. because Twitter can be accessed from any place it is very easy to "tweet" something that is interesting, or if its something new that the users followers may like. Another advantage of this is that the followers are well informed about who they are following, if the user is an entrepreneur for example is there is anything new about the business they can easily tweet it so that all the followers know what the new developments are. Twitter gives the user different options on the applications they want to send messages on. The user can use third party applications such as Tweetie, Twitterrific, and Feedalizr to send Twitter messages. this is a good feature because they don't need to be on Twitter just to send messages, these applications can be accessed from any device, most commonly the Iphone because there are apps for Twitter, so if there is a message that needs sending the only need to access any of those sites. one of the great things about Twitter is finding numerous people on the site. other networking sites such as Facebook will only make fan pages on people, however Twitter has the the actual celebrity that anyone can follow. How they viewers know that it is a celebrity is a by seeing a blue tick which means that the account name has been verified by Twitter as that celebrity. this is why a lot of people are joining Twitter, because they have the opportunity to talk to the person as well as see what they do on a day to day basis, or maybe see if the are having any new singles out (in terms of musical artists). Twitter is very good at storing names in its database, usually when you want to include someone in the tweet, you have to remember their name, Twitter has a feature where you place (@) in the tweet and lists of the users followers will come up to make it a lot easier than remembering the names, especially if the user has a lot of followers. when finding someone in a hurry instead of clicking directly onto their profile, when you move the mouse over the name of the person you want to see, a mini profile will come up, which talks briefly about that person. This can be very handy when looking for someone quickly because all you have to do is move the arrow onto the person to see who they are instead of having to check out their full profile. On the users Twitter homepage, there are a list of suggestions on who the user might be interested in. usually when the user has followed someone new, the followers of the person they just followed will come up on the suggestions list because they might have similar things in common, have the same interests, or follow the same group etc. To engage Twitter fans more, Twitter has created things called Trending Topics which involves all users. The users can write about their own opinion on whatever the trending topic is. On a show called 106 and Park they always right a trending topic and millions of users will respond, and some get read out on the show, that's one way the show gets the audience more involved.

Advantages of Social Networking

Social networking has attracted many people from around the world, from young people to old people. Social networking has enables many people to find friends who have a common interest in one other as well as find people who the user may not have seen in a long time due to where they live. social networking allows the user to find people from other countries, so this creates a lot of pen pals for the user. Nearly all social networks have a search engine which allows the user to search for anyone in a particular state or town, this is a good way to find old friends because the results will come up with a list if names associated with the ones which the user typed in. All the user then has to do is scroll down until they find the right person. They can narrow the results to where the person lives so that its easier and a faster way to find the person they are looking for. In some cases social networking enables users to earn money, if a business is on Twitter, they can pay people for tweeting about their business, which can make them have more recognition. A lot of celebrities have social networking sites, which means that anyone who adds them can know the daily lives of celebrities. on twitter for example a lot of artists may publish where they are going on tour, this keeps their fans updated and informed about what they are doing. Social networking is a very simple way of finding friends with the same interest as well as meeting new people, all it takes is a minutes registration and the user is able to add as many or as few friends as they want. they next advantage of social networking is that it is available on numerous devices, the Iphone has its own apps of Facebook and Twitter, and phones which have internet are

Disadvantages of Social Networking

As great as social networking may sound, there are several disadvantages. Like most sites on the internet social networking could potentially carry threats of viruses, all the hackers have to do is make up a fake account, and add people, and the virus will gradually spread through the network, and affect users computers.

Cyber stalking is another disadvantage of social networking sites, some paedophiles may target young people especially because they are vulnerable, and they are an easy target, all they need to do is fake their identity and gain their trust. but not only young people but adults can be stalked as well. social networking sites can become very addictive because there is a lot that they can do on the site, such as chatting or playing games, for someone who is meant to be doing work is can cause quite a disruption. in addition to that point, if people get addicted to these sites, and are on the computer or any other device for a long time, it can cause weak eye site, because they are constantly exposed to the light from the computer. one other problem is that sometimes you may not know who you add, most commonly who is following you, these become impersonal relationships, and the user won't ever talk to that person, they'll just have them for the sake of having a lot of so-called friends.

News Stories

Social networking websites, including Facebook and MySpace, must take credit for helping bands to get signed. MySpace Music was one of the first outlets for artists to get their material heard worldwide. Many artists owe it to these networking sites as they were ''found'' because of them. Some of which include Panic! At the Disco, Kate Nash and Sean Kingston, who have all had major hits around the world.

This article is about how social networking sites keep copies of their users even though they gave deleted their account. Cambridge researchers fear that there is no longer any privacy due to the fact that any photos that may have been on their account can still be accessed.

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