When it comes to online
social networking, websites are commonly used. These websites
are known as social sites. Social networking websites function
like an online community of internet users. Depending on the
website in question, many of these online community members
share a common interest such as hobbies, religion, or politics.
Once you are granted access to a social networking website you
can begin to socialize. This socialization may include reading
the profile pages of other members and possibly even contacting
them.
The friends that you can make are just one of the many benefits
to social networking online. Another one of those benefits includes
diversity because the internet gives individuals from all around
the world access to social networking sites. This means that
although you are in the United States, you could develop an
online friendship with someone in Denmark. Not only will you
make new friends, but you just might learn a thing or two about
new cultures or new languages and learning is always a good
thing.
While there are a number of social networking websites that
focus on particular interests, there are others that do not.
The websites without a main focus are often referred to as "traditional"
social networking websites and usually have open memberships.
This means that anyone can become a member, no matter what their
hobbies, beliefs, or views are. However, once you are inside
this online community, you can begin to create your own network
of friends and eliminate members that do not share common interests
or goals.
The first recognizable social network site was launched in 1997,
named SixDegrees.com
Social network sites can be described as web-based services
that allow individuals to
(1) construct a public or semi-public profile
within a bounded system
(2) articulate a list of other users with whom
they share a connection
(3) view and traverse their list of connections
and those made by others within the system. The nature and nomenclature
of these connections may vary from site to site.
Since their introduction, social network sites (SNSs) such as
MySpace, Facebook, Cyworld, and Bebo have attracted millions
of users, many of whom have integrated these sites into their
daily practices. There are hundreds of SNSs, with various technological
affordances, supporting a wide range of interests and practices.
While their key technological features are fairly consistent,
the cultures that emerge around SNSs are varied. Most sites
support the maintenance of pre-existing social networks, but
others help strangers connect based on shared interests, political
views, or activities. Some sites cater to diverse audiences,
while others attract people based on common language or shared
racial, sexual, religious, or nationality-based identities.
Sites also vary in the extent to which they incorporate new
information and communication tools, such as mobile connectivity,
blogging, and photo/video-sharing.
While the term "social network site" is used to describe
this phenomenon, the term "social networking sites"
also appears in public discourse, and the two terms are often
used interchangeably. Simply choosing not to employ the term
"networking" for two reasons: emphasis and scope.
"Networking" emphasizes relationship initiation, often
between strangers. While networking is possible on these sites,
it is not the primary practice on many of them, nor is it what
differentiates them from other forms of computer-mediated communication
(CMC).
What makes social network sites unique is not that they allow
individuals to meet strangers, but rather that they enable users
to articulate and make visible their social networks. This can
result in connections between individuals that would not otherwise
be made, but that is often not the goal, and these meetings
are frequently between "latent ties" who share some
offline connection. On many of the large SNSs, participants
are not necessarily "networking" or looking to meet
new people; instead, they are primarily communicating with people
who are already a part of their extended social network. To
emphasize this articulated social network as a critical organizing
feature of these sites, we label them "social network sites."
The social status of an individual is revealed on social networks.
While SNSs have implemented a wide variety of technical features,
their backbone consists of visible profiles that display an
articulated list of friends who are also users of the system.
Structural variations around visibility and access are one of
the primary ways that SNSs differentiate themselves from each
other. The visibility of a profile varies by site and according
to user discretion.
Some of the features associated with social networking
sites:
By default, profiles on Friendster and Tribe.net are crawled
by search engines, making them visible to anyone, regardless
of whether or not the viewer has an account.
Alternatively, LinkedIn controls what a viewer may see based
on whether she or he has a paid account.
Sites like MySpace allow users to choose whether they want their
profile to be public or "Friends only."
Facebook takes a different approach—by default, users
who are part of the same "network" can view each other's
profiles, unless a profile owner has decided to deny permission
to those in their network.
After joining a social network site, users are prompted to identify
others in the system with whom they have a relationship. The
label for these relationships differs depending on the site—popular
terms include "Friends," "Contacts," and
"Fans." Most SNSs require bi-directional confirmation
for Friendship, but some do not. These one-directional ties
are sometimes labeled as "Fans" or "Followers,"
but many sites call these Friends as well. The term "Friends"
can be misleading, because the connection does not necessarily
mean friendship in the everyday vernacular sense, and the reasons
people connect are varied.
The public display of connections is a crucial component of
SNSs. The Friends list contains links to each Friend's profile,
enabling viewers to traverse the network graph by clicking through
the Friends lists. On most sites, the list of Friends is visible
to anyone who is permitted to view the profile, although there
are exceptions. For instance, some MySpace users have hacked
their profiles to hide the Friends display, and LinkedIn allows
users to opt out of displaying their network.
Most SNSs also provide a mechanism for users to leave messages
on their Friends' profiles. This feature typically involves
leaving "comments," although sites employ various
labels for this feature. In addition, SNSs often have a private
messaging feature similar to webmail. While both private messages
and comments are popular on most of the major SNSs, they are
not universally available.
Not all social network sites began as such.
QQ started as a Chinese instant messaging service.
LunarStorm as a community site
Cyworld as a Korean discussion forum tool
Skyrock (formerly Skyblog) was a French blogging service before
adding SNS features. Classmates.com, a directory of school affiliates
launched in 1995, began supporting articulated lists of Friends
after SNSs became popular.
AsianAvenue, MiGente, and BlackPlanet were early popular ethnic
community sites with limited Friends functionality before re-launching
in 2005-2006 with SNS features and structure.
Beyond profiles, Friends, comments, and private messaging, SNSs
vary greatly in their features and user base. Some have photo-sharing
or video-sharing capabilities; others have built-in blogging
and instant messaging technology. There are mobile-specific
SNSs (e.g., Dodgeball), but some web-based SNSs also support
limited mobile interactions (e.g., Facebook, MySpace, and Cyworld).
Many SNSs target people from specific geographical regions or
linguistic groups, although this does not always determine the
site's constituency.
Orkut, for example, was launched in the United States with an
English-only interface, but Portuguese-speaking Brazilians quickly
became the dominant user group (Kopytoff, 2004).
Some sites are designed with specific ethnic, religious, sexual
orientation, political, or other identity-driven categories
in mind.
There are even SNSs for dogs (Dogster) and cats (Catster), although
their owners must manage their profiles.
While SNSs are often designed to be widely accessible, many
attract homogeneous populations initially, so it is not uncommon
to find groups using sites to segregate themselves by nationality,
age, educational level, or other factors that typically segment
society (Hargittai), even if that was not the intention of the
designers.
In general, social networking services allow users to create
a profile for themselves, and can be broken down into two broad
categories: internal social networking (ISN) and external social
networking (ESN) sites, such as Orkut, MySpace, Facebook and
Bebo. Both types can increase the feeling of community among
people.
An ISN is a closed/private community that consists of a group
of people within a company, association, society, education
provider and organization or even an "invite only"
group created by a user in an ESN. An ESN is open/public and
available to all web users to communicate and are designed to
attract advertisers. ESN's can be smaller specialised communities
(i.e. linked by a single common interest eg. TheSocialGolfer,
ACountryLife.Com, Great Cooks Community) or they can be large
generic social networking sites (eg. MySpace, Facebook etc).
Few social networks currently charge money for membership.
 Advantages
CMC can have a positive effect on student/teacher communication
which can lead to positive student outcomes. The use of emoticons
enables the relationship between teachers and students to become
more personal.
- Business decision makers are now preferring communication
channels that are two-way dialogs, channels that
resemble social networking applications. This is a great way
for businesses to advertise their product. It
is also a way that has proved to be more effective than the
previous “word of mouth” influence.
- Social networking allows us to identify and connect with
friends and strangers while on the go. Such computer
mediated communication also allows us to reconnect with friends
from the past whom we may have lost contact
with.
- LinkedIn is a SNS (social networking site) particularly used
by jobseekers. It is a tool used to link users to people
they may have worked with in the past through various jobs or
institutions. Users also have the opportunity
to link to certain companies they aspire to work with.
- Social network services are increasingly being used in
legal and criminal investigations. Information posted on
sites such as MySpace and Facebook has been used by police,
probation, and university officials to prosecute
users of said sites. In some situations, content posted on
MySpace has been used in court
- Facebook is increasingly being used by school administrations
and law enforcement agencies as a source of evidence
against student users.
Disadvantages
On the contrary, not all networking applications
used in the professional environment are beneficial or successful.
Some prospects experience trouble while trying to build their
networks, thus they may produce ineffective work. Employees
are now more likely than before to carry inappropriate conversations
at work. Communicating with such technologies creates a relaxed
feeling in a professional environment. Some messages that
should be relayed in person are being sent through the computer;
the nature of the message and the audience should dictate
the medium used to transmit the message. The ability to network
with 100 people will not improve our communication skills
when in contact with them.
The relative freedom afforded by social networking services
has caused concern regarding the potential of its misuse by
individual patrons.
In October 2006, a fake Myspace profile created in the name
of Josh Evans by Lori Janine Drew led to the suicide of Megan
Meier. The event incited global concern regarding the use
of social networking services for bullying purposes.
In July 2008, a Briton, Grant Raphael, was ordered to pay
a total of GBP £22,000 (about USD $44,000) for libel
and breach of privacy. Raphael had posted a fake page on Facebook
purporting to be that of a former school friend Matthew Firsht,
with whom Raphael had fallen out in 2000. The page falsely
claimed that Firsht was homosexual and that he was dishonest.
At the same, genuine use of social networking services has
been treated with suspicion on the ground of the services'
misuse. In September 2008, the profile of Australian Facebook
user Elmo Keep was banned by the site's administrators on
the grounds that it violated the site's terms of use. Keep
is one of several users of Facebook who were banned from the
site on the presumption that their names aren't real, as they
bear resemblance to the names of characters like Sesame Street's
Elmo.
The misuse of social networking services has led many to cast
doubt over whether any information on these services can in
fact be regarded as true.
The 5 Most Common Social Networking Scams
1. Downloading malware
Running social networking sites is a competitive business
with rich rewards from ad revenues for the winners. To give
themselves an edge, most online community operators are constantly
upgrading site functionality. One technique allows members
to install user-created applications on their profile pages.
These might be used, for example, for animation, calendars,
photo-feeds or simple games.
Experts believe this is by far the most common social networking
scam. In a recent attack that hit all the big online communities,
a supposed link to a video prompted users to install a plug-in;
this then not only installed malware on the victims' PC computers
but also mailed itself to everyone on each victim's "friends"
list. Keeping your Internet security software up to date creates
the first line of defense against this sort of attack. You
should also be wary about downloading and using new applications
from unknown providers. And just like with email, don't believe
that a message you got from a supposed friend or contact necessarily
did come from that person.
2. False identity
It's easy to set up a profile on the big social networking
sites. For criminal types, this means an opportunity to pass
themselves off as someone else -- either real or non-existent.
Sometimes, the scammers use the identities of genuine people,
using information and photographs trawled from the Internet.
In the Vegas conference, two experts did just that to set
up a LinkedIn profile. It garnered 50 friends in 24 hours.
The bottom line: Realize how easy it is to establish phony
identities and don't blindly trust that someone is who they
say they are. Be wary about accepting new friends you haven't
checked out
3. Identity theft
In addition to passing themselves off as someone else, scammers
also steal identities via social networking sites. You can
limit the risk of this type of identity theft by not posting
too much giveaway detail about yourself on your profile page
and watching out for suspicious invitations to view another
profile.
Beware of any links that ask you to sign on again. This would
be very unusual, if not unheard of, if you're already signed
on to the network. If the invitation comes via email, contact
the friend to confirm he/she sent it.
4. Profile page hacks
When it comes to social networking scams, it's just as easy
for criminals to hack your profile page as it is for them
to create their own phony profiles. All they need is your
username and password.
Sometimes, hackers do this just for their own idea of having
fun, scrawling graffiti over a user's page. Other times they
install invisible code that can be used for malicious purposes.
Or they simply use your ID as a platform for spamming (mispelled
intentionally).
Occasionally, their intent is pure evil. In one recent, well-aired
case, bogus identities were used to launch a cyber-bullying
attack; repeatedly defacing the victim's site with malicious
comments. The victim subsequently committed suicide.
The key to preventing this type of attack is not only to have
a strong password but also to change it very frequently.
5. Sending and receiving spam
Scammers don't only want to use your profile to spam
others. They want to spam you. And they want to do this with
very carefully targeted emails.
Especially on sites for business professionals, they scour
members' personal details. They use the sites' own search
tools to identify members' areas of expertise and interest.
Alternatively, the names and details gleaned are combined
together into master lists of people with specific interests
that are sold on to other spammers.
Reduce this danger by limiting the amount of information you
post on your profile page and listing a short-term or disposable
email address for contact.
Social networks have become part of the fabric of online life
and their popularity is likely to increase for many years
to come. And there's no doubt they're a great way to make
friends or do business. |
Social
Networking Pros and Cons
