Web based social networks help people create or find communities who share interests and activities. Most social network services provide profiles and links between profiles as a core service, and then include features such as IM email, video, voice chat, file sharing, blogging, discussion groups, and so on. As of 2007 Social networking sites have surpassed everything except the major search engines in terms of internet traffic, eclipsing internet portals and commercial sites like ebay. Business networking services such as Linkedin connect professionals and are designed to assist referrals. Social Networking sites have grown exponentially, and leading many to predict that very soon over half the population (currently 19% Yahoo) of the entire wired world will be subscribed to at least one service.
"a UCLA survey showed that 50% of college age females said Facebook was their #1 most important web site (even more than Google, Wikipedia, or anything else) and that 1/3 of college age males said it was their #1.PaulAllen.net
More than a small percentage of this growth however is coming at the expense of companies whose employees are goofing off at their workstations. After experiencing many billions of dollars of lost worktime
companies are blocking social networking sites with their firewalls or security software.
The following sites all are "general public" social networking sites.
MySpace - the current leader globally and in North America with over 190 million profiles - initially teen oriented now all ages
orkut Popular in Brazil, India. 72% 50 million.
hi5 - based in central america
Windows Live Spaces - claims 120 million
friendster - first off the block, now being surpassed
Facebook - started with a college focus - claims 30 million users weekly
It seems to be only a matter of time until social networking becomes ubiquitious, and everyone has a virtual home on the internet. Once everyone has a social networking page, they will likely identify themselves by keywords and we will end up (including mashups with other services) with a universal people search on the net. Like todays homes, you will only be able to see the front porch if you are a stranger, but if you are invited, you will be able to see a great deal of detail about what is happening in this person's life - their current physical location, who they are with, what they are doing, moods, chores, desires, complaints.
Traditional market research will be dead - social marketing groups can pay people to reveal their preferences in an ongoing stream and be paid back in cash. Signups to other collaborative services and vehicles will all happen on social network platforms and whereas social networking sites provide profiles for mainly people this will expand to businesses, organizations, pets everything. Our mailbox on our social networking site will become fully integrated with email, while allowing the added dimensionality and personability, and presence features of "poking" and "gifting", "calling cards".
Yes, unfortunately. This young doctor is one example of someone whose wild side torpedoed her professional side. Expect potential clients and employers to look you up!
Clearly they are very significant right now to those who use them - and that amounts to an awful lot of people. But let's not lose sight of the fact that only just over one half of the population (in the UK at least) ever signs on to the world wide web, and only a small proportion of them for social networking purposes. Of course the lower age grups are much more into this kind of thing - but will it prove just to be a fad like Hula Hoops and Pogo Sticks were? It has to be recognised that the jury is still out on this. The amount of 'useful' social networking or business use of this kind of technology is currently very limited, and may remain so with concerns rising about the amount of time young people spend locked away in their rooms glued to their computer screens and engaging in activities that have concerning outcomes.
Newsweek - The MySpace Generation
Wikipedia - Social network service
Economist - Marketing on Myspace
I think this is a good overview of the rise of Social Networks and their possible applications and implications. Just a bit concerned, though, that we might be over-stating their significance? We shouldn't forget that (in the UK at least) the Internet itself is not yet ubiquitous - only about half of all households have access to it, and less than half of employees get to use it at work - many of them only for very restricted purposes - obviously much greater use amongst 'knowledge workers'. Admittedly there's an age factor involved - most kids get to use the Internet at school at least and many more homes with younger kids have access to the www.
Perhaps we should state this as more of a trend rather than a done deal?
contributed by Peter Haine on Aug 21 12:52am
Peter you are right, this phenomenon is not evenly, or even widely distributed right now. My experience is biased by being in Toronto, which has perhaps the highest density of Facebook users anywhere in the world.
According to ComScore Media Matrix, in June 2007 11.4 million Canadians were logged on to Facebook. 700,000 users in (greater?) Toronto - which means 1 in 5 humans, or 1/3 of the workforce. (1) Personally I more or less forced to open a profile, because people were saying to me i was missing messages, invitations whatever, that i was meant to receive except they forgot i wasn't on facebook. - Which is to say that in toronto - facebook has exceeded critical mass.
I think it is entirely possible that "the next big thing" will dislodge all this traffic and we will call it a fad. As far as i can tell it is mostly a time waster so far, but applications are now being built on the platform which may change that. What things might disrupt the success of social networks or replace them? Will they increase the digital divide?
contributed by mlpilling on Aug 21 6:40am
Page Last Updated: Sep 10 1:34am by Peter Haine