Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn are all communication tools that connect various users together and form a community. They were all founded in the 21st century, namely MySpace (2003), LinkedIn (2003), Facebook (2004), and Twitter (2006). Facebook and Twitter are most often used today by people though LinkedIn is increasing in users while MySpace is on a decline. These networking sites are all free to join but their features and purpose varies slightly. Facebook is used to connect with friends and families, and you can send messages, show a status and post pictures to your profile for other users within your friends to view and leave comments on your wall. Unlike Facebook, MySpace allows the user to build a theme or personalize their profile with a music feature, and you can meet new people easily. In LinkedIn you can network with professionals and companies, and connect with them. LinkedIn users have a more professional profile since they want to make a positive brand for themselves. Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn enable the user to select who they want to connect to and what they what to share with others but on twitter you can follow anyone and your tweets are seen by many users. Twitter permits short messages or “tweets” that can trigger immediate responses and circle responses by the use of hashtags. Facebook and MySpace cause users to have a deeper connection with the people they’ve added through “likes” and comments while in Twitter you can “retweet” if you find an update interesting. LinkedIn is a good way to get professional background information about businesses and people, and Twitter can reveal what a person is doing currently due to the limited character. All these social networking are indications that the Internet revolution is ongoing and changing rapidly, just as these tools themselves would become popular and then eventually decline in usage.