Social Networking Websites
Prepared For:
Professor Perry
Associated Professor of Business Information Systems
Kennesaw State University
Prepared By:
Lockland Tyler Dennison Hicks
Chris Arbaugh
Colleen Quigley Clay Ketchum
April 20, 2007
All About Social Networking
Social networking is an attempt to connect individuals in a social manner and communicate within that social group. The idea of social networking existed long before social networking websites ever did. The idea of belonging to a group seems to be a substantial need for us as human beings. People may want to be a part of a social network because of a need to connect to a group. Also social networking is a great way of extending business contacts to the maximum. The idea of social networking has been around since the dawn of society but only recently the connection of social networking and the internet has been discovered.
Along with the increase of globalization, or the interconnectedness of the world, the internet has become the most essential tool concerning world-wide communication. People recently developed the idea of combining social networking with the internet. This concept created what we call today social networking sites. This is online community for individuals with common interests, although some people may just want to chat or socialize in general. Methods of communication within social networks vary. The possibilities of communicating are endless. There are constantly more advanced communication techniques arising. There is chat, instant messaging, voice, blogging, and videoconferencing just to name a few. The main use of social networking these days is to provide friends and/or relatives the ability to contact each other and update with each other on life in general.
Social networking has developed into something massive in the recent years. Initially, there was Friendster, the very first social networking site, introduced in 2002. (Answers.com) It was not until an entire year later that MySpace was on to the social networking scene. In 2004, the company known as Facebook was introduced. (Lexis Nexis Academic) This was the first social networking website to target college students specifically. Major search engines like Yahoo and Google eventually jumped on the bandwagon as well. Although social networking sites have come a long way, they certainly have only begun to grow. Currently these major social networking sites are competing to be the most popular. You might compare this competition to popular web browsers and operating systems.
Another feature of social networking that has been evolving over the years is special interest groups. For example, let us say you live in a suburb around the Houston Texas area. Let us also say that you thoroughly enjoy underwater basket weaving. As ridiculous as this may sound, chances are you can probably connect to Yahoo and become part of a local group of people that also enjoy underwater basket weaving. After all, who does not remember the Yahoo commercial with the guy and the parrot on his head! Yahoo is smart and they realize that clever marketing yields excellent results. This is probably part of the reason they invested so much in You Tube. This special interest concept will grow exponentially over the years.
Social networking web sites are young but already extremely successful. From a personal standpoint, I see social networking sites in every class room on more than one computer. The idea is very appealing to college kids because it is a way of planning out your events or talking to your friends without actually leaving class to do so. This makes people feel plugged in to their lives as well as their friends. Some people feel that if they do not connect to their MySpace or Facebook account they will not know what is going on. It is almost like losing your cell phone and not knowing who called the past few days. This is probably the reason why Facebook has been so successful.
Social networking sites are already extremely successful. According to Hitwise, a web analysis program, Social networking sites have gone up 75 percent from just a year ago. (Lexis Nexis Academic) But you might ask which social networking site is the most successful? According to Alexa, a web traffic monitor, MySpace is the third largest social networking web site in the United States directly behind Google and Yahoo. Facebook is said to be a distant twelfth. MySpace is reported to have more than 127 million accounts worldwide. It is uncertain if all of there people a regular users, but they are signed up nonetheless. Facebook is said to claim 10 million profiles. (Lexis Nexis Academic) Having a profile online can be a very appealing idea to teenagers and college kids because they can let people know what they are interested in. People hope to make a connection this way. Also, people can browse a list of profiles and find someone they may like. This idea of sharing profiles has spawned sites like E-Harmony and Match.com, which claims they have the key to finding love, based on very in-depth profiles.
Three Major Websites
My Space, Match.com, and Facebook are three of the most prominent social networking websites in existence today. My Space is an online community where people can share their hobbies, pictures and bogs in a continuously developing network of old and new friends. My Space encourages members to post art and music onto their profiles. In fact, music, art, and the culture encompassing it, are all integral parts of the web site. My Space has lowered its age restriction successively from eighteen to sixteen and then to fourteen. This was due to the momentous uprising of teenagers who demanded a place to interact with others and express themselves online.
There are many different types of people who utilize the many facets of My Space. Many users chat to their real life friends and can even catch up with people they haven’t seen in years. Often time’s families live far away from each other, and My Space can help them keep in touch. It even includes a feature to construct your own family tree. My Space can even help the lonely and brokenhearted by creating an environment where singles can interact with each other. Co-workers and classmates can also exploit this social network to collaborate and distribute ideas as well as providing assistance to each other. My Space isn’t limited to the Average Joe either. Many celebrities and bands also have their own profile and allow fans to peek into their personal lives. (myspace.com)
MySpace was founded by Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, who had been engaged in internet businesses in Santa Monica. Improving on a popular social network called Friendster, these men gave birth to an online community that has attracted more than one hundred and sixteen million members worldwide. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation recently purchased My Space for five hundred and eighty million dollars. (Bowly)
Facebook is another social network very similar to My Space. Originally aimed at college students, Facebook is a social utility that links people with friends and colleagues who live and work near them. People use it to keep up to date on their circle of friends, upload their photos, share links and videos, and acquire additional information about the people they meet. Recently, it has opened up to high school students and now all that is needed to join is a valid email address. Facebook was conceived in February of 2004 by Mark Zukerberg, a Harvard University undergraduate who was just nineteen at the time (facebook.com). The website now has over nineteen million active users that encompass over forty seven thousand different networks. Facebook is the sixth-most trafficked site in the United States and the number one photo-sharing site. This widely successful social network is currently attracting bids close to one billion dollars. (Bowley) Both Facebook and My Space were just humble start-up companies two or three years ago. But as users swarmed to them by the millions, the sites began to garner the attention of more well known companies. The sites are free to join, so they rely on advertising to create their revenue. No one really knows if the sites are actually worth what they are fetching, or whether they will produce any lasting profits. (Bowley)
Match.com was produced with one goal in mind; to give singles a chance to mingle. Founded in 1995, Match.com allows members to take their amorous fates into their own hands. Utilizing an advanced search engine to sort through their twenty million members, match.com connects people based on age, interest, location and many other criteria. Members create a portrait that permits others to get to know more about each other before they meet in person.
Match.com is owned by IAC or InterActiveCorporation,
based in Dallas, Texas. In addition to match.com, IAC posses the Home Shopping
Network, LendingTree, Ticketmaster, Evite, Citysearch, and ask.com. Analysts
have estimated the company’s total revenue to be somewhere in the neighborhood
of seven billion dollars in 2007. (Diller)
To generate revenue, match.com relies on subscription fees. They
charge one hundred dollars for a year’s
subscription. A semi-annual subscription goes for seventy-five dollars. One and
three month subscriptions charge members twenty-five and fifty dollars,
respectively. Members are allowed to pay online by credit card and a fourteen
day money back guarantee is also included to assure customer satisfaction. (match.com)
Social Networking in the Corporate World
Social Networking has many opportunities and these opportunities have yet to be fulfilled to its highest potential. At the moment Myspace and Facebook are the largest social networking websites known on the internet. Even though companies such as Microsoft, yahoo, and Google have invested in these companies for advertising they have not yet figured out how to charge for them while still attracting the users they want. But a website that that is gaining 24 million registered users as well as 9 million unique visitors a month stands a very high chance of gaining some profit. It is well known that these sites have begun to be huge advertising boards for movies, television shows, and the new buzz of love sites. Although Google has invested millions into Myspace, they have come out with then social networking site called Orkut. They have not set forth the efforts to maximize the products abilities, but have set forth on working out the flukes in the system which is what they are using the invested money into Myspace for (Social Networking Connects for Business).
These social networking sites have also become a problem for the younger generations who use them for a pure social nature. A few months ago Dateline NBC did a special on these sites and showed how employers of interns and professional jobs who hire college students are using these sites as a new research. They are not hiring those they find who post pictures from parties where drinking is displayed and other party atmospheres. Campus’s are now using these sites to catch underage drinkers in their own dorms because these students are posting pictures of them holding a bottle of sky vodka in front of their college dorm sink. Problems such as these are only a short thing to come if this continues. We can expect even more users on these websites and even more security settings so people cannot view others profiles. Recently in the social networking trend new developments have occurred. Facebook has added a new feature where every time a user logged on it would show them exactly what other users who they are on their friends list have done to their profile. This new feature created uproar in the Facebook community and within a few days the feature was drastically changed and parts of it were removed from the website. The creator of Facebook does not wish to lose his high demand of college students at this moment. He has begun to expand his college oriented site for high school students and those in the work force (Social Networking Connects for Business).
A new social networking site begins to make unexpected rising in the corporate world. This website is called LinkedIn. The website is now up to 5 million subscribers and believes the number will reach close to 8 to 10 million by the end of the year. This website is having such a spread over the business world because of the ability to find new employees. Statements have been made from Formal CEO of an anti-spam company who has recently begun to share and advertise for LinkedIn. He says in his article that “the ability to find new people who are not even looking for a new job is amazing” (Social Networking Connects for Business). For his business he has recently recruited three new key employees who were not previously looking for a job, but because it is a new startup and he told them exactly what the plans were he was able to recruit them into his business. If this website were to become as bag as MySpace and reached up to the top 10 of the most websites viewed on the internet, the world wide job capabilities would become even more endless then they are now. Even if today MySpace began to charge their users for 1 dollar a month and lost half their users they’d be bringing in enough money to keep the company up and rolling, spam free with more bandwidth and a better service. The problem is social networking sites to youth are just what they say a social network and most youth will refuse to pay for them (Social Networking Connects for Business). Another problem that social network users have begun to run into is who and why people are looking at their profiles.
The Problems with Online Social Networks
Like many things, with positive aspects, there will be negative. There are many problems associated with social networks on the internet. Some of the problems are not really harmful to people but more of an annoyance, such as spamming. According to dictionary.com, the definition of spamming is, “To send (a message) indiscriminately to multiple mailing lists, individuals, or newsgroups”. There is also more dangerous online scamming such as phishing. According to dictionary.com phishing is, “the practice of luring unsuspecting Internet users to a fake Web site by using authentic-looking email with the real organization's logo, in an attempt to steal passwords, financial or personal information, or introduce a virus attack”. Anotherwards, this is the creation of a Web site replica for fooling unsuspecting Internet users into submitting personal or financial information or passwords. Phishing is only dangerous if you actually fall for the fake e-mail. Some of the more dangerous internet scams are those that involve identity theft, pedophiles, sex crimes, and viruses.
The major problems with social networks on the internet are identity theft, sex crimes, and viruses. With website like Myspace.com, AOL, Yahoo Messenger, FriendFinder.com, the list goes on and on any website that allows all ages join and socialize carries the threat for pedophiles, stalking, and even rape. Pedophiles are able to talk to the younger girls and boys lie to them making them think they are the same age or only slightly older and gain the child’s trust. Then they may ask to meet the child in a private place and take advantage of them. The stalking comes when the stalker is able to obtain really personal information like the address of the victim, where they work, or what school they attend. With stalking, sex crimes usually follow, whether it is rape or molestation. Identify theft happens when you have a computer savvy person who can hack into your personal information or they can set-up a phishing scam. Then the virus threat, viruses are usually linked to e-mails that look like they are form someone you know or a website you visit.
How do we fix these problems? There is always going to be a threat for identity theft, viruses, and sex crimes, but we can make it more difficult for these situations to occur. For the pedophiles we can make it hard for underage children and adults to socialize on the internet, for example on Myspace.com if your profile says that you are under the age of 14 your profile is private and cannot be viewed by anyone older than 14. There needs to be more parental involvement, parents need to know what their children are doing on the internet and need to be aware of the threats out there. As far as identity theft is concerned that is easier to prevent. It is wise not to trust any website with your social security number, for example the emails that you might receive saying they are from your bank asking for your social security number is a scam. Your bank will not email you asking you for that information if they need it they will get it when you’re at the bank. With the viruses, to prevent them don’t trust any email that you don’t recognize who it is from.
Another major problem with online social networks is that people are losing the person to person interaction. For example, instead of go out to meet new people they are just look up new friends on Myspace.com, or Facebook.com, or Friendfinder.com, and many other networks. Also instead of calling friends people have turned to just commenting to each other’s walls, or reading friends blogs to a learn updates on their friends lives. Without social interaction in person people are missing out on the emotional side of relationships. The only way we can regain the person to person contact is people need to stop relying on blogs, and messages online to hear from a friend, we all need to either pick up the phone and call a friend or actually hang out with friends. Meet new people at school, at work, or go out at night to the clubs, bars, and movies and interact with people face to face.
Social networks on the internet are not all bad but they do have their flaws. The only way we can really fix these problems is to eliminate online social networks all together. Also people need to stop relying solely on online social networks as their form of communication.
Conclusion and Future Recommendations
In conclusion social networks are found just about anywhere on the internet. A social network is a place on the internet where people can talk about certain things that other people may have in common with them. A social networking site is a site that allows anyone to communicate over the internet with other people.
One thing that makes social networks a good thing is that a person can get almost instant contact with another human being. A person would not have to try to call, visit, or even send an email. They could simply message that particular person and have instant contact with that person. Another thing that social networks do is that they establish certain groups for people. For example, if a person likes golf then there are networks set
up that have other people that like golf too.
Social networks are designed for anyone who can use a computer and who is interested in joining a specific network. If you are a college student then there is a social network called Facebook. Facebook lets college students from all over the world keep in touch with each other. For other people there is a network entitled MySpace. This network allows the users to create a space that displays their personal and professional interests. If there are people looking for love, then there are social networks like Match.com or Eharmony.com. These networks let members post pictures and information about themselves in hopes of finding a person that shares their same goals and interests.
Business is another area where social networks are being used. They are being used to help businessmen and women. There are certain networks that give sales leads to people and help them get started. If a businessperson is in a particular business then there are networks for them to talk with other people that are in the same line of business. Other social networks allow employers to post job opportunities and they also allow prospective employees to respond to those job postings.
One main issue surrounding these social networking sites is the idea of privacy. People put all sorts of personal information on these sites including email addresses, phone numbers, physical addresses, and even pictures. These sites give predators the avenue to find out things about people and children. Some of these sites are not even password protective which means that anyone could read their profile and find out their personal information. A few ways to keep these things from happening are to limit the amount of things that are being put online, including pictures and other information and to also use these sites sparingly.
The most important thing about social networking sites is to get as much information as possible. One suggestion for future research would be to talk with the people of Facebook or MySpace directly. They will be able to answer all sorts of questions pertaining to their websites. A future investigation could include maybe creating a false profile on MySpace. Provide all sorts of personal information and see if you get any messages or see if anyone has been able to use your information.
Social networking websites can be very useful. They let us communicate with people all over the world. They let us talk to people that have the same interests as us and they also let us catch up with an old friend. They provide us with a place to find true love and they also allow us to share family pictures with one another. People should obtain as much information about social networks before joining, but once a person joins he or she should enjoy everything that a social network has to offer.
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