New Media and social networking

Networking is the process of getting to know people and creating relationships with them. Ideas and information can be exchanged to expand the knowledge of both parties. Social networking began in the early 1990s. It is a platform for people to build connections with others online. At the turn of the century, when the Internet boomed, social networking services such as Friendster, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Facebook appeared and attracted millions of users all over the world. Users of social networking platforms are able to create social relationships virtually by sending messages, sharing photos and videos, or participating in other forms of communication.

Communication is a daily necessity that involves both verbal and nonverbal messages. It is not only necessary to meet people, but to have a conversation with someone, and get ideas across to others. There are a variety of platforms used for communicating. The platform that someone chooses for a message is an important part of communication. One needs to consider the most effective and efficient way to get their message across before choosing the right medium. For example, if you wanted to meet face to face with a another friend or relative located in another country, video calls would be perfect. But by meeting face to face, you can give more attention to one another. If a manager simply wanted to inform employees of updates or convey routine messages, e-mail would be an appropriate medium. For inspirational and motivating messages or new product demonstrations, oral presentations would be the best medium for communication. Different mediums get different types of messages across in different ways. Social networking allows us to use a variety of these communication mediums and establish relationships with others quickly and efficiently.

The main types of social networking services are those that contain category places (such as former school year or classmates), means to connect with friends (usually with self-description pages), and a recommendation system linked to trust. The most widely used social networking sites are American-based Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, Myspace and Twitter. Other notable social networking sites include Friendster(2002), Bebo(2005), Blogster(2005), Academia.edu(2008), deviantArt(2000), Flickr(2004), and CouchSurfing(2003). For a more comprehensive list of social networking sites see List of social networking websites.

Business Model
Social networks operate under an autonomous business model, in which a social network's members serve as both the suppliers and the consumers of content. Social networks usually don't charge money for usage. MySpace and Facebook's business model is based upon large membership count, and the selling of advertising on their site. Some believe that the deeper information that the sites have on each user will allow much better targeted advertising than any other site can currently provide.

Privacy and Safety


Social networking is also a place for predators to find information and stalk people. Any information that reveals where you are at what time can lead criminals one step closer to you. Unfortunately, there are many immoral people in this world, so it is hard to trust anyone hiding behind a screen. This is particularly dangerous for young kids who create social profiles on these websites despite the minimum age requirement. Sexual predators find ways to find easy targets and lure them to give out too much information. There was a study performed by Shalynn Weeden, Bethany Cooke, and Michael McVey that examined the use of social networking services by children under the age of 13. The main task was to observe how knowledgeable these kids were about their personal safety and the potential for harmful interactions the services might bring to them. The study concluded that the kids generally had a lack of training and information about privacy settings and assessing safety risks.

One downside to social networking is the danger having all your private information online. We have become so accustomed to social networking that it has become a big part of us. We do not realize the great amount of private information we store online, which can be stolen by viruses sent by hackers. Often times, these viruses come in the form of enticing links that mislead users to click on them. These links are actually fake, stealing private information such as passwords. Therefore, users of social networks need to make sure that any private information should not be uploaded onto their profile pages. It does not matter whether the user's profile is public or private, because anything that is put on the web can be stolen. However, a sufficient amount of information should be shown on your profile so your friends can find you. After all, that is the purpose of social networking websites. Privacy is a huge issue with social networking websites because sometimes, it is confusing or even not possible to change settings to your exact preferences. For example, the Anthony Weiner's affair was revealed by his accidental use of Twitter. This led to his political downfall. Perhaps the bigger issue is online bullying, which has become a big problem with younger kids.

Online bullying with teens has become very popular in the last decade or so. Sometimes, it can be even worse than bullying in real life. This is because cyber bullying can occur any time of the day since it is over the internet. Bullies can publicize any nasty comments and send messages to a huge audience, causing it to spread even further, thus making it hard to find the original source. Once something has been posted on the internet, since it can spread to any part of the web, it is very difficult and sometimes almost impossible to complete get rid of a certain message or photo. In person, if someone were to bully you, it would easier to avoid--just walk away and never plan to meet them again. However, through social networking, it is hard to do that. Someone can be bullying you anonymously while hiding their identity. This happens very often, which could lead to a student going through severe depression. With this feeling, many kids take online bullying into their own hands and eventually commit suicide. This was the case for Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers University student, who was bullied for his sexual orientation.

Facebook
Facebook became the foremost social networking website. It was founded by Mark Zuckerburg in February 2004 with his college roommates. Facebook spun off Zuckerburgs creation of comparing student's faces using the Harvard College ID card. Eventually, the site grew to include individuals whom are able to post photos, thoughts, videos, etc. These functions became their status and it would be redirected to what is now known as the Facebook News Feed. This step towards a more versatile sharing at a lighting-pace was innovative.

Communities were formed under common interests and locations. Facebook users could uncover other users who resided in their residential area, college, or work. In 2012, Mark Zuckerburg took Facebook to the next level by moving the company towards an Initial Public Offering. After their IPO, Facebook added more functions and features. In July 2012, Facebook added a gay marriage icon to its timeline feature. On August 23, 2012, Facebook released an update to its iOS app (version 5.0), which changed how data was collected and displayed to make it faster. On 2013, Facebook announced Graph Search, which provides users with a "precise answer" rather than a link to an answer by leveraging the data present on its site.

MySpace
Myspace was founded in 2003 by Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe. In 2004, MySpace gained traction and skyrocketed in users. At its height, MySpace had more than 200 million users active daily. However, MySpace did not begin as a social networking site. Initially, MySpace was a data storage business, which was eventually converted into a social network community. Maintaining its foundations, MySpace further refined Friendster’s’ “Circle of Friends” by adding a top friends list and a fully customizable user profile page.

Comments and personal photos of the individual were open for viewing even if the individual did not have another user added a friend. This highlighted the early concerns for privacy because the personal page is not as personal as it appears if a stranger can see personal information. Furthermore, Myspace contributed highly to pop culture with musicians gaining fame through their profiles. A gaming platform was also added onto Myspace which eventually lead to the creation of popular gaming platform, Zynga. MySpace’s meteoric rise came down during News Corp purchase of 2008.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn’s market is found in the professional world. It was founded in 2003 and launched in 2004. Corporations and companies create pages and scout for individuals with specific skillsets that are needed in a field. Users create their profile that exemplifies their current and prior work and academic involvement. Furthermore, users can add their soft and technical skillset to their profiles. The user’s network, similar to Facebook’s friends list, are able to endorse the user’s skills. A user with a high count of endorsements represents strong trustworthiness in the users’ proficiency in the application. The personal skillsets are added onto LinkedIn’s matching database, which matches it with job listings from Corporations and Companies.

At the moment, LinkedIn has over 259,000,000 registered users. LinkedIn also establish Groups where users can join an online community to share insights and knowledge regarding various fields. There are over 2,100,000 LinkedIn Group actively sharing information.

Google+
Google+ (pronounced Google Plus) is a social networking service from Google. It includes many features that may be similar to other social networking services, but with different names such as Circles, Hangouts, +1, Communities, and more. Obviously there is a user profile that includes basic social networking elements such as a profile photo, about section, work and school history, interests, and activities. Circles allows you to control who sees what you share. You can easily manage whose updates you see and choose who you’d like to share with. You can share with the world or keep it to a few important people. Hangouts brings conversations to life with photos, emoji icons, and even group video calls for free. +1 is Google's version of the like button for Facebook. It allows people to recommend sites or pages to friends. Communities allows you to create a conversation with only the people you want to speak with. You can even join public Communities and have discussions or share common interests. All of these features can be taken with you on the go using your mobile device and downloading the Google+ application. This gives you the opportunity to always stay connected with friends and family wherever you are.

Twitter
Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service for users to stay connected through "tweets", which are short messages limited to 140 characters. One of the best things about Twitter is that it is real-time and information is shared immediately, which is why many people like to follow celebrities and catch up on the latest news as soon as they tweet about it. Users may subscribe or follow other users' tweets. The subscribers are known as followers. In addition, Twitter users have the ability to block those who have followed them. It is also used for businesses to connect with their customers. Recently, Twitter announced that it would file for an initial public offering.

On November 6, 2013, 70 million shares were priced at US$26. On November 7, 2013, the first day of trading on the NYSE, Twitter shares closed at US$44.90, giving the company a valuation of around US$31 billion. Most of the revenue Twitter generates comes from advertisement sales. These advertisement sales are Twitter's version of a modified tweets called "promoted tweets." The promoted tweets will be the top result from selective searches users make. Numerous large companies have signed up and used this advertisement model such as Sony Pictures, Best Buy, and Red Bull.

Tumblr
Tumblr is a microblogging site which allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog. Users can follow other users' blogs, as well as make their blogs private.

The dashboard is a live feed of recent posts from blogs that users follow. Users are able to comment, reblog, and like posts from other blogs that appear on their dashboard. The dashboard allows the user to upload text posts, images, video, quotes, or links to their blog with a click of a button displayed at the top of the dashboard. Users are also able to connect their blogs to their Twitter and Facebook accounts, so whenever they make a post, it will also be sent as a tweet and a status update.

Tumblr allows users to edit their blog's theme HTML coding to control the appearance of their blog. Users are also able to use a custom domain name for their blog. On May 20, 2013, it was announced that Yahoo! and Tumblr had reached an agreement for Yahoo! to acquire Tumblr for $1.1 billion in cash.

Flickr
Flickr (pronounced "flicker") is an image hosting and video hosting website that was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo in 2005.

It serves as a popular personal photo sharing community. Photos and videos can be accessed from Flickr without being a registered user but an account must be made in order to upload content onto the website. Registering an account also allows users to create a profile page containing photos and videos that the user has uploaded and to add another Flickr user as a contact.

GroupMe


Is an application used to chat in groups. GroupMe allows the user to invite their contacts into group chats. GroupMe can be utilized through SMS and the app. When using it in sms mode all the users send their text to one phone number and the text is distributed to everyone in the group so that everyone can view the same conversation. However the groupme is meant to be used with the app. With the app users can send their location to the group, share pictures and videos, and even split the cost of bills with a built in program. GroupMe is great for anything from team projects to staying connected with social groups like bowling teams and all sorts of different committees.

CouchSurfing
CouchSurfing is a site that serves a community of international travelers seeking short-term accommodation as well as forming social connections with locals in their traveling destinations. The site is abound with forums which are categorized by geographical location, from the general to the specific, where users can discuss local issues and organize events. In order to post new threads as well as reply to other users' entries, a person must register to the local group's forum. In order to effectively form connections, most users create very extensive personal profiles summarizing their interests and attitudes, and including the places where the grew up and all the geographical locations they have traveled to, the languages they speak, and personal pictures. The personal profile also includes the user's list of friends and most importantly, a list of critical "reviews" from other users (aka "couchsurfers") who have hosted/been hosted by or somehow came in contact with the user. The profile states whether or not the person currently has a "couch" to offer for travelers. Any user can search for other users by their current location (almost every city in the world is covered) and contact them by private messaging. The search results can be filtered to include only users who have couches to offer as well as by a variety of other personal criteria.

Friendster


Jonathan Abrams founded Friendster in 2002 with a $12 million investment by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital, and private investors. In 2003, Friendster management received a $30 million buyout offer from Google, which they declined. The declining offer was considered to be the one of the biggest blunders in Silicon Valley.

Friendster was the basis which MySpace and Facebook built their websites on. Friendster’s main tool was the “Circle of Friends.” The “Circle of Friends” demonstrated the unique element of a small world phenomenon by showcasing the social path links between the individual and your friend. Friendster was considered to be the top social networking site before it was overshadowed by MySpace in April 2004. As of 2008, Friendster had a membership count of more than 115 million registered accountings with growth in Asia. According to Alexa, the site has suffered an exponential decline in traffic in America since 2009. From a peak 40 ranking it reached 800 in November 2010. Most people have since attributed this decline to the rise of Facebook, a rival social networking site. In August 2008, Friendster hired ex-Google executive Richard Kimber as the standing CEO. Kimber focused on Friendster's future in Asia.