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Social network services focus on building online communities of people with common interests and activities, that want to see the interests and activities of other people. Web based social networks allow members to interact with each other using email, instant messaging, video, audio, games, chatrooms, and various online features. Millions of people use social networks every day to communicate and share information. The more popular social networks contain directories of categories (for example: former classmates, current classmates), to connect with friends, recommend new friends to current friends, tag each friend with a rating system, and more. The more popular social networks include MySpace, FaceBook, Nexopia, Bebo, Hi5, Tagged, Xing, Skyrock, Orkut, Friendster, Xianonei, and Cyworld. LinkedIn is another popular social network used by business professionals. SixDegrees and NetworkForGood are more examples of social networks. TheSocialGolfer, ACountryLife, GreatCooksCommunity, Menuism, and JobRespect, are more examples of social network sites. PatientsLikeMe connects members to other members with similar health concerns. SoberCircle provides alcoholics and addicts with a social network. DailyStrength offers support groups for a huge variety of self-help topics and conditions. Structure of Social Networking ServicesSocial networking services enable members to create their own profiles for internal social networking or external social networking. An internal social networking site is a closed or private community with members fom within an association, society, company, education provider, or invite-only group. An external social network is open to the public and designed to attract advertisers. Social StatusSociologist Erving Goffman refers to the 'Interaction Order' that he claims is 'part of the social life where face-to-face and spoken interactions occur' (Rhiengold: 2002, P171). Social network members are able to completely control the information provided about themselves through photos and information whether it is true or false and with the friends of members. Members are therefore now able to control their personal information and their desired social status. Social Network Site FeaturesSocial networks provide a wide variety of features to members, including file sharing, creation of groups to share common interests, uplodad and stream live video, hold forum discussions, create and manage photo galleries, and much more. Geosocial networking integrates mapping services to organize member participation around geographic locations. OpenID and OpenSocial technologies are creating interoperability between social networks and SeawayWebsites.com is excited to provide this feature to their clients too. Mobile Social Networking is also a popular community feature. Mobile phone users can now participate in social networking websites while on the go. Social Networking Site Business ModelCompanies such as MySpace and FaceBook sell online advertising on their site, so they seek large memberships to cover all their costs while making a profit. The advertisers benefit from deep information about each member of MySpace and FaceBook social networks. Internal Social Networks that are not open to the general public, provide more privacy and members typically pay a subscription fee to use the features. The subscription fees are typically charged per month, per 3 months, per 6 months, and yearly. Privacy of Social Network WebsitesConcerns about members sharing too much personal information is growing on large external social networking services. Members of social networking websites must be aware of data theft, viruses, and predators. Most large external social networking services work with law enforcement to prevent incidents. SeawayWebsites.com creates and includes standard privacy policy, terms of service, and anti-spam policies for each of their clients that own and operate social networking websites. Notifications on Social Networking WebsitesBebo, Facebook, and MySpace will not send notifications to members when they are removed from a friend's friend list. They only send out 'positive' notifications to their members. Bebo will send a notification when a member is moved to the top of another member's friend list, while they will not send a notification when a member is moved to the bottom of a friend list. This trend allows members to purge undesirables from their friend lists very easily, with less risk of confrontation, because a member will rarely notice when they disappear from a friend's list of friends. This trend also enforces the positive atmosphere of the website without bringing attention to unpleasant events such as friends falling out, failed relationships, and rejection. See alsosources: WikiPedia: Social Network, Social Network Services References- ^ "Social Nets Engage in Global Struggle" - 66% of MySpace and Facebook users come from North America: Adweek website. Retrieved on January 15, 2008.
- ^ Nexopia stats on Alexa.com
- ^ Bebo - most popular of its kind in UK (August 2007): TechCrunch website. Retrieved on January 15, 2008.
- ^ German Xing Plans Invasion of LinkedIn Turf: article from the MarketingVox website.
- ^ Hi5 popular in Europe: article from the PBS MediaShift website. Retrieved on January 18, 2008.
- ^ "Why Users Love Orkut" - 55% of users are Brazilian: About.com website. Retrieved on January 15, 2008,
- ^ The Network Nation by S. Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff (Addison-Wesley, 1978, 1993)
- ^ David Andrews, The IRG Solution, Souvenir Press, 1984.
- ^ (Boyd & Ellison, 2007, p.3).
- ^ (Boyd & Ellison, 2007, p.3)
- ^ (A. Weinreich, 2007, cited by Boyd & Ellison, 2007, p.3)
- ^ Rosen, C. (2007). Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism. New Atlantis, Summer 2007. Available Online (PDF)
- ^ MySpace Page Views figures, 2005: BusinessWeek website.
- ^ "Social graph-iti": Facebook's social network graphing: article from The Economist's website. Retrieved on January 19, 2008.
- ^ News Corporation buys MySpace: BBC.co.uk website.
- ^ ITV buys Friends Reunited: BBC.co.uk website.
- ^ Over 200 social networking sites: InfoJuice website. Retrieved on January 19, 2008
- ^ Nine Ways to Build Your Own Social Network, TechCrunch, July
- ^ danah boyd (2006), Friends, Friendsters, and MySpace Top 8: Writing Community Into Being on Social Network Sites, First Monday, 11 (12).Available Online
- ^ Gross, R and Acquisti, A (2005). Information Revelation and Privacy in Online Social Networks (The Facebook case). Pre-proceedings version. ACM Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society (WPES), Available Online (PDF).
- ^ For example Mike Thelwall, MySpace, Facebook, Bebo: Social Networking Students, ALT: Online Newsletter (January 2008), Available Online. Also Mazer, J. P., Murphy, R. E., and Simonds, C. J. (2007). I'll See You On "Facebook": The Effects of Computer-Mediated Teacher Self-Disclosure on Student Motivation, Affective Learning, and Classroom Climate. Communication Education 56 (1), 1-17, Available Online.
- ^ NB Ellison, C Steinfield, C Lampe, The Benefits of Network Sites- JOURNAL OF COMPUTER MEDIATED COMMUNICATION ), Available Online (PDF).
- ^ danah boyd, (2007), Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites, MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Learning - Youth, Identity, and Digital Media Volume (ed. David Buckingham). MIT Press. Available Online (PDF).
- ^ Danah Boyd and Nicole Ellison (2007, October). Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13 (1). [1]
- ^ Social Networking: Now Professionally Ready, PrimaryPsychiatry.com website.
- ^ Social Networks Impact the Drugs Physicians Prescribe According to Stanford Business School Research, Pharmalive.com website.
- ^ A New Generation Reinvents Philanthropy, Wall Street Journal website.
- ^ (Mazer, Joseph; Murphy, Richard; Simonds, Cheri. “Communication Education.”January 2007: 17)
- ^ (Searchengineland.com.2007. “A New Place to Face-to-Face: B2B Social Networking.” <http://www.searchengineland.com>)
- ^ (Lamb, Paul. "Have YourSpace call MySpace." 8 Nov. 2006. 22 Oct. 2008 <http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1108/p09s02-coop.html>)
- ^ (Tribble, Sarah Jane. “The Social Network as a Career Safety Net.” New York Times 13 August 2008.)
- ^ (White, Martin. “How Networked Are You?” EContent September 2007: 21.)
- ^ (Communicationtopics.com. 2008. “Misuse and Overuse of New Technologies in Organizations.”
- ^ (Lamb, Paul. "Have YourSpace call MySpace." 8 Nov. 2006. 22 Oct. 2008 <http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1108/p09s02-coop.html>.)
- ^ "Companies warned not to rush into social networking", implications of internal social networking in a business environment: News.com website. Retrieved on January 22, 2008.
- ^ "Facebook, MySpace, and Co.: IHEs ponder whether or not to embrace social networking websites", implications of external social networking in education: TheFreeLibrary.com website. Retrieved on January 22, 2008.
- ^ You must specify archiveurl = and archivedate = when using {{cite web}}.Joffe, Benjamin (2008-3-30). "New business models in online communities". ReadWriteWeb Interview: Facebook vs Asia’s Top Social Networks 46. +8*.
- ^ Murdoch Will Earn a Payday from MySpace Forbes
- ^ As Applications Blossom, Facebook Is Open for Business Wired
- ^ Flor, N. (2000). Web Business Engineering. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley; Description of the autonomous business model used in social network services: article by Nick V. Flor at the InformIT website.
- ^ Social network launches worldwide spam campaign E-consultancy.com, Accessed 10 September 2007
- ^ Moreno MA, Fost NC, Christakis DA (2008). "Research ethics in the MySpace era". Pediatrics 121 (1): 157–61. doi:10.1542/peds..
- ^ "MySpace exposes sex predators", use of its content in the courtroom: Herald and Weekly Times (Australia) website. Retrieved on January 19, 2008.
- ^ "Getting booked by Facebook", courtesy of campus police: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel website. Retrieved on January 19, 2008.
- ^ Fatal MySpace internet hoax mother is charged, Herald Sun, 17 May 2008
- ^ | Banned for keeps on Facebook for odd name, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 September 2008
Further reading- Boyd, Danah and Ellison, Nicole. "Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship." Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, volume 13, issue 11, October 2007.
- Cockrell, Cathy, "Plumbing the mysterious practices of 'digital youth': In first public report from a 'seminal' study, UC Berkeley scholars shed light on kids' use of Web 2.0 tools", UC Berkeley News, University of California, Berkeley, NewsCenter, 28 April 2008
- Else, Liz, and Turkle, Sherry. "Living online: I'll have to ask my friends", New Scientist, issue 2569, 20 September 2006. (interview)
- Glaser, Mark, Your Guide to Social Networking Online," PBS MediaShift
- Naone, Erica, "Who Owns Your Friends?: Social-networking sites are fighting over control of users' personal information.", MIT Technology Review, July/August 2008
- Seabrook, John. "Deeper : my two-year odyssey in cyberspace", New York : Simon & Schuster, 1997.
- Urstadt, Bryant, "Social Networking Is Not a Business: Web 2.0--the dream of the user-built, user-centered, user-run Internet--has delivered on just about every promise except profit. Will its most prominent example, social networking, ever make any money?", MIT Technology Review, July/August 2008
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