Social Networking Sites

One of the origins of social networking sites come from user blog sites. I don’t remember the early ones, I think one was called Xanga or something. Then one of the earlier sites was Myspace. at First it was a personal page where you can link to friends; it had a generic format. Then users started formatting their pages with CSS and HTML and there lies its downfall. You go to most users Myspace pages now and you have layers of iframes, tables, backgrounds with uncontrasting text colors that makes it unreadable. After that, you will most likely hear music, and if you are very lucky only one song at a time. The user may only post a single song or jukebox (but some add muiliples) that auto plays, but then other users will add songs to comments. I have no idea how that seams like a good idea. So not only can you not read the page, but you can’t hear it clearly either.

As Myspace started it decline, Facebook started it rise. Facebook has a ridged format, on pages. Users have little control over how the content is displayed. Facebook will even make changes to the format against a users will. For example their new “timeline” format that many are saying will be mandatory soon. A feature that attracted (and still attracts) users to Facebook is the apps. Myspace has since added apps but I feel this was too little too late. The apps on Facebook can be user generated in there Application Development area. While most know the apps from big companies like Zyanga’s Facebook, Words with Friends, and Cityville, others are made by regular users like a now defunct app Human Pets.  Another feature of Facebook is Status Updates.

It is these status updates that i feel twitter got it’s idea from. Tweets are like a cross between a status update and a sms(text) message.They have a character limit of 140 and users can ‘follow’ and ‘retweet’ a users ‘tweet’. Businesses use (or try to use) twitter to promote their business like Samsung’s “Samsung Nation”. It was also widely reported that twitter instrumental in the “Arab Spring” revolutions. I feel this may be why nations are putting pressure on Twitter to ‘censor’ content in their counties that is ‘unlawful’.

Another type of social networking site is the ‘professional’ social networking site, like LinkedIn. This site is the site job seekers hope future employees look at, but that is not the case. LinkedIn is basically a extended resume site, with a social media spin on it. It shows who is ‘connected’ to the user. it shows the “professional networking” that the user has. this site has little incentive for users to come back. for an HR manager this may be a wonderful site, but most users won’t have a large use for it on a daily basis.

And like I stated at the end of my last blog, there are other sites like like Google+ that are emerging. so I think that is a good place to end this blog.