social networking sites

(2) A network of friends, colleagues, and other personal contacts. (3) An online community of people with a common interest who use a website or other technologies to communicate with each other and share information or resources. Social Network sites is defined as web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with who they share a connections, and (3) view and navigate their list of connections and those made by others within the system. These social network sites are named as such but not limited to: Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and

Social networking sites vary in the levels of privacy offered. For some social networking sites like Facebook, providing real names and other personal information is encouraged by the site(onto a page known as a ‘Profile‘). These information usually consist of birth date, current address, and telephone number(s). Some sites also allow users to provide more information about themselves such as interests, hobbies, favorite books or films, and even relationship status. However, there are other social network sites, such as Match.com, where most people prefer to be anonymous. Thus, linking users to their real identity can sometimes be rather difficult. Nevertheless, individuals can

This takes us to the modern Social Network Sites, which come in a great variety of sizes, colour and topics. Some are general sites, where you just meet people with any interest. Some others are made to unite people with the same interests, such as pets (Dogster and Catster, for example), or music (last.fm). Others specialize in uniting people from a similar community around the world, like AsianAvenue, BlackPlanet and MiGente. Other popular networks mix some of the characteristics to help the users to share data in a simpler way. For example, YouTube combines the idea of uploading, sharing and watching videos with the profiles (Boyd, and Ellison, 2007).

* While SNSs have implemented a wide variety of technical features, their backbone consists of visible profiles that display an articulated list of Friends1 who are also users of the system. Profiles are unique pages where one can "type oneself into being" (Sundén, 2003, p. 3). After joining an SNS, an individual is asked to fill out forms containing a series of questions. The profile is generated using the answers to these questions, which typically include descriptors such as age, location, interests, and an "about me" section. Most sites also encourage users to upload a profile photo. Some sites

Social network sites (SNSs) such as such as Friendster, CyWorld, and MySpace allow individuals to present themselves, articulate their social networks, and establish or maintain connections with others (Ellison, 2007). These sites could be used for work related situation, romance, connecting with individuals with shared interest, or creating a connection amongst college students. Facebook enables its users to present themselves in an online profile, accumulate ‘‘friends’’ who can post comments on each other’s pages, and view each other’s profiles (Ellison, 2007). Individuals can write on the wall of friends, send private message, comment on posts, as well as chat via instant messaging. Much of the early research on online communities assumed that individuals using these systems would be connecting with others outside their pre-existing social group or location, liberating them to form communities around shared interests, as opposed to shared geography (Ellison, 2007).

According to the Boyd and Ellison article entitled ‘social networking sites’ definition and scholarship, they adopt Sunden’s (2003) description of profiles as unique pages where one can type oneself into being a profile is generated from answer to question, such as age, location and interest.

The design of social networking sites on the site reflects the characteristics of real life social networks that are designed to let social network analysis work following a compatible database. Links are created between users which are persistent as the user's identity.

When it comes to online social networking, websites are commonly used. These websites are known as social sites. Social networking websites function like an online community of internet users. Depending on the website in question, many of these online community members share a common interest such as hobbies, religion, or politics. Once you are granted access to a social networking website you can begin to socialize. This socialization may include reading the profile pages of other members and possibly even contacting them.

Social Networking sites such as Facebook, Friendster, and Myspace are web-based communities that permit users to create profiles, share information and interact with other members. In social networking account, users can add personal information to their profiles, share with other users, upload photographs and videos, play games and chat with other users around the world. Similar in format and style; many of these sites have very various origins. Example, Facebook basically began as a student directory and yearbook at Harvard University, Friendster was primarily designed to be a user-friendly dating site. Other sites such as MySpace began on much larger scale with bulky

Definition The term “social networking” does not exclusively belong to digital technology on the Web. On the contrary, social networks had been studied from the beginning of 20th century with the aim to comprehend how the members of a certain community interact and which mechanism can determine the interaction itself. Today social networking commonly refers to all those activities that are carried out within specific online services that provides free space and software tools which

Social network sites are the web-based services allowing people to articulate other users with a mutual connection, create a profile within a bounded system as well as view and navigate the conversations made by other users of the network system.

They can also join networks and groups. Once users join a network, all the people in that network can view their profiles, but they can choose to limit it to just people on your friends list if you wish. When logging into Facebook, users are presented with a mini news feed that gives them a variety of updates on friends. They can read their status, see what they have written on other friends’ walls, view any pictures they have added and see results of quizzes they have taken. When a friend updates a status, you can leave a comment related to that status and be alerted when your friend or friends of your friend reply to your comment. Many actors have their own pages on Facebook. People can become a fan of the actor to gain access to updates and events related to them. When others in your circle become a fan of something, it will also show up in the news feed, which gives us a chance to join if we wish. Facebook also has many games that can be played, and a lot of these can be played with your friends and this highlights that Facebook is primarily a fun and modern way to play and communicate.

“[Users] clearly want and value privacy on social networking sites. By extension social networking sites need to address privacy protection in a manner that is satisfactory to users. And as technology advances, social networking sites must be continually vigilant regarding the privacy of users. The bottom line is that social networking web sites need privacy tools and privacy policies to protect users’ privacy and to meet users’ expectations or face the possibility of losing them” (McGrath 28).

MySpace is easy to use for anyone to submit profile information, even if they have lack of online experience.

network of friends, which is in turn entirely controlled by the user’s preferences. This means the