essay sample on What are Social Networking Sites?

Social networking is the gathering of individuals into specific groups, according to their interests or background.

Social networking is possible in person, for example in the workplace, universities or high schools, but it is more popular online. It is because if to compare to high schools, colleges and workplaces, the internet is used by millions of people who want to meet other people, to gather and share first-hand information and experiences on different topics (What Is Social Networking?).

Social networking websites work like an online community of internet users. Depending on the topic of website, people share there common interests in hobbies, religion, politics and other spheres of their lives. As soon as you sign up, or register on a site, you get access to reading profile pages of other members and possibly even contacting them (What Is Social Networking?).

People can use social networking in order to communicate with current friends, keep in touch with old friends or find new friends according to similar interests. They also can share their interests with other accomplice members in groups and forums. There are also networking that can also help their members to find a job or making business contacts (Social Networking Websites Review. 2010).

A lot of social networking websites also offer additional services. In addition to blogs and forums, members of these sites have an opportunity to reflect their personality by designing their profile page. The most popular additional services include music and video sections. So members have an opportunity to read information about music artists from the artist’s profile page, also can listen to their songs and watch clips (Social Networking Websites Review. 2010).

The most popular social networking websites of 2010 are Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, Hi5, Orkut, PerfSpot, Yahoo!360, Zorpia, Netlog, Twitter, LinkedIn(Social Networking Websites Review. 2010).

Facebook is a very popular social network site that in the begging was only for college students, but now it is free and anyone can join it. Now it can be called a cultural phenomenon that is widespread. It became an undisputable leader amongst social networking sites. This site consists of many separate networks based around schools, enterprises and regions. The site is still mainly focused at college and high school age. Profiles allow members to post pictures, write comments, blogs and apps. Also, its privacy option is one of the best the best in Internet. (Social Networking Websites Review. 2010).

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site. It is used for professional networking. In January 2010, LinkedIn had more than 55 million registered users, in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide (LinkedIn. 2010).

The main purpose of LinkedIn is to give an opportunity to registered users to create a list with information about people they know and trust in business. Such people in the list are called Connections. This list of connections can later be used in different ways of ways. It can be used to find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended by someone in one’s contact network. Also employers can post jobs and look for potential candidates. Job seekers can check the profile of hiring managers and find out which of their current contacts can introduce them (LinkedIn. 2010).

Twitter is considered to be an ultimate micro blogging tool for social networking. It is a free social networking providing microblogging service that gives an opportunity to its users to send and read messages that are called tweets. Tweets are text messages that consist not more than of 140 characters showed on the author’s profile page and delivered to his subscribers. Senders can limit delivery only to their circle of friends or allow open access.

Users can follow lists of authors. The users can send and receive tweets through the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications. The service itself costs nothing, but accessing it through SMS may include phone service provider fees. So Twitter helps people to connect with each other (Twitter.com ”“ A Detailed Review. 2009).



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