We hear so much today about social networking on the Internet. If you have ever wondered exactly what they are and how they work, this article presents the basics of social networking.

A social networking site is generally focused on building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. The best known social networks exist on the World Wide Web and offer a variety of ways for users to interact, including site email, and messaging, both public and private. Sites are primarily differentiated by exactly what networking services they provide and how those services are presented, i.e., their user interface.

Most of the components of social networking sites existed before they were combined in the specific way required to be a social networking site. Sites such as FaceBook and MySpace combined these common elements with user-centric features such as personal profiles, histories, friend structures, personal photographs, some sort of blogging function, the ability to form groups, and the availability of add-on applications. Once most of these these features were gathered together in one place, the social network was born. The most popular social networking sites, and the areas in which they are most popular, are as follows:

Bebo – Germany
cyworld – Asia and the Pacific
dol2day – Germany
Facebook – Worldwide
Friendster – Asia and the Pacific
Hi5 – Germany, South and Central America
LinkedIn – North America
Multiply – Worldwide
MySpace – North America, Germany
Nexopia – Canada
Orkut – South America, Asia and the Pacific
Plurk – Asia and the Pacific, North America
SkyRock – Europe
Tagged – Europe
Twitter – North America
Wretch – Asia and the Pacific
Xiaonei – Asia and the Pacific
Xing – Europe

Probably the most common feature of these sites is the friend system. Generally, one site member proposes friendship to another member, who then must accept or reject friendship. Some sites also promote the concept of the fan, a one-way relationship in which one user declares that he or she is a fan of another user. This requires no action on the part of the person being “followed.” Many users pay extremely close attention to their numbers of friends and fans as a way of keeping score, or tracking their on-line popularity.

Many sites allow users to maintain a great deal of personal and professional information about themselves, and also allow significant granularity regarding what information can be seen by different groups: friends, fans, favorites, friends of friends, the general public, etc. In the formative stages of social networking sites, there was much drama surrounding what information should be available to whom as growing sites refined the friend structure.

Most sites also have controls which allow a member to control access (or usually non-access) at the level of individual people. These controls usually take the form of banning or blocking, in which one individual can forbid another individual to contact them, or to see any of their information on a site.

One of the more fascinating facts about social networks is that, although they are some of the most popular Web sites in the world, with millions and millions of members and daily visits, many have no way to make money other than investors. That is to say, many sites have no business model, and are supported by investors who hope to someday capitalize on their popularity. Facebook and Twitter fall generally into this category, though almost all social networks are attempting to integrate profit into the operation of their sites.

Social networks are a recent phenomenon, having come into existence quickly over the last few years. The history of social networking site components is long, gong all the way back to ARPANET, bulletin boards, CompuServe, and services like The Well. The initial large players, Friendster, Bebo, and Myspace, all emerged onto the scene between 2002 and 2004. These were followed closely by Facebook, which has become the most popular site of all.

If you are not a member of one or more of the popular social networking sites, you are becoming more rare every day. Although these sites were first popular with youth, they have all entered the mainstream of internet culture, and almost everyone that spends time on the Web belongs to one of these social networks. If you have not yet done so, you may wish to visit one of the sites and get your feet wet. It’s a whole new social whirl.

Related:

Entry was posted on Saturday, May 30th, 2009 at 9:28 pm under Internet, Science and technology, Social Media.

Read more entries by Michael W. Jones.
Stumble It!