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  • 7.6 Medical and health applications
  • 7.7 Social and political applications
  • 8 Open source software
  • 9 Market share
  • 10 World Usage
  • 11 In the media
  • 12 See also
  • 13 References
  • 14 Further reading

    • [edit] History

    The potential for computer networking to facilitate newly improved forms of computer-mediated social interaction was suggested early on.[8] Efforts to support social networks via computer-mediated communication were made in many early online services, including Usenet[9], ARPANET, LISTSERV, and bulletin board services (BBS). Many prototypical features of social networking sites were also present in online services such as America Online, Prodigy, CompuServe, and The WELL[10]. Early social networking on the World Wide Web began in the form of generalized online communities such as Theglobe.com (1995),[11] Geocities (1994) and Tripod.com (1995). Many of these early communities focused on bringing people together to interact with each other through chat rooms, and encouraged users to share personal information and ideas via personal webpages by providing easy-to-use publishing tools and free or inexpensive webspace. Some communities - such as Classmates.com - took a different approach by simply having people link to each other via email addresses. In the late 1990s, user profiles became a central feature of social networking sites, allowing users to compile lists of "friends" and search for other users with similar interests. New social networking methods were developed by the end of the 1990s, and many sites began to develop more advanced features for users to find and manage friends.[12] This newer generation of social networking sites began to flourish with the emergence of SixDegrees.com in 1997,[13] followed by Makeoutclub in 2000,[14][15] Hub Culture and Friendster in 2002,[16] and soon became part of the Internet mainstream. Friendster was followed by MySpace and LinkedIn a year later, and eventually Bebo. Attesting to the rapid increase in social networking sites' popularity, by 2005, it was reported that MySpace was getting more page views than . Facebook,[17] launched in 2004, became the largest social networking site in the world[18] in early 2009.[19]

    [edit] Social impact

    Main article: Social impact of the Internet#Social networking and entertainment

    Web-based social networking services make it possible to connect people who share interests and activities across political, economic, and geographic borders.[20] Through e-mail and instant messaging, online communities are created where a gift economy and reciprocal altruism are encouraged through cooperation. Information is particularly suited to gift economy, as information is a nonrival good and can be gifted at practically no cost.[21][22]

    Facebook and other social networking tools are increasingly the object of scholarly research. Scholars in many fields have begun to investigate the impact of social-networking sites, investigating how such sites may play into issues of identity, privacy,[23] social capital, youth culture, and education.[24]

    Several websites are beginning to tap into the power of the social networking model for philanthropy. Such models provide a means for connecting otherwise fragmented industries and small organizations without the resources to reach a broader audience with interested users.[25] Social networks are providing a different way for individuals to communicate digitally. These communities of hypertexts allow for the sharing of information and ideas, an old concept placed in a digital environment.

    In 2011, HCL Technologies conducted research that showed that 50% of British employers had banned the use of social networking sites/services during office hours.[26][27]

    [edit] Features

    [edit] Typical features

    According to Boyd and Ellison's (2007) article, "Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life", social networking sites (SNSs) share a variety of technical features that allows individuals to: construct a public/semi-public profile, articulate list of other users that they share a connection with, and view their list of connections within the system (6). The most basic of these are visible profiles with a list of "friends" who are also users of the site. In an article entitled "Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship," Boyd and Ellison adopt Sunden's (2003) description of profiles as unique pages where one can "type oneself into being."[28] A profile is generated from answers to questions, such as age, location, interests, etc. Some sites allow users to upload pictures, add multimedia content or modify the look and feel of the profile. Others, e.g., Facebook, allow users to enhance their profile by adding modules or "Applications."[28] Many sites allow users to post blog entries, search for others with similar interests and compile and share lists of contacts. User profiles often have a section dedicated to comments from friends and other users. To protect user privacy, social networks typically have controls that allow users to choose who can view their profile, contact them, add them to their list of contacts, and so on.

    [edit] Additional features