Social Networking Sites

As I looked through the latest news sites I noticed a statistic that really hit home. On cnn.com I saw the little headline that said "Facebook Population Hits 300 Million." I know that I am on Facebook and I am sure that our whole class is also on Facebook, so this just seems to be something I had to look into. This means that the population of Facebook is almost as big as the population of the United States as a whole! That really is crazy! How did this happen? Why did this happen? How did it all start?! This is how I decided to do my topic on the Revolution of Social Network Sites.

A Network is made up of groups of people who are tied with at least one common factor. Some examples are friendships, relatives, relationships, beliefs and knowledge. A social network service, like Facebook or Myspace is an online site where people can connect and most importantly communicate. Included in this can be instant messaging, email and personalized social networking sites. Some very popular sites that our generation right now would be Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, LinkedIn and many more.
The start of social network service sites all began with SixDegrees.com. It lasted from 1997-2001. It is based off of the belief of six degrees of separation. Users could simply post on a bulletin board to be seen by their first, second and third degrees. People can also use this site to find people and see how many degrees they are separated (or connected to) to the people they search. When sixdegrees.com failed in 2001 this launched people to try their hand at creating their own successful social networking site. This was the beginning of the launch of the successful sites including Friendster, Myspace and eventually Facebook.
Because Facebook is targeted most towards our age demographic I decided to focus more on studying it than any other site. Here are some statistics I found out-
Founded in 2004 in a Harvard dorm room
Started based around a school version of “Hot or Not”
Progressed from FashMash, to TheFaceBook and eventually Facebook.
Recently reported that Facebook for the first time is starting to turn a profit unlike many online social networks.
70% of facebook users are not living in the U.S.

However, Facebook definitely has its down as much as its ups!
Social Networking does in fact have a downside. There are as many risks with the sites including facebook that many people consider to big of a risk to bother using them.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpLNlSKugHw&feature=related
 If you are 18, you don’t think about your 42-year-old self looking for a job or promotion. People don’t consider that long-term risk.
Facebook has definitely improved our qualities of life. Communication is at it’s most simple. You can meet many new people, connect and get to know them
This is all going to affect our future very very much! Communication is at our fingertips. Literally. We are being open to so many more opportunities. However, it comes with the bad. Distraction and addiction are the first few that come to my mind. Despite all the bad things that Facebook specifically poses, all social network sites are very much worth it. Things just would not be the same without it.