The Guidebook on Modern Sociology

There are a lot of social networking services springing up in the 21^st century. They are focused on building online communities for people who share common interests and activities. Most of these are web-based and provide a variety of ways for user interaction, such as instant messaging (chat services), tweeting (micro-blogging) and personal messaging (electronic mail or e-mail).

Social interaction through computer-mediated communication has been suggested as early as 1970s. However, early social networking websites has yet started in the 80s. They were in the form of generalized online communities. These communities focused on people interaction through chat rooms and the sharing of personal ideas or opinions on topics through personal homepage publishing tools – this was commonly used before the blogging phenomenon hit the worldwide web. Bulletin Board System (BBS), which is text-based, also survived as a hobby in most parts of the world and became a local phenomenon back then.

There were a lot of social networking services available since the late 80s. Among them were: The WELL (1985), Geocities (1994), Classmates.com (1995), SixDegress.com (1997). Some social networking sites served different purpose from the others. There are those that focused on ties with former school mates; others are focused on indirect ties – for the purpose of appraising one’s social capital. Social capital refers to the value that an individual gets from the social network – the more links he have, the higher is his social value.

At present, a lot of social networking sites which cater to different levels of communication among users flourished. Based on researches, social networking site used in a certain country or continent varies.  Among those that are popularly used are: Orkut, Hi5, Multiply, Facebook, and Twitter. Orkut, which is owned by Google, is popular in Brazil and India. Hi5 is popular in India, Portugal, Mongolia, Thailand, Romania, Jamaica, Central Africa, and Latin America. Multiply is popular in Asia. Facebook, which is privately owned by Facebook, Inc., is popularly used worldwide. Twitter is also being popularized worldwide.

Facebook allows adding of friends, photo upload and sharing, chatting, gaming, messaging, tweeting, tagging, and etc. Additionally, users are allowed to join in networks organized by school, churches, and similar other organizations. It would also suggest friends in your network; thus, there is a limitless networking possibility.

Multiply supports photo, video, and sound upload and sharing, blog sharing, and chatting with their “real-world” network. There are two membership types in Multiply: the free account and the premium account. While some enjoy the free account Multiply has offered, still others would sign up in premium account to enjoy added benefits as follows: larger video size uploading, freedom to download video and music files, lifetime storage of uploaded files in media locker, and bulk copying of photos.  

Orkut is designed to help users meet new people and discover new relationships and maintain the existing ones. Users create a free account, in which they provide their social, professional, and personal details. Photo upload and sharing, video linking from YouTube or Google Video, GTalk (interface from Google) for enabling chat and file sharing are some features that made Orkut social networking popular among Brazilians and Indians.

Twitter is a form of networking wherein micro-blogging service enables users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are plainly text-based posts consisting of 140 characters or less, which are displayed in the author’s page and are delivered to the author’s subscribers who are known as followers. Twitter gained popularity worldwide through its SMS-like feature in the Internet. The posts can be restricted to the author’s circle of friends or can be made public depending on the user’s discretion.

There are a number of features available to Hi5 users. It enables profile information of the user viewable to other users or disables public access. It also allows photo uploading wherein users belonging to his network can post comments on them. It allows users to create photo albums and set up a music player. Users send friend requests through e-mail.

Each of these social networking sites offers different features to end-users. Each feature is designed to be integrated in the entire system in a social networking site to ensure user’s contentment in the services it offers.