Social Networking

Another popular activity for teenagers and adults is creating a personal page on one of the many social networking web sites. Many sites offer this service but the most popular are www.MySpace.com andwww.Facebook.com. Each site basically provides the same experience but each has its individual characteristics along with rules and regulations. The way it works is users register and create a personal page called a profile on the site. Profiles can include pictures, personal information, opinions, online journals called blogs, music, videos and basically anything else a person feels represents them and their personality.

Users then browse other profiles looking for people with similar interests or locating people they went to school with etc. Once found, they make contact by requesting "friend status". When accepted, a link is created on each other's page to their new friend's page. Users commonly communicate through e-mail or chat services provided by the site as well. They also visit each other's page to leave messages and meet each other's friends and the social networking cycle continues into one big weblog community. The general rule of thumb is the more friends a user has the higher status they enjoy. With MySpace it displays the number of times it has been visited, which also reflects status.

Replacing the need for face-to-face interaction, social networking has become a new addiction for many who spend hours cruising through endless profiles making connections with old friends or making new ones. Many amateur musicians use this medium to reach their fans and provide music for download eliminating normal distribution costs and allowing the potential for a larger worldwide fan base.

As with anything involving the Internet there are dangers to consider with social networking. For starters, it creates a place for online predators to gather information. This is a concern especially with www.MySpace.comconsidering the number of teenagers who carelessly list personal information such as their full name, town, high school, and post pictures of their house or car. Some sites prevent unregistered users from viewing profiles while others like www.Facebook.com do not. The most popular site MySpace allows anyone to browse and view profiles although certain areas are restricted to unregistered users. Another area of concern with MySpace is the browse and search features allowing searches based on such criteria as body type, sexual orientation, smoker, drinker, and relationship status (i.e. Single, Married, In a Relationship, Divorced, Swinger). Some users also post risqué, nude and sexually suggestive pictures of themselves or others although MySpace has rules against it listed in the terms of use agreement. MySpace also restricts users under the age of fourteen from registering and having a profile. The method of age verification is determined by the birth date the user lists which is easily defeated. MySpace also states that anyone found to be underage might have their membership terminated and their profile removed.

In addition, www.MySpace.com has also made an attempt to crack down on predators by implementing restrictions for adults having access to underage user profiles. Although with no age verification adults can easily pose as the age group they are targeting. Many social networking web sites list safety tips for users to review and typically a safety link is available at the bottom of most webpages.

Social Networking profiles can be set to a private mode which only allows people to view it that have been accepted as a friend by the profile owner. This is default in www.Facebook.com. This prevents random users from viewing it and is a great safety feature for protection. All profiles should be set to private but keep in mind this prevents parents from viewing their child's profile as well unless they have a profile themselves and have been added as a friend.

MICROBLOGGING

Web sites such as www.Twitter.com have been quickly increasing in popularity for their microblogging ability. The act of microblogging basically allows a user to post small messages to an online profile which in turn is being monitored by other users of the service. Many celebrities are using Twitter to post "tweets" about their normal daily activities which provides fans with an insight to their life. Most tweets are done with cell phones as a user would text the information to the site which is then posted. Microblogging is not very popular with children or teens.

VIRTUAL WORLDS

When most people think of social networking they think ofwww.MySpace.com or www.Facebook.com. There is also a completely different type of social network infrastructure available now that has taken lessons from role playing games. Web sites such aswww.secondlife.com, www.kaneva.com, and www.gaiaonline.com offer a virtual world/community that allow users to create a character of themselves known as an "avatar." Once created, they roam through this online world and interact with other avatars. The avatars represent other people sitting at their computers doing the same thing. Avatars allow people to be whomever they want. Men can become women and vice versa. Older adults can build their avatar to be 16 years old. Basically in a virtual world anything goes and no one can prove otherwise.

This is very dangerous because when children and teens are involved in this type of virtual reality world they are literally blind to who they are dealing with. They are mixed into a virtual world interacting with adults and potentially some predators. There are also several adult areas in Second Life including "rape rooms."

There are also virtual worlds targeted to grade school children.Www.weeworld.com is one of those sites that allow very young children to make avatars referred to as a "wee mee." They use their avatar to play with other kids in the virtual world. A potential for danger is very prevalent in this world as well. Similar sites such as www.whyville.net andwww.clubpenguin.com offer a safer environment.

SOCIAL NETWORKING DANGERS• Adults use the site• Inappropriate language, nudity, alcohol use, sexually provocative images, etc.• Predators use it to gather information • No real method of age verification

• Some Social Networking services allow people to view profiles without logging on; therefore teenagers and young children can access it easily

SOCIAL NETWORKING DO'S AND DON'TS• Set profile to private• Read safety tips on all SN web sites• Ask teenager to show you their profile (all of them)• Discuss online privacy• No addresses, phone numbers, other identifiable information (license plate)• Once posted online it is there to stay

• No Web Cam

Facts about Social Networking Websites

As our digital and physical lives blur further, the internet has become the information hub where people spend a majority of their time learning, playing and communicating with others globally. Emergence of WEB 2.0 came with the concept of Social Network. The purpose of social networking is to CONNECT WITH PEOPLE on a very personal level.

Facebook Statistics:

• More than 300 million active users
• More than 100 million users log on to Facebook at least once each day
• More than two-thirds of Facebook users are outside of college
• The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older
• Average user has 120 friends on the site
• More than 5 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide)
• More than 30 million users update their statuses at least once each day
• More than 8 million users become fans of Pages each day
• More than 900 million photos uploaded to the site each month
• More than 10 million videos uploaded each month
• More than 1 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) shared each week
• More than 2.5 million events created each month
• More than 35 million active user groups exist on the site
• Big brand names, like Ford, WholeFoods, Comcast, IBM, Dell, Southwest Airlines, and many, many more are establishing a strong presence on social networking hubs like Twitter and Facebook.
• Facebook membership has just passed the 300 million mark (that’s nearly the population of USA!) and Twitter is marching towards 18 million users by year’s end! That’s a lot of potential customers!
• Although, started with college kids in mind, over 50% of Facebook’s members now are over 25 years old, over 55% are women (the new buying power), 51% have an annual income of $75K, with 33% claiming to bring home $100K or more.
• Finally, Facebook has become one of the most trusted companies in America, and people spend three times more time there than on Google!

Social Networking Websites Statistics:

• By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network
• Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
• 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
• Years to Reach 50 millions Users: Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.
• If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia (note that Facebook is now creeping up – recently announced 300 million users)
• Yet, some sources say China’s QZone is larger with over 300 million using their services (Facebook’s ban in China plays into this)
• comScore indicates that Russia has the most engage social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network
• 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
• 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum
• % of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80%
• The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
• Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres (combined) have more Twitter followers than the population of Ireland, Norway, or Panama. Note I have adjusted the language here after someone pointed out the way it is phrased in the video was difficult to determine if it was combined.
• 80% of Twitter usage is outside of Twitter…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
• Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen
• What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
• The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
• Wikipedia has over 13 million articles…some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78% of these articles are non-English
• There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
• 54% = Number of bloggers who post content or tweet daily
• Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
• If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 per hour
• Facebook USERS translated the site from English to Spanish via a Wiki in less than 4 weeks and cost Facebook $0
• 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
• 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
• People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services than how Google ranks them
• 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
• Only 14% trust advertisements
• Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
• 90% of people that can TiVo ads do
• Hulu has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009
• 25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video…on their phone
• According to Jeff Bezos 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle when available
• 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
• In the near future we will no longer search for products and services they will find us via social media
• More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.
• Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy Listening first, selling second
• Successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregates, and content providers than traditional advertiser