INTRODUCTION
A social network is a social structure where there are individuals who are related to each other, share interests, worries and needs and they allow a chance to interact with others that we do not know, the system is open and is being built with the accession of new individuals. The pressure of the group causes changes on the individual otherwise unthinkable and creates new business and emotional ties.
"The origin of social networks goes back at least to 1995, when Randy Conrads creates the classmates.com website. With this social network he intended for people to regain or maintain contact with former school mates, college, and so on.
In 2003 with the advent of sites such as MySpaceor Xing began to gain strength. There are over 200 social networking sites; some are Tuenti Orkut Facebook Twitter.... The popularity of these sites has grown rapidly and it is mainly due to viral marketing, which is based on I invite my friends who invite their friends, who invite their friends and so on making these young visionary initiatives in big business today.
All this has made that social networks have become the most widely used communication medium today even more than the phone especially among young people and that despite having many advantages as mentioned earlier and also have their disadvantages as we shall see later.
EVOLUTION
The first social network created was SixDegrees in 1997. It was the first website that allow its clients to create profiles and lately, in 1998, add friends and surf through their profiles. SixDegrees was shut down in 2000.
Between 1998 and 2001 a lot of web pages with different aspects from the social networks such as adding friends and creating profiles, some of those websites were MiGente, AsianAvenue and BlackPlanet; the virtual world from Korea Cyworld, that was created in 1998, added social network aspects on 2001.
In the period of time between 2001 and 2003 the social networks were focused on making their client meet strangers with the same tastes, as an instance match.com was created in this period and it works as a dating social network.
In 2003 Myspace.com and Lastfm.com were created, both of them worked as social networks, but Lastfm.com is focussed on music so their users are able to know what do they friends listen to, Myspace started being a social network but the possibility of modifying it HTML(webcode) make it perfect for promotioning and publicity, making it the webpage of brands and a lot of new music bands; in July 2005 Myspace.com was bought by News Corporation for $580,000,000 bringing the social networks to the mainstream .
In 2006 Facebook.com was open to everybody, it was created to be used between students of colleges and high schools, being the most successful social network right now, it if capable of running applications designed by users and corporation, in other hand its based on the support of adds to keep the maintenance of the webpage.
In 2006 twitter, based on short messages that are written as what are you doing or how do you feel, Microsoft created it social network to called Windows Live Spaces in this year.
In Spain the most used social network is Tuenti.com.
DRAWBACKS
And indeed, when people like or dislike a product that is announced in the forums and commented on their own virtual communities. Then the client becomes an active member of the campaign of the product. A very famous example is that of Nick Haley, a boy of 18 who made a video of the iPhone as well, which already has over 1 million and a half views on YouTube.
But no all the advertisements seem to be behind a great campaign. Others just use the facility of internet’s easy communication to perform the spam action. This becomes a usual situation to every user in order to announce their own products in a very cheap way ignoring the costumers’ interests or opinions.
BUSINSESS
One of the most popular ways of using social networks as business is through the use of virtual Blogs and Weblogs where visitors are allowed to write comments and reviews. While blogs themselves are not social networks, these are capable of meeting many people and create communities.
Blogs are a easy way to generate loyalty among consumers. Google is perhaps the greatest success story. The official Google blog is one of 20 most visited blogs in the world according to Technocrats. But Apple, Motorola, Kodak, Adobe and many other companies have a blog with positive results.
These Blogs are called corporate blogs by companies. The proper use of the blog becomes a helpful tool for marketing.
KIDS AROUND INTERNET
The 42% of European children around six years is engaged into social networks, despite the prohibition of 14 years old (according to Euro barometer).
Experts warn of the numerous risks that lie behind these popular sites.” We made an analysis and the biggest problem is cyber bullying, the creation of rumours about someone and there also exist threats and insults between the youngest. Then, sexual harassment by adults and finally the existence of inappropriate material on sex and violence," said Christine Kormann, a director of the European Society of Social Information, who also said that "children placed important information, such as photos, your phone or information about the economic situation of their unaware families.
Everyone knows that the age of access to social networks is declining. Tuenti, the most popular online social network in Spain among the young, took a measure this year after a request by the Spanish Agency of Data Protection. The minors must show, by sending the ID in 92 hours, your age. This measure has been recognized as the most effective but maybe it isn´t enough.
POINT OF VIEW
Contributions are made but not taken to profit
An unfortunately the use of social networking only for personal profit is becoming more common, seeing people as a resources for their success. Fortunately, the only way to be part of a strong social network is providing, contributing to their growth and taking into account that the other side of the screen is a person like us.
ADVANTAGES OF SOCIAL NETWORKS
The main advantage for which people enters in social networks is the posibility of share their experiences and take part in the other people´s ones. Now at days is very easy to pick a photo and publilshed in social networks like tuenti or facebook. Whith this, many people satisfie their ego, and gosship people can spend their time in looking other person´s live.
Social networks allows to meet again with some people with whom you has lost the contact, making posible find a school friend you haven´t seen for many years.
It also make be in contact with friends much easier. Social networks are changing the society, instead of phoning somebody wich cost money and maby isn´t the best moment for the other persons to talk, or sending a letter wich take long time to arrive, you can leave a message, wich the other person will answer when he or she wants.
Social networks can also be usefull in the labour field, many people see it as a shop window, publishing theirselves, sharing ideas and information, even buy and sell things, in an simply and free way.
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17/12/2009
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