Social Networking Sites - Week 4

More and more social networking sites are emerging every day, and so said that their primary purpose is to connect the world together despite of the geographical distances. But underlying that primary purpose, critics have revealed that social networking sites are not only benefiting users but creators, businesses and etc as well.

The most popular and well known social networking site as of today is probably Facebook, with millions of users logging onto it every single day and the number is still growing at a tremendous speed. After the success of facebook and its predecessors, more of such sites are being created everyday. Each of these sites hope to gain as many members as they can, in doing so, they are also establishing and archiving valuable database and information of these members. These databases are often said to be private, but it has been revealed that some of these databases are also being sold to 3rd parties which uses these database to their advantages such as being able to send their advertisements to users who have interests related to their products.

Then come my question, is it really a must for one to be one a social networking site? In my opinion, i am on a social networking site mainly because i am just following the trend, i don't want to be seemed as some outdated or old fashion person who is lost in transition. But if u were to really ask if it has benefited me, i would be less sure. True it has helped killed time when i'm bored, and helped kept me updated about my friends' statuses but i'm just not too sure whether it has helped bring me closer to my friends.

And recently, I've came to know of this app called FourSquare on iphone. It's a location-based social networking website that allow your friends to know and track your whereabouts.Users check-in at venues using a mobile website, text messaging or a device-specific application by running the application and selecting from a list of venues that the application locates nearby.Each check-in awards the user points and sometimes "badges". As of December 2010, the company reported it had 6 million registered users. The difference between this and facebook is that facebook currently do not have the ability to track users' whereabout unless manually updated by the users themselves. At the same time, facebook also do not have "objectives" for the user to fulfill, thus making FourSquare seemed like a objective/role playing game at the same time, generating the interests of users.

To me, i do agree that social networking sites are powerful and can be powerful for businesses, as it can help to create awareness, free publicity to a large group of people over a short span of time. However, it must have many features and abilities, and must be constantly improved so that users will not grow sick of it and to keep track of changing demands. A social networking site can be powerful by itself, but if it is incorporated together with other forms of media such as phones, the impact of it can be even more powerful, which is why many social networking sites are developing apps to be compatible on different phones and platforms. But sometimes, the impact can be so powerful it may even be undesirable. Pros and cons, as always.