Social Networking Sites

Facebook is the most popular social networking site for now. This site allows you to search/connect with friends, post on each others walls, put up statuses, upload/share pictures, videos, or links, sell items/look for a job, and so much more. You can communicate with immediate friends or with a larger network. Recently, FB even created a "chat" feature which allows users to communicate instantaneously through the site without having to comment on each others walls. You can create events and invite others to join as well, collaboratively planning these events.

When I deleted my Myspace a few years ago, I remember it becoming less popular and more of a site for high school and junior high students. Maybe that was just my impression, but it seemed like everyone was leaning away from Myspace. Myspace was a simpler version of Facebook. Where you could be friends with people, post on their walls, comment on/post pictures, and send each other messages. I grew out of Myspace after using Facebook. I liked the FB platform much more, the website design, as well as the features. However, it seems like Myspace has now turned itself around and revamped. The site has improved and has a ton of new features that I've never seen before, like Games, Threads, and Events. The site even has "Badges" that you can earn now. For example, a badge for "Old School - joining Myspace before it was cool." I guess the website has said what I was hesitant to say. It seems that Myspace has now become somewhat "cool."

Twitter is a site that allows users to "tweet" or basically write whatever they want, in 140 characters or less. It's pretty much a FB status, but on a site with a concentration on just tweets and nothing else. You cannot post jobs or sell items (in the traditional sense as with FB) or play games. You can however, follow other Twitterers (your friends/classmates, newspapers, companies, celebrities, politicians, musicians, and much more). I really did not like Twitter when it was first introduced. I thought it was silly, I mean who cares what someone is doing right this minute? But I didn't realize the potential for the site at the time. Now, I see that Twitter can be very useful, such as to break news, to bring people together, or help raise donations (currently for Japan.)

Xanga was also a big hit in high school. We used to have "friends" or followers on Xanga. My friends and I all used to write on it. Not necessarily about ourselves, but about anything, school gossip, feelings. We would also comment on each other's Xanga's and it would turn into a massive chat. The site also allowed you to edit the colors, font, and design. I remember at one point, that the thing to do was to insert tags into your blog so that you could track how many times and who was viewing your Xanga. I guess we didn't use it for the traditional purposes of blogging. Again, it seemed like a much more ancient version of Myspace and Facebook even though it was only a few years ago. When I think about sites like these, I realize how much media and technology have advanced and can only wonder what the future will be like in 10 - 30 years from now. What kind of technology will the next generation be growing up with.