Our generation will definitely imprint an unforgettable mark in history. Computer technology has been innovated and improved. Surfing the internet is now one of the pastime activities of the youth and not only that, people of different walks of life do enjoy surfing the net.
But what are the activities that people enjoy in surfing the world wide web? Actually, there are lot of things to do in front of your internet connected computer. You can now have your reports done and submit to your heads in no time at all; blogging is also good where you can have your personalized blogs and let the world learn updates about you. Not only that, you can also communicate with your relatives abroad and see them moving inside your computer monitor. Amazing right!
Internet can also link you to your old friends. There’s nothing impossible with internet nowadays. If you have any concern on anything under the sun, you are just keywords away from them. You just have to browse the proper keywords and there you go, you will be brought in the topic you have chosen.
In meeting and connecting with your old friends, there are social networking websites that could be of help. One of those is the Facebook. Facebook, previously known as Thefacebook is a free-access social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Users are asked to identify themselves through the group organization they have setup. Networks are organized by city, school, workplace and region to link one with other people.
In Facebook, you can send personal messages and upload pictures to update your colleagues, relatives and old friends to know your whereabouts. Mark Zuckerberg founded the Facebook while studying at Harvard University. At first, it was exclusive to the students of the said university but later on was expanded to other colleges and expanded further to all the university students and finally to anyone aged 13 and over. As of now, there is 175 million users worldwide and keeps on multiplying each day.
A lot of comparison has been made with Facebook. Media often compares the said social networking website to MySpace but the major difference of the two is actually the level of customization. The other site allows its users to decorate their profile layouts using CSS or Cascading Style Sheets while Facebook only allows plain text.
Facebook has a number of features such as the following:
· Wall - this is a space on the user’s profile page allowing friends to post messages for the other users to see
· Pokes – this feature allows users to send virtual “pokes” to each other
· Photos – this feature allows the sure to upload photos and organize them in albums
· Status – allows users to inform their friends of their whereabouts and actions
· News Feed – it appears on the user’s profile page and appears on every user’s homepage and emphasizes information regarding the profile changes, upcoming events and birthdays related to the friends of the user.
· Facebook Notes – this one allows tags and images that are imbeddable
· Chat – users can now communicate with friends using this feature
· Gifts – you can now send virtual gifts to your friends and these will appear on the profile of the recipient.
· Marketplace – this features allows the users to post free classifieds
· Facebook Beta – this is a significant redesign of the interface on selected networks of the user
Twitter is a social networking and micro – blogging service allowing the users to send and read updates of the other users. These are text – based posts of up to 140 characters in length and is called tweets.[2] Twitter users can receive updates via SMS and RSS or through applications such as TwitterMobile, Twinkle, Facebook, Tweetie, Twitterific, Twidget and Feedalizr.
A word or phrase prefixed with a # sign is called hashtags and this may be used in tagging tweeter messages. This enables tweets on a particular subject to be found by simply searching the net for their common hashtags, provided that the user tagged their tweets.
Number of twitter users keeps on increasing and the registration of new members is evident on its everyday records. Features of Twitter have been also improving. And with Twitter, you might as well create a constant communication with your old friends, classmates and colleagues.
YOUTUBE
Youtube is video sharing website that allows users to upload, view and share videos to their person of interest. In February 2005, Youtube was founded by the three former employees of PayPal. It was bought by Google Inc in November, 2006 and has become subsidiary of Google.
You have to register if you want to upload videos but you can watch video clips even if you don’t have Youtube account. Accounts of the registered users are called “channels.”
Unregistered users can watch the videos, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos. Accounts of registered users are called “channels”.
There are also some restrictions and these are included in the terms of service of Youtube. Uploading of pornographic videos and violating copyrights are strictly prohibited. Registered users over the age of 18 are the only people allowed to watch potentially offensive clips.
As a registered user, you also have the rights to post your comments on the videos or spam them. Other users may reply your posts or tag them as good or bad comment. Youtube is doing a great job in providing educational, romantic and informative video clips.
LinkedIn is a business – oriented social networking site founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003. As of today, it has 35 million registered users and is still multiplying everyday.
LinkedIn allows its users to maintain a list of the contact details of the people they know and trust in their chosen field. People included in your list are called Connections and you can invite anyone to become a connection.
List of connections can be used in number of ways.
· You’ve got to know more people and learn things from each of your connection. The connection of their connections which are called the second degree connections can be extended further to another set of termed as third degree connections.
· You can find jobs and opportunities in doing business because someone in your connections will recommend you.
· People looking for employees can list and post their jobs and search for potential candidates from the pool of applicants.
· Job seekers can review the profile of the hiring individual and determine which of their existing contacts can introduce them.
The feature LinkedIn Answers is similar to Google Answers and Yahoo! Answers because just like the two, it also allows users to ask questions and the community to answer those. This feature is free. Its only difference from the two is that the questions here are potentially more business – like and the identity of the person asking and posting comments is known.
Other feature called LinkedIn Groups allows users to set up new business relationships by letting you join alumni, industry, professional and other relevant groups.
The newest feature is the LinikedIn Polls which is still in alpha.
Mobile version of the site is launched in February 2008 and is available in six (6) languages: Chinese, French, German, Spanish, Japanese and English.
Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and LinkedIn are just four of the interesting websites we can visit when surfing net. Knowing that there is a bond linking you to the world is something exciting and fabulous. Fantastic, isn’t it? That’s what magic of technology means.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinkedIn
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