Social Networking in Web 2.0By Ezequiel Miranda-Ramos

23 July 2014

Final Project

Social NetworkingDid you know that social networking has always been around us since the beginning of times and that people have used this to create groups, communities, work places, schools, etc. without even knowing that they are networking with one another?

Well Social networking is similar to the people that surrounds you like your family, friends, friends of your friends, coworkers and the friends of your coworkers. So you may ask, what is social networking? What are the benefits of social networking and why is it necessary or important to Web 2.0?

What is Social Networking?To understand what social networking really means, I looked up the definition in Dictionary.com and according to the free on-line dictionary of computing, social network is:

Noun

1. The development of social and professional contacts, the sharing of information and services among people with a common interest.

2. Computers. The use of websites or other online technologies to communicate with people and share information, resources, etc.

Still don’t know what social network is?

Web Junction (n.d.) social network is the next generation of the Web (known as Web 2.0 or the "participatory web") that brought innovations that turned the Web from a read-only environment into an online community where people meet, exchange information, collaborate, and communicate using web-based tools and social networking sites. These tools are now core to the Web, and a rapidly growing percentage of people now expect to be able to interact with people and content when they use the Web.

Nowadays when we talk about social networking we are referring to online technologies to communicate with people and share information, resources, etc. Some of the most popular technologies are: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google Plus+, Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube, Flicker, Myspace, Blogger, Tagged, Ask.fm, Meet Me, and Classmates among others.

Getting Started with Social Networking

I remember that when I moved to Georgia from Mexico at first I did not know anybody or speak English. Over a period of time I joined a church (which is a group) and I met others like me and made friends with them and their friends. So networking online is the same concept as it happened to me. First, you find a social network of your choice and create an account. Then your create your profile and write things about yourself, what you like, where are you from, etc. Then you can add members to your friends list, those that you trust to have things in common. Social networking. (n.d.). You could also keep tabs on how your friends are using social networking, such as when they post new info, pictures or any updates to their profiles. Keep in mind that friends are the center of your social network.

Are all the social media the same?

No, there are 6 different types of Social Media according to Grahl (2014).

1. Social Networks- this type of media allows you to connect to other users of similar interests and background. Most popular are Facebook and LinkedIn.

2. Bookmarking Sites- this sites allows you to save, organize and manage links to various websites and around the internet. Most popular sites are Delicious and StubleUpon.

3. Social News- this one allows people to post various news items or links to outside articles and then allows its users to “vote” on the items. The voting is the core social aspect as the items the get the most votes are displayed the most prominently. Most popular are Digg and Reddit.

Are all the social media the same?

4. Media Sharing- this one allows you to upload and share various media such as pictures and videos. Most services have additional social features such as profiles, commenting, etc. Most popular are YouTube and Flickr.

5. Microblogging- this one focus on short updates that are pushed out to anyone subscribed to receive the updates. The most popular is Twitter.

6. Blog Comments and Forums- Online forums allow members to hold conversations by posting messages. Blog comments are similar except they are attached to blogs and usually the discussion centers around the topic of the blog post. There are many popular blogs and forums.

Here is an example of couple of different social networks.

Facebook vs. Twitter vs. 43 Things

Facebook Twitter 43 Things

Face book is a website dedicated to bring people together. Facebook users are able to connect to family and friends, you can share your thoughts, ideas, pictures, videos, information, and keep up with their daily lives. Also with Facebook you can advertise your business and users can check out on what’s going on with their favorite band or see what is new in on their favorite store.

Twitter is a social networking platform and it's use to transmit and receive messages from other users. These messages are 140 characters or less and are called tweets. These are like messages on you phone but with twitter you can broad cast any topic you want and people can fallow you to see what you got to say. You can tweet about what are you doing, info deals, or special events. Twitter is very popular because you can check up what's hot and what's not. You can also upload pictures and videos. Twitter is also use to advertise business and to reach more people.

43 Things is a goal set social networking site where you can list your goals, share your progress on your goals and you can sheer others on their goals or progress. You can also inspire others and help others accomplish their goals by given some feed base on your experience and you can help form others the same way. People also use this to advertise how to create your own business for those who's goal is to own or make their first business.

Resources:

What are some of the benefits of social networking?

There are different types of benefits. It is just depends what angle you see it from. For example, according to this article posted by Goldberg (2009), there was a research study called the Digital Youth Project conducted at University of Southern California and University of California at Berkeley, found that the digital world is creating new opportunities for young people to grapple with social norms, explore interests, develop technical skills and work on new forms of self-expression. Also, in the same article, a professor from Florida State University stated that “technology, including You Tube, iPods and podcasting, creates avenues for extending one’s circle of friends, boosts self-directed learning and fosters independence” (2009).

What are some of the benefits of Social networking?

Social networking is not just about connecting to friends, family or collegues. With social network, you could also use it for professional networking. There are sites like LinkedIn that help you do that. According to Mikoluk (2013). LinkedIn allows you to request introductions to business people who are known to their contacts. The chances of getting this connections are huge. Instead of you sitting at your table looking through business cards after a job fair, trying to remember details about each person you met, you can easily look up a connections credentials and business interests on their social media profile.

Why is it necessary or important to Web 2.0?

Harnessing Collective Intelligence is a concept first defined by Tim O’Reilly during a conference to define Web 2.0. According to O’Reilly (2004), “ The concept of harnessing collective intelligence around the user participations and network effects. This means user collaborate with the website to provide useful data, for themselves and other users of the site. The more users who participate, the better quality of information is gathered by the site. A number of Web 2.0 sites such as Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter and Flickr all utilize collective intelligence to create the content. The site can then provide a better experience for its users, which in turn increases the sites retention rate.”

Why is it necessary or important to Web 2.0?

So as you can see social networks are very important to web 2.0. With social networks we all help to collaborate on others ideas or work. By us doing this we help to create better services for us.

Conclusion

Well we talked about social network, what is social network, how can we use it, how it can we benefit from it and why it is important. We now understand that with social networks we can connect to family, friends and even business people. We also learned some of the benefits that social networks offer, especially for our children. We also talked about how social networks benefits the web 2.0 and us, through the harnessing collective of intelligence or in another word “collaboration”. Thanks for watching this Powerpoint I hope this was informative and you find it helpful. If you have comments on how to improve this presentation please feel free to post a comment on my blog http://somethingtoblogabout123.blogspot.com/.

References• Grahl, T. (2014) The 6 Types of Social Media. Out:think. Retrieved on

23 July 2014, from http://outthinkgroup.com/tips/the-6-types-of-social-media

• Goldberg, G, K. (January 28, 2009) Social networking validated. The Washington Times. . Retrieved July 23, 2014, from http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/28/social-networking-benefits-validated/?page=all

• Mikoluk, K (July 25, 2013). Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Networking: Should You Spend More Time Connecting Online? Udemy/Blog learn anything. Anywhere. Retrieved on July 25, 2014, from https://www.udemy.com/blog/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-social-networking/

References

• Nations, D. (n.d.). What is Social Networking? About.com

Technology Web Trends. Retrieved on 23 July 2014, from

http://webtrends.about.com/od/socialnetworking/a/social-

network.htm

• Social networking. (n.d.). The Free On-line Dictionary of

Computing. Retrieved July 23, 2014, from Dictionary.com

website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/social

networking

References

• Social networking. (n.d.). What Is Social Networking? Social

Networking. Retrieved July 23, 2014, from

http://www.whatissocialnetworking.com/

• WebJunction (n.d.) Social Networking & Web 2.0. OCLC WebJunction

The learning place for libraries. Retrieved July 23, 2014, from

http://webjunction.org/explore-topics/social-web.html