NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Social network service

A social network service focuses on the building and verifying of online social networks for communities of people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others, and which necessitates the use of software. Not to be confused with social network services such as MySpace, etc. ... It has been suggested that History of social software be merged into this article or section. ...

Most social network services are primarily web based and provide a collection of various ways for users to interact, such as chat, messaging, email, video, voice chat, file sharing, blogging, discussion groups, and so on. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Chat room. ... Message in its most general meaning is the object of communication. ... E-mail, or email, is short for electronic mail and is a method of composing, sending, and receiving messages over electronic communication systems. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Voice chat is a modern form of communication used on the Internet. ... File sharing is the activity of making files available to other users for download over the Internet, but also over smaller networks. ... GOOD BLOGS: For and Against Bizarre Things Games Casino Sudoku Challenge Star Wars REDIRECT Blog ... A discussion group is an online forum for individuals to discuss various topics amongst each other. ...

The main types of social networking services are those which contain directories of some categories (such as former classmates), means to connect with friends (usually with self-description pages), and recommender systems linked to trust. Popular methods now combine many of these, with MySpace, Bebo and Facebook being the mostly widely used in 2007. MySpace is a social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music, and videos. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, CA Facebook is a social networking website that allows people to communicate with their friends and exchange information. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ...

There have been some attempts to standardize them (see the FOAF standard) but this has led to some privacy concerns. FOAF (Friend of a Friend) is a project for machine-readable modelling of homepage-like content and social networks founded by Libby Miller and Dan Brickley. ... Privacy has no definite boundaries and it has different meanings for different people. ...

History of social network services

The notion that individual computers linked electronically could form the basis of computer mediated social interaction and networking was suggested early on - for example The Network Nation by S. Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff (Addison-Wesley, 1978, 1993) effectively sketched out how computer-mediated communication -- such as the Internet -- should be developed for this purpose.

There were many early efforts to support social networks via computer-mediated communication, including Usenet, bulletin board services (BBS), Arpanet, and EIES: Murray Turoff's server-based Electronic Information Exchange Service (Turoff and Hiltz, 1978, 1993). The Information Routing Group developed a schema about how the proto-Internet might support this.^[1] Usenet (USEr NETwork) is a global, decentralized, distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name. ... A bulletin board system or BBS is a computer system running software that allows users to dial into the system over a phone line and, using a terminal program, perform functions such as downloading software and data, uploading data, playing games, reading news, and exchanging messages with other users. ... ARPANET logical map, March 1977. ... An Information Routing Group (or IRG) is one of a semi-infinite set of similar interlocking and overlapping groups each IRG containing a group of ( maybe 3 to 200) individuals (IRGists) and each IRG loosely sharing a particular common interest; IRGists exchange information, as a group, a sub group, or...

Early social networking websites included Classmates.com(1995), focusing on ties with former school mates, and SixDegrees.com (1997), focusing on indirect ties. Two different models of social networking that came about in 1999 were trust-based, developed by Epinions.com, and friendship-based, such as those developed by Jonathan Bishop and used on some regional UK sites between 1999 and 2001.^{[citation needed]} Innovations included not only showing who is "friends" with whom, but giving users more control over content and connectivity. By 2005, one social networking service MySpace, was reportedly getting more page views than Google, with Facebook, a competitor, rapidly growing in size.^[2] In 2007, Facebook began allowing externally-developed add-on applications, and some applications enabled the graphing of a user's own social network -- thus linking social networks and social networking. Classmates. ... Year 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full 1995 Gregorian calendar). ... SixDegrees. ... For the band, see 1997 (band). ... This article is about the year. ... Epinions. ... Jonathan Bishop is a British researcher and political activist, based in Pontypridd in Wales. ... This article is about the year. ... Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 2001 Gregorian calendar). ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... MySpace is a social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music, and videos. ... This article is about the corporation. ... Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, CA Facebook is a social networking website that allows people to communicate with their friends and exchange information. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ...

Social networking began to flourish as a component of business internet strategy at around March 2005 when Yahoo launched Yahoo! 360°. In July 2005 News Corporation bought MySpace, followed by ITV (UK) buying Friends Reunited in December 2005.^[3]^[4] It is estimated that combined there are now over 200 social networking sites using these existing and emerging social networking models.^{[citation needed]} Yahoo redirects here. ... Yahoo! 360Â° (a. ... 1211 Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue), where News Corporation is based News Corporation (abbreviated to News Corp) (NYSE: NWS, NYSE: NWSa, ASX: , LSE: NCRA) is an Australian media conglomerate company and one of the worlds largest. ... FriendsReunited. ...

Business applications

Social networks connect people at low cost; this can be beneficial for entrepreneurs and small businesses looking to expand their contact base. These networks often act as a customer relationship management tool for companies selling products and services. Companies can also use social networks for advertising in the form of banners and text ads. Since businesses operate globally, social networks can make it easier to keep in touch with contacts around the world. In many ways business networking on social networks has eclipsed the amount of networking that takes place on dedicated business networking websites. An entrepreneur (a loanword from French introduced and first defined by the Irish economist Richard Cantillon) is a person who operates a new enterprise or venture and assumes some accountability for the inherent risks. ... A small business may be defined as a business with a small number of employees. ... Business networking is a marketing method by which business opportunities are created through social networks of like-minded business people. ...

Medical applications

Social networks are beginning to be adopted by healthcare professionals as a means to manage institutional knowledge, disseminate peer to peer knowledge and to highlight individual physicians and institutions. The advantage of using a dedicated medical social networking site is that all the members are screened against the state licensing board list of practitioners.^[5]

The role of social networks is especially of interest to pharmaceutical companies who spend approximately "32 percent of their marketing dollars" attempting to influence the opinion leaders of social networks.^[6]

Languages, nationalities and academia

Various social networking sites have sprung up catering to different languages and countries. The popular site Facebook has been cloned for various countries and languages and some specializing in connecting students and faculty.

Social networks for social good

Several websites are beginning to tap into the power of the social networking model for social good. Such models may be highly successful for connecting otherwise fragmented industries and small organizations without the resources to reach a broader audience with interested and passionate users. Users benefit by interacting with a like minded community and finding a channel for their energy and giving. ^[7] Examples include SixDegrees.org (Kevin Bacon). Collective goods (or social goods) are defined as public goods that could be delivered as private goods, but are delivered instead by the government for various reasons (usually social policy) and financed from public funds like taxes. ... SixDegrees. ...

Typical structure of a social networking service

Basics

In general, social networking services, such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo, allow users to create a profile for themselves. Users can upload a picture of themselves and can often be "friends" with other users. In most social networking services, both users must confirm that they are friends before they are linked. For example, if Alice lists Bob as a friend, then Bob would have to approve Alice's friend request before they are listed as friends. Some social networking sites have a "favorites" feature that does not need approval from the other user. Social networks usually have privacy controls that allows the user to choose who can view their profile or contact them, etc. MySpace is a social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music, and videos. ... Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, CA Facebook is a social networking website that allows people to communicate with their friends and exchange information. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... The names Alice and Bob are commonly used placeholders for archetypal characters in fields such as cryptography and physics. ...

Additional features

Some social networks have additional features, such as the ability to create groups that share common interests or affiliations, upload videos, and hold discussions in forums. Geosocial networking co-opts internet mapping services to organize user participation around geographic features and their attributes. Web-based social networks assemble and organize communities of people who share interests and activities, or who seek to explore the interests and activities of others. ...

Business model

Currently, almost no social networks charge money for membership. In part, this may be because social networking is a relatively new service, and the value of using them has not been firmly established in customers' minds.^[8] Instead, companies like MySpace and Facebook sell online advertising on their site.^[9]^[10] Some believe that the deeper information that the sites have on each user will allow much better targeted advertising than any other site can currently provide.^[11] Sites are also seeking other ways to make money, such as by creating an online marketplace (Facebook's Marketplace)^[12] or by selling professional information and social connections to businesses: such as LinkedIn.^[13] MySpace is a social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music, and videos. ... Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, CA Facebook is a social networking website that allows people to communicate with their friends and exchange information. ... Online advertising is a form of advertising utilizing the Internet and World Wide Web in order to deliver marketing messages and attract customers. ... LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site, mainly used for professional networking. ...

Privacy issues

On large social networking services, there have been growing concerns about users giving out too much personal information and the threat of sexual predators. Users of these services need to be aware of data theft or viruses. However, large services, such as MySpace, often work with law enforcement to try to prevent such incidents. Many current computer systems have only limited security precautions in place. ... A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without permission or knowledge of the user. ...

In addition, there is a perceived privacy threat in relation to placing too much personal information in the hands of large corporations or governmental bodies, allowing a profile to be produced on an individual's behavior on which decisions, detrimental to an individual, may be taken.

Furthermore, there is an issue over the control of data - information having been altered or removed by the user may in fact be retained and/or passed to 3rd parties. This danger was highlighted when the controversial social networking site Quechup harvested e-mail addresses from user's e-mail accounts for use in a spamming operation.^[14] Quechup is a controversial social networking website that used automatic spamming of invitations to the entire list of e-mail addresses in the address book of people who signed up to their service. ... E-mail spam, also known as bulk e-mail or junk e-mail is a subset of spam that involves sending nearly identical messages to numerous recipients by e-mail. ...

Investigations

Social network services are increasingly being used in legal and criminal investigations. Information posted on sites such as MySpace and Facebook, has been used by police and university officials to prosecute users of said sites. In some situations, content posted on MySpace has been used in court to determine an appropriate sentence based on a defendant's attitude. Social network services are increasingly being used in legal and criminal investigations. ...

Facebook is increasingly being used by school administrations and law enforcement agencies as a source of evidence against student users. The site, the number one online destination for college students, allows users to create profile pages with personal details. These pages can be viewed by other registered users from the same school which often include resident assistants and campus police who have signed-up for the service.

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