Social Networking

Social Networking

Social networking sites allow users to create a profile based on their interests and post comments, send messages, pictures and files to help maintain pre-existing social networks of friends. They also allow anyone with a profile to "connect" to an existing user or group as a "friend" online. Communities of users are built up by sharing friends and updating information regularly. Networks can be based on shared interests, values and activities, and can incorporate other Web 2.0 elements such as blogs and media sharing.

MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/ is a popular social networking site and allows users to post a variety of media including pictures, video and audio files.

Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ provides similar features to MySpace and is particularly popular with University students.

Twitter at http://twitter.com/ is a "micro blogging" site that enables users to send and receive short messages of up to 140 characters known as "Tweets". These are linked to a user's profile, and subscribers (or "followers") can view a list of updates, and reply to posts via SMS or via the Twitter website.