Social Networking and Bookmarking

Interested in learning about Social Networking websites? I am sure you have all heard of Myspace.com. However, there are many, many more than this. Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites to check out some others you may not have heard of, but your students are definitely using or http://social-networking-websites-review.toptenreviews.com/

Okay, many of you reading are probably still wondering what is a Social Networking site. Basically, a social networking site is an online place where a user can create a profile and build a personal network that connects him or her to other users. It is an online hangout to meet friends and make new one.

Top Social Network sites:

February 2007*

Rank Name Domain Market Share

1 MySpace www.myspace.com

2 Facebook www.facebook.com

3 Bebo www.bebo.com

4 BlackPlanet.com www.blackplanet.com

5 Xanga www.xanga.com

6 iMeem www.imeem.com

7 Yahoo! 360 360.yahoo.com

8 Classmates www.classmates.com

9 hi5 www.hi5.com

10 Tagged www.tagged.com

11 LiveJournal www.livejournal.com

12 Gaiaonline.com www.gaiaonline.com

13 Friendster www.friendster.com

14 Orkut www.orkut.com

15 Live Spaces spaces.live.com

16 HoverSpot www.hoverspot.com

17 Buzznet www.buzznet.com

18 Sconex www.sconex.com

19 MiGente.com www.migente.com

20 myYearbook www.myyearbook.com

MySpace, with 70 million visitors, has become the digital equivalent of hanging out at the mall for today's teens, who load the site with photos, news about music groups and detailed profiles of their likes and dislikes. Other social network sites include Facebook, geared to college students, LinkedIn, aimed at professionals, and Xanga, a blog-based community site. In all, an estimated 300 sites, including smaller ones such as StudyBreakers for high schoolers and Photobucket, a site for posting images, make up the social network universe. There is even http://www.Kaneva.com , which has a 3-d virtual world with stores, clubs and a mall that created avatars can meet friends in online to hang out.

On the Horizon, “Both companies (Myspace and Facebook) are planning to extend their reach beyond the computer screen to cell phones. Cingular Wireless, Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless are starting a service that will allow users to post messages on Facebook's home pages or search for other users' phone numbers and email addresses from a cell phone. MySpace has a pact with Helio, a wireless joint venture between SK Telecom and Earthlink, that will allow users to send photos and update their blogs or profiles by cell phone. http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1463

We have posted some resources for Social Networking safety to the left and in our delicious tags.

Younger versions of Social Networking sites:

http://www.Webkinz.com

http://www.Clubpenguin.com

Disney and Nickelodeon have a social networking site for kids.

Stemming from Social Networking is Social Bookmarking, which definitely has it place in education and research in this digital high tech world. Social bookmarking websites are becoming more and more popular. They allow you to save bookmarks online and Tag/Categorize them with keywords instead of saving them as bookmarks in the favorite’s list of your browser. This technology makes accessing your favorites easy to do anywhere anytime. It also makes search for topics easier since you can add people to your network with the same interests.

Go to http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social30.html for the August 2007 top listing of Social Bookmarking sites. Probably the most popular is Del.icio.us. Sean and I both have delicious accounts and we invite you to join them at the links provided below this posting.

Regards,

Karen and Sean