Social networking sites

Thesis Statement

Problem Statement

To identify the major social networking sites , and the reason behind their popularity and success

Purpose Statement

The purpose of this report is to highlight the growing use and dependence of people upon social networking sites

Scope

This report will highlight the main reasons behind the increasing popularity and user dependence upon social networking sites , and why they have been very successful , as of late . The report also focuses on the possible advantages that social networks bring to an individual and the society , along

with the possible shortfalls

Research Methodology

The report was mostly compiled using data from secondary sources , which includes books , articles and the internet

Introduction

With the rapid growth in the fields of science and technology , the world now appears to be a very small place . People these days travel extensively from one corner of the world to the other within a matter of hours . The same applies for trade and commerce which has greatly benefitted from the boons of science and technology . The business world today faces the biggest challenge of this century , most probably , which is Globalization . Globalization is not only a challenge to business owners and stakeholders but also provides them with an immense opportunity . Internet today has provided an easy and cheaper means of expanding business globally , without incurring much costs

There have been a lot of new ideas explored via the internet or implemented through the internet . One of such ideas that has in recent years seen an immense response from people all over the world is Social Networking Service . Social networks are comprised of multi-cultural societies , people from which try to communicate and build online communities with other people sharing the same interests and activities and try to explore the interest and activities of others

Most social networking services are web based and help their users interact and communicate with their friends through email , chat messaging , blogs , videos , sharing , pictures , etc (Boyd , 2006 . This has certainly revolutionized the way users used to communicate over the web . Social networking has most certainly provided people with an ideal means of countering boredom , as they are able to browse through other users ' pros and make new friends . Social networking websites are a more recent concept , but because of its short and immediate journey to success , the number of social networking websites continues to increase

p Social networking websites first sprung as early as 1995 , where websites such as Classmates .com and Sixdegrees .com were launched . These websites allowed users to create their own pros , send messages to users on one 's friends list . Despite all this , these websites weren 't profitable enough , may be because internet advertising hadn 't developed completely then and internet was still in its initial phase of growth , and thus eventually shutdown . In 1999 , however , two models were developed for social networking websites by epinions .com (Martins , 2003 . One of these models was trust-based and the other was friendship-based model

After these models were put...