Social Networking Sites

Facebook
Facebook is the social networking site that I use most often to chat with friends and keep up with my social circle. Simply put, Facebook allows users to post statuses, pictures and videos as well as tag other people to certain events or photos. On this site, users can expand their social circle by "friending" other users (much like Twitter's "follow"' function). In recent years, Facebook has expanded into advertising, news feeds and gaming apps that have become somewhat intrusive. What makes Facebook very useful for me is its messenger function that allows me to message friends who I might not be able to communicate to via text message. Overall, Facebook is a very useful social networking site for connecting and communicating, but it does have issues with spam and privacy protection.

MySpace
I never fell into the MySpace craze in the mid/late 2000's, so I had very little knowledge of the site before this assignment. My first impression of MySpace after looking at its homepage was that it was aimed toward people interested in music or the arts. After registering, I noticed that the user interface is far more customizable than Facebook, Twitter and even Blogger. MySpace allows users to change their backgrounds, page layouts, music playlists and other features via html coding. Although it seems different from what I remember seeing several years ago, MySpace still resembles a blogging site for musicians and artists than a Facebook-like site that helps connect users.

Twitter
Twitter seemed like a more compact version of Facebook at first glance. Because of its odd rule of keeping all statuses to 140 characters, I didn't think Twitter would have many productive or informative statuses, but it has proven to be unique. Twitter has a dashboard that shows trending items, tweets from users you're following and a preferences tab. From what I've seen, Twitter can be a great tool to communicate or connect with celebrities, retailers and other entities that don't usually open up to the public. Since I'm relatively new to Twitter, I haven't formed much of an opinion of the site, but I am concerned about the limited characters and the Internet shorthand that usually doesn't appear on MySpace or Facebook.

LinkedIn
Unlike the other three sites, LinkedIn is a social networking site devoted to professionalism and job searching. For anyone involved in or interested in a career in business, LinkedIn seems like a necessity to obtain job offers. LinkedIn serves as a site where users can showcase their resumes, skills, prior positions and interests. In my opinion, LinkedIn can be used like a business card; it serves as a social networking site that can enhance or showcase your professional skills that also leaves an address/link for further communication.