Social Networking

Social networking technology is a relatively new form of new media that can be used to foster an online community among Internet users. In the social context, social networking is used to connect users to their friends, family, and to the world at large. This form of social networking often takes places on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace (before 2010). In the corporate world, social networking can also be used to communicate between colleagues and coworkers, however, corporations often use social networking as an opportunity to market their products and services. In recent years, many saavy retail companies have created accounts on Facebook and Twitter to advertise their brand while simultaneously opening up a channel for customer feedback.
*Although it's not absolutely necessary for companies to have a social networking presence, it seems like the companies that aren't following the trend of being on Facebook/Twitter are missing out on a business opportunity.

Whether we support it or disapprove of it, social networking provides some benefits to society. As I mentioned before, social networking technology enables communication between users and their friends [who might not have been able to communicate using older technology]. According to an article written by Heather Timmons, citizens of Delhi, India have been able to use social networking technology to report traffic violations to the police via Facebook. While the usual benefits of social networking involve social/communication related items, the citizens of Delhi can use social networking technology to report instances of poor and unsafe driving to the traffic police who actually enforce punishments to the wrongdoers. According to the article, "more than 17,000 people had become fans of the page" and "almost 3,000 photographs and dozens of videos." were posted to the Facebook page (Timmons). Although the critics of the concept consider it "Orwellian" to allow citizens to report their peers to the police, the idea of using social networking technology to enforce traffic laws seems like a notable, albeit risky way to alleviate traffic violations in an urban city.

 Although social networking provides tangible benefits to its users, it does have a "dark side" that can hurt users. When used improperly, social networking technology can be used to bully people, mishandle personal information/photos and also reduce face-to-face communication. Among other issues, privacy concerns on social networking sites are often a serious problem, due to the dense language and unclear laws on the relatively new technology. In an odd case, Randi Zuckerberg (sister of Facebook's creator, Mark Zuckerberg) had a family photo re-tweeted by a person who she did not know. Although Zuckerberg did not make the photo publicly viewable, the "[non] universal" privacy settings of Facebook allowed Callie Schweitze, a "not-friend" of Zuckerberg to see the photo and post it to Twitter. Although the issue was later resolved between the two, the photo was eventually re-posted on another website, which defeated the purpose of having privacy settings on Facebook.

In the future, I beleive social networking technology will expand into a more commerically beneficial medium, with less privacy protection laws. Even though we often see the media publish stories about the loose/ambiguous privacy guidelines on our favorite social networking sites, to some extent they are a necessary evil that we must put up with to use the technology. Since many of us are going into the job market, we will have to put up a public profile for recruiters to see, while we continue to update our friends and family about our personal lives. Although I hope providers of social networking technology become more transparent with their privacy policies, the level of public exposure each user enables depends on the material they post about themselves.

Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/technology/02traffic.html?ref=business
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6522523&sc=emaf