Social Networking – Myths and Facts

Social networking today has become ineluctable. Not only the common people but celebrities and important personalities can also be easily tracked on to the social networking sites. Twitter is an example of one such social networking site where almost every personality you name of can be easily found. Such is the impact of the social networking today, that it has left almost no section of the society nor any sphere of life untouched. Thus, with the increased and ever growing fad of social networking there are bound to be several apprehensions attached along. If we look back and see then one question that crosses our mind is , from where did it all started ,from where did the idea of social networking on internet came into existence altogether.

The idea originated way back in 80’s when people connected using Usernets, Bulletin Board Systems, “online services” like CompuServe and Prodigy, IRC, ICQ, and Instant Messaging etc. The very first modern social networking site launched was Six Degrees in 1997. It was one of the first manifestations of a social networking websites in the format now seen today. As the name suggests this social networking site was formed on the idea based on the old concept of six degrees of separation . This concept says that any person in this world can be linked to the other person via 6 intermediaries’ i.e. If a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know, then everyone is at most six steps away from any other person on Earth. This very idea forms the basis of people connecting with each other on internet via social networking sites, the ones who join these social networking sites in turn invite their existing contacts and this is how the network grows A few popular websites dedicated to Social networking are: Friendster, Linkedin, Facebook, MySpace, orkut, twitter, Spoke, Bebo and Tribe Networks. IBM and Microsoft are among organizations said to be considering entering this domain. 

Some of the main features these social networking sites have are:

• Search: Enabling people to look for other users and browse the content of their interest.

• Links / Communities: People with similar interests group together and are thus linked.

• Writing / sharing ideas: Blogs and wikis are powerful sources serving the purpose.

• Interoperability: Enabling the users to contact with people on one networking site to those on the
  other network as well. Open id and open social.

• Tags: Marking an identity to some content (generally photos).

• Sending Alerts/ informing: Allowing people to subscribe to users or content with RSS feeds.
  These features find their wide applications in almost every aspect of life. One of the major areas
   where social networking is finding its application extensively today is 

• Business: 

Social networking started flourishing as a component of business internet strategy at around March 2005 when Yahoo! 360° was launched by yahoo. Social networking has found its usage in business in the following manner:

1. It is used to come in contact and collaborate with clients from all over the world.

2. By projecting one’s work via social media it is used to build reputation in business and market.

3. It also acts as a tool to learn various new technology from competitors by tracking their
    progress via contacts and their works on social media.

4. Is used in recruiting technical and talented people via networking ( social).

5. Viral marketing which is one of the very effective and popular ways of getting traffic to your site
    is also been used extensively.

Other areas being:

• Crime Investigations:
   Information from sites like Facebook and MySpace is used to tack the exchange of information  
   between the criminals and thus track them.

• Government Agencies:
   People’s opinion on issues is collected on social networks.

• Personal Information exchange : 
  Teenagers and youngsters use it for dating and exchanging personal information.

• Educational Purposes :
  School and other educational institutions are using social networking for providing a platform for
  online discussions related to educational work.

• Social Network Analysis :

Social network analysis can explain many real-world phenomena where customers or your users are more important .Their ties and relationships with other actors are considered in order to come to any logical interpretation about the behavior of the links obtained. Once employed into a business, this analysis can help tracking a product based on its usage, access and selling patterns. All this can help the organization to build their growth and development strategy. Despite of all these aspects and applications of social networking; people do have several misgivings in their minds that might just prevent them from being a part of it. Some of the myths associated with Social Networking can be:

• One has to be a techie

• It leads to privacy Breach

• It becomes time suck

• Risk of Spam

All these myths can be done away with if one is careful enough while uploading data or exposing or sharing information on social networking sites. Also one should also be a little alert with the kind of people he/she connects with on these networks in order to prevent oneself from data theft and virus threats that prevail constantly. Privacy breach can also happen if we unknowingly give the onus of our data to these sites. This is achieved through the “Terms and Conditions” or the privacy policy of the site. One should also beware of these conditions, if we have some sensitive information shared.

Thus jumping to conclusions without getting a clear picture of things in mind can definitely lead us to miss out on some real and upcoming arenas and may keep us from opening up to the new ideas whereby a whole new world of “Social Networking “ might lead us to.

“Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.”