Facebook: My favorite of the social networking sites. It seems very professionally done especially since this site was for college students first. Facebook has very good security settings that enable me to let certain individuals view my page rather than having anonymous individuals see my page. Any friends who want to be added can only be added with my permission. On the bottom right hand corner of the Facebook site is a chat box where you can talk to any of your friends and you can even show that you are offline if you so choose to be. Virtual gifts can be sent to any friends as well as any quizzes that you take on the site can be recommended to them. Any videos or articles can be posted as well. I also like how Facebook suggest what groups to join. I enjoy Facebook because it has a very neat design.
Myspace: I used to use Myspace a lot before I discovered Facebook. I would recommend Myspace to younger individuals (below 16) because you can place fun themes on your pages and compare them with your friends. Facebook really does not have that yet. Though customizing backgrounds are great, it still makes the page more annoying, with tons of color schemes popping up and creating problems with videos and bumper stickers that you can place. I believe the security settings are not that great especially when the site had started because many people were posing as fake individuals and creating a lot of problems especially when there was many sexual predators around. But Facebook may also have this problem but I believe it is more heavily regulated. In the beginning, many videos and pictures for Myspace needed an embedded code to place them on your page. To my knowledge Facebook does not have that and you can just placed a link to the site and usually the video or picture appears on your wall and disappears as the wall adds more content.
Friendster: I never really used this site. It looks like more of a dating site than it does as a networking site between friends. I would not use this site unless many more of friends used it and as of this date I can barely find any of them on here. When I was searching for my friends in NYC it kept giving me people from Russia which is kind of weird especially since they are not near each other. They are lots of annoying ads that are on the sides that really tick me off as well. It is similar to a Myspace but not as creative so I would stick with Myspace.
LinkedIn: This site is mainly for professionals. It is a social networking site for working individuals. It is very neat and provides information about their education and where they have worked. It also shows what they are interested in for work and what kind of opportunities they are waiting for. This is definitely recommended when it comes for companies to search for possible applicants. You can even pay to have your LinkedIn account be better so that you may request more individuals or send mail and have priority service.
Sources:
Picture: http://blog.thoughtpick.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/linkedin1.jpg
http://purpleinaction.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/friendster-facebook.jpg
Nice analysis of each social networking site. I forgot to mention the possibility of sexual predators in my post. But I did mention cyber stalking and cyber bullying.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the above, nice analysis. Facebook is still my favorite of the sn sites as well
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