Facebook
As previously mentioned, Facebook
is known to almost every internet user. Facebook is a global social network,
which hundreds of millions of users use to connect and share content. Currently,
Facebook has more than
900 million users.
After registering on Facebook, you may create your own personal profile and add
friends that you want to share status updates, photos, videos or chat with.
Furthermore, there are Facebook Pages, which you can ‘like’ to become part
of a community that has a common interest – favorite actor, popular brand,
favorite company, etc. You must be at least 13 years of age in order to create
a Facebook account.
Twitter
Twitter is a social network, but is
drastically different than Facebook. It is a micro-publishing system, which
allows you to compose short messages of 140 characters that are known as
“Tweets.” To create your own Twitter community – you can ‘follow’
someone in order to receive their Tweets in your news feed or you can be
‘followed’ by others and they will receive your Tweets. Another special
characteristic of Twitter is the use of hashtags in order to reach a larger
audience. By using a hashtag symbol (e.g. #Twitter), other Twitter users that
are following that particular hashtag are more likely to see your Tweets.
YouTube
Although YouTube is not considered
a social media platform, it has social media characteristics and is very
popular, thus making it worth mentioning. YouTube is a video-sharing website
where you can view, share, upload, comment on, like or dislike videos. The
majority of the content that is uploaded to YouTube originates from individual
persons. However, there are many official YouTube “Channels” for companies,
bands, singers, etc. In order to upload, comment or like/dislike videos you have
to create a YouTube account. However, unregistered users are still allowed to
watch videos. YouTube is included in this list, because it has its own community
and similar to other social networks, you can “like” content, interact with
other users, and follow the Channels that you find interesting.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a social network
designated for “professionals.” This means that part of your LinkedIn
profile that is most important is your career, jobs, education and other skills.
Many users are no longer sending the traditional Curriculum Vitae to their
potential employers; instead they are sending them a link to their LinkedIn
profile. Surprisingly, many employers are even requiring job candidates to
provide their LinkedIn profile with their cover letter. Besides allowing you to
publish your CV, LinkedIn allows users to join groups, use applications, post
your business references, and search for any type of business contact.
Additionally, this business social network is an invaluable tool for managers
and human resource directors. This social network helps many HR officers and
headhunters search a large pool of potential employees. However, the basic
LinkedIn profile is limited in function. If you want more advanced options then
there is a monthly user fee.
Google+
Google+ is one of the newest
social networks, launched by Google in June 28, 2011. The server presents
itself as a service that can help you stay in touch with your friends and
acquaintances, and discover new interesting people. Once you will register to
Google+, you can fill in your personal information, upload your profile picture,
add photo albums from Google Picasa Web Albums, and connect your Google+ profile
with your Twitter profile and much more. Moreover, you can communicate either
just with one of your friends, groups of people, or you can speak to the
“whole world.” Depending on your privacy settings you can allow anyone to
see your status updates or comments. You also have the option of reading status
updates of others even if they are not one of your friends.
Instagram
Instagram is also a relatively
new social networks – launched in October 2010. It is a smartphone
application that allows you to take photos, apply various digital filters to a
photo, and you can share them with other users on Instagram or other social
networks. What differentiates Instagram from other services is the square shape
of all the photos, in comparison with the usual 4:3 ratio from regular cameras.
In April 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram for a billion dollars.
Pinterest
Pinterest is a very unique social
network. On Pinterest, you have a virtual pinboard, where you can create, manage
and share image collections that are related to a particular topic – hobbies,
interests, household, etc. Once you are registered, you can browse other
users’ pinboards, “like” their photos and “re-pin” their images to
your own pinboard. Founders of Pinterest believe it should “connect everyone
in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting.” You can use
Pinterest to decorate your home, organize your wedding or search through food
recipes. Pinterest has been particularly successful amongst the female
demographic.
Yelp
Yelp is another unique social network,
which was founded in 2004. It helps you to find great local businesses like
restaurants, hair saloons or shops. As a Yelp user, you can search reviews of
local businesses as well as write your own review based on a past experience.
Moreover, you can use Yelp to look for various events, lists or just chat with
other users. Every business can establish their own account to share photos and
messages with other users. Similar to other social networks, the majority of
Yelp reviews come from advertising that businesses are purchasing. This has
resulted in Yelp receiving criticism that advertisers are affecting the
reliability of Yelp’s ratings and reviews. However, Yelp has clearly stated
that no one, including paying advertisers, can change or tamper with existing
user reviews.
SoundCloud
SoundCloud is an online
sound-sharing service that allows you to record, upload and share music or other
audio recordings. Recording and uploading songs to SoundCloud can be done either
privately, with specific individuals, or you share them publicly on websites or
social networks. The reason SoundCloud was included in this list is that any
user can find, create or share music or audio recordings amongst a large number
of groups that cover every genre or style. Thus, you can stay in touch with
people that are interested in the same music genre, listen to people that are
contributing in this genre and comment on the songs or recordings of others.
Flickr
Flickr is an online photo-sharing
and image/video hosting service that allows you to share photos and videos with
your friends or others and you can organize the photos in an original way. You
may also grant permission to others to organize photos, add notes below a photo
or tag photos. You can use Flickr to discover photos from other people,
organizations and companies such as NASA. You may also comment on other photos
and create a specific community with the people that are sharing your
photos.
Badoo
Badoo was launched in 2006, and today
is one of the largest social networks for meeting new people.
Badoo’s founders state their mission is “to provide the world’s easiest,
fastest and most fun way for people to meet each other.” Thus, Badoo is mainly
a dating-focused online service – users of Badoo can chat with each other,
set up dates and rate others pictures. Badoo has some 160 million users making
it the largest dating-focused social network. Even though, it is open to people
that are 18 and higher, there has been criticism that there are a lot of
younger users.
Flixster
Flixster is an online service that
combines social networking and movie reviewing. As a Flixster user you can share
movie reviews, discover new movies, learn about movies you don’t know about
and get in touch with people that are interested in the same movies and movie
genres as you. In addition, you can integrate Flixster to your Facebook profile
so you can share movies with your Facebook friends, discover movies that your
friends are watching and add movie reviews to your Timeline. Furthermore, in
2008 Flixster introduced a new iPhone application, which allows you to access
movie reviews, trailers and show-times.
Classmates
Classmates.com is one of the
oldest social networks – it was launched in 1995. This social networking
service allows its users to reconnect with their friends, acquaintances and, as
the name suggest, classmates from kindergarten through University. At first, the
service was designated for American users from American schools and businesses.
However, soon the service spread worldwide and now is helping people find their
“lost” friends and former classmates not only in United States but also in
Canada, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, France and American/Canadian
Schools overseas.
Myspace
Myspace is a social network
launched in August, 2003. At one point, Myspace was the most visited social
networking site, surpassing Google as the most visited website in the US in
2006. Shortly after Myspace was surpassed by Facebook in terms of unique
visitors and since then, its user rate has constantly declined. In spite of this
failure, Myspace set the foundations of today’s mass media social networking
services, including its gaming platform that started the success of the present
social networking games giant – Zynga. Moreover, Myspace has its own Instant
Messenger – MyspaceIM, which is an independent program for Windows as well as
a web-based client. You have to be older than 14 years to be able to register
to Myspace.
deviantART
DeviantART was launched in
2000 and is an online social network for artists and art enthusiasts. It is the
largest social networking service of its kind. DeviantART aims to gather,
entertain and inspire artists; it is there for them to showcase their work and
discuss it with others. DeviantART also integrated chat capability features. As
a registered user, you have your own profile, where your works are organized in
a category-like structure including digital art, traditional art, photography
and even movies. Moreover, you may download numerous stock photos and
tutorials.
foursquare
Foursquare is a geo-location
based social network. The service is designed primarily for smartphone users and
other mobile devices. Foursquare allows you to “check in” at various places
using the application for devices that support geo-location. The application
offers you a list of places nearby and you just click on the one that you are
currently in to “check in.” Every time you “check in” at a place, you
will gain points (sometimes badges) and you can compete with your foursquare
friends to gain more points or badges. Moreover, you can write a comment along
with your “check in," so you can, for example, recommend a good restaurant,
post a photo from that place and share your check in on your Facebook
profile.
Qzone
Qzone is a Chinese network created by
Tencent in 2005. As a user you are allowed to write your own blog, keep a
virtual diary, send photos to your friends and listen to music. Furthermore, you
can set your own Qzone background and select accessories according to your own
taste. Put simply, your customizing options on this social network are really
wide. Nevertheless, most of the Qzone services are for a fee, which really
limits your options when you are not willing to pay for your social networking.
But be aware, if you are not familiar with Simplified Chinese, you will not find
this social network much of good site because it is available only in this
language.
Habbo
Launched in 2000, Habbo is a
Finnish-based social network targeted at teenagers. Habbo’s main feature is a
“Hotel” that can be accessed by registered users. Once you log in, you are
redirected to a screen called ‘Hotel View’ where you can contact other Habbo
users using the “Habbo Chat.” Many features of this social network do not
appear in the ‘Hotel’ itself – there are User Pages, Groups, discussion
forums and various games. This social network is available in many languages.
However, there had been some privacy issues and was temporarily shut down.
Nevertheless, once the issues were solved, the site was re-launched.
hi5
Hi5 is a social networking site which
was launched in 2003. It has many similar features to other social networks,
like the ability to create a profile to show off your personal information,
share interests, join friend networks, share photos, create user groups, post
status updates, listen to music and post comments. In 2009, hi5 has added
several new features aimed for the gaming and entertainment community. Despite
the fact that hi5 was launched in United States, it became more popular in other
countries, predominantly in Latin America and Mongolia and in 2008, hi5 was
believed to be the third most visited social network.
Vimeo
Vimeo is a video-sharing service,
where you can view, upload and share videos. It is one of the only video-sharing
sites that is able to compete with YouTube. Moreover, Vimeo was the first
video-sharing website that supported consumer High Definition (HD) videos. The
site is popular mainly among indie filmmakers and people with passion for film.
This service is, however, available only in two languages – English and
Spanish. As a user of Vimeo, you can send messages to other users, comment on
their videos, share them on other social networks, create your own Channels and
Groups and thus it is a social network disguised as a video-sharing service.
