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Social networking sites: Have you logged in yet?

You may be running the risk of being considered obsolete if you have not created a homepage on any of social-networking site yet.

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You may be running the risk of being considered obsolete if you have not created a homepage on any of social-networking site yet. These sites are fast changing the manner in which the current generation stays in touch.

These sites free of gender, age and status biases, and getting acquainted and staying in touch at a click of a button is emerging as a favourite pastime. These communities cut across geographical barriers and help people from all continents share views on a common homepage.

The social ways of people greeting each other by sending e-bouquets and e-teddys gained momentum a couple of years ago. Friendship day cards, birthday cards, dinner invites soon started to get posted online, giving card manufacturers like Hallmark and Archies a run for their money.

Later on, online marriage bureaus did brisk business and online dating communities grew in both popularity and size. Files, portfolios, photos and videos of candidates got uploaded with the intention of either striking a friendship that led to a date or developed into a marriage alliance.

Since the first networking site Classmates.com showed the way, social-network crawlers use a combination of the various sites that is available to choose from. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn are the most widely used in North America; Bebo, Hi5, MySpace, StudiVZ mostly in Germany; Decayenne, Tagged, XING in parts of Europe; Orkut, Hi5 in South America and Central America; and Friendster, Multiply, Orkut, Wretch, Xiaonei and Cyworld in Asia and the Pacific islands.

Some of these sites also offer online chats and message boards for users and thus attract visitors to sign up and join in the network, resulting in growth of size. Voice-over facilities, where one can carry out a voice chat through the computer microphone, help set up quick conversations. The ease of operating these sites is the reason why youngsters and older people are signing up alike.

Social sites are hugely popular because of their investigative nature of digging up old friends, acquaintances and contacts. Users are able to connect with school, college, and professional batches. Some people are known to have found each other after 25 to 30 years through these sites. IIM alumni, St Joseph’s batch of ’64; Intel old boys 55 etc are platforms where people meet up and continuously interact.

Blogging is another social network concept that has caught the attention of people across the world. US President Barrack Obama’s use of social-networking tools to connect with the younger audience during the historic presidential campaign gave such concepts wider acceptance.

Closer home, the likes of LK Advani and Amitabh Bachchan use blogs to stay in direct touch with audiences. Blogging is immensely popular as articles and views posted by members are rated and commented upon by visitors. This ultimately leads to the growth of an individual’s network by making friends in cyber space. Some surveys claim that blogging has the largest coverage on the internet.

Cyber inspectors and cyber laws have made social networking easy. Cyber crimes besides being serious in nature, such as theft or fraud, can a also be defamatory or mischievous ex. stalking somebody by getting hold of their residence address and phone numbers or harassing a person with unwanted friendship, being mischievous by making offensive or abusive remarks or defaming by circulating objectionable material.

People are willing to take these risks since social networks open up a world of possibilities of friendship across the world. Networking is no longer restricted to neighbourhoods, cities or even countries. These sites are easy to use, offer a sense of freedom and are growing in popularity by the day.
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