Some responses on a passenge at Knowledge@Wharton Network, "My Space, Facebook and Other Social Networking Sites: Hot Today, Gone Tomorrow? " Errr... not really!! Social networks are the largest portion of the social web, measured in users. Social networks have been around for many years as have basic forums. However, these tools have been used by certain small groups. Social networks of today have a huge spread. Three in four Internet users access social tools to connect with each other.
Social network services include sites such as MySpace, hi5, Facebook, and many more. MySpace is the largest of these categories, closely followed by Facebook. What is characteristic of social network pages is that they include certain broad features. The ability to communicate, congregate in groups, support causes, comment on actions, let friends know what is going on, create events and so on are all examples of available features. Social networking is never ending. They will only becoming bigger and more...
Social network services include sites such as MySpace, hi5, Facebook, and many more. MySpace is the largest of these categories, closely followed by Facebook. What is characteristic of social network pages is that they include certain broad features. The ability to communicate, congregate in groups, support causes, comment on actions, let friends know what is going on, create events and so on are all examples of available features. Social networking is never ending. They will only becoming bigger and more...
Picture sourced : www.mobilerevolutions.org
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Never ending? Huh, not quite sure. Social networks will thrive as long as people have the time and infrastructure to log on and connect. In Africa, ICT is quite a challenge and coverage of the social media is limited to urban centres. Only recently has the mobile phone began penetrating the rural areas. Today's modern professional is extremely busy (or is it just me) and hardly gets time to make that meaningful contribution to social media. I am in facebook but I only write when I get time. Friends get upset that I don't reply to their messages as quickly as they would like and I don't get to write on my wall often. Is it alright to conclude those constantly and fanatically on these sites are those with the time to do it?
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you Joan. It is hard to keep up. tonight, I've blogged, checked two email accounts and taken a couple of calls on the mobile (and it's only 8pm!!)
ReplyDeleteHowever, Justa is right, our lives are being taken over. I hardly talk anymore... And as for time to do anything else, well where is it? The French Open tennis is on just now and I barely see any of it.
The growth rate is certainly staggering, both in user numbers and the range of channels. I wonder if there is a saturation point, beyond which the leaps in application development start to slow down? Perhaps the trend of mergers and buy-ups by big media players will change the whole dynamic? Advertising and too much of a hard-sell could kill the 'social' dimension.
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