Social Networking

Social Networking: What is that again? (Oh, yea, LIFE)

You might think you understand the world that is
Social Networking (you probably do) because most
likely, if you are reading this blog, then you were
born in the Digital age. That lovely time between
our parents lost youth and our budding emergence
into adulthood. (Scary to think about, right?)

Let's take this step by step:

1. FACEBOOK
2. MYSPACE (although it isn't necessarily still as hoppin aS FB)
3. TWITTER (ohh, I really like this color)
4. LIVEJOURNAL
5. AIM (cross out. Insert: YOUTUBE
   

D'abord, (which is French for first) let's tackle the concept of FACEBOOK. Many people know about Facebook, in fact, there are hundreds of millions of people registered on the social networking site, and just this past week a movie was released called The Social Network that was a history of the website from its creation nearly ten years back.


Like MySpace, (only much better) Facebook serves the mass culture as a connecting source for friends and family. The site allows for comments, pictures, videos, links, and any other form of communication that one could want on a website. Not to debunk (Is that a real word?) any of the other social networking sites, but Facebook seems to encompass them all, as it even has chat available and the ability to send private messages with attachments like an email.

So, in order to give the other
websites there say, let's move
away from FB for a little but,
and backtrack to the other
social networking sites.

MYSPACE
That glorious website that allowed
many of us to communicate in middle
school our woes and worries to the world
wide web. For most of us, (and I'm using some
leeway [again, is that even a word?] here)
MySpace was the key to showing off our
favorite music, enabled us to display
copious (ooh, I like this word too) amounts
of icons that expressed just how we were feeling
and served as just the place to say whatever
we felt like saying, while also remaining a secret sort
of haven from our parents (while at the same time
exhibiting everything about our lives to the rest
of the world, but that was an irrelevant fact).

As we have a limited amount of time (and no one really cares about MySpace anymore) let's move on to something a little more prevalent.

Livejournal, or as I like to call it, fanfiction central/online RANTING CENTER

Because this generation is highly focused on public displays of emotion, it was only a matter of time before journal entries became public domains. Livejounal, like its name entails, is a public journal where people update their own person "journal" about their daily lives and things that are going on in their lives. It has also become the source for networks of people to meet together to write on the same subject. We call them communities. They range over every top imaginable and are open to anyone who wants to join, so long as they have a livejournal account. All you have to do is Create an Account and away you go expressing your views on life, books, politics, insects -literally, you can write about anything

What else do the social networking realms offer the Digital Natives of 2010? Well, there is also YouTube and Twitter. YouTube is a nifty little contraption that allows people to communicate with each other and express their ideas visually by uploading videos to the web. For people that aren't tech savvy, they even have "How to" videos on how to upload your own videos.

Nifty, right?
Unfortunately, I'm one of those technologically (sometimes) impaired people, so click HERE to check out a YouTube video on uploading videos to YouTube.




I believe that brings us to Twitter. As Ms. Kristin Chenoweth demonstrates during her interview with David Letterman, Twitter can be a dangerous place for information. People tweet about everything. From a big meeting they're about to have to rude people at Starbucks. It enables people instant gratification, as this generation (including me) wants results right away. This site functions as a message board of sorts, where you can "follow" other people's Twitters, seeing their updates. (I think it is slightly ridiculous, personally).

In the end, we just like to be in each other's business ALL THE TIME.