Social network services (SNS) allow users to create online social networks with people anywhere in the world, enabling them to interact through instant messaging, email, video, voice chat, blogging, file sharing, discussion groups and so forth. In a sense SNSs allow users to create and be a part of a virtual community.
Social Network Services can be dated back to 1995 with the establishment of Classmates.com which allowed users to interact with past, present and/or current school colleagues. In 1997 SixDegrees.com was created and it allowed users to list their firends, family and associates from the site. Unfortunately SixDegrees.com ended in 2001. From 1997 more and more SNSs began emerging. MySpace was founded in 2003 and is a popular social networking website, with 200 million user accounts that have been created. Facebook was launched in 2004 for college/high school students but is now for everyone and it is also a popular SNS (39 million user accounts). Another notable SNS is Bebo and it has 34 million user accounts.
Users of social networking services are quite varied. Although some SNSs are aimed at a particular group of people, for example BlackPlanet is aimed at African Americans. Therefore the target audience depends on the SNS.
Face to face interaction is slowly being replaced by social network services such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook, which provide an online platform for interaction.
Users are asked a series of questions about their age, gender, interests and are prompted to fill out an about me section, this information is presented in their profiles. Individuals also have a chance to personalise their profiles. For example on Facebook you can add applications such as a Daily Bible Verse or iLike Music.
However social network services are providing users with much more than just interaction, they have become a source of information and news as the public are able to publish their own content for others to view through blogs, notes and forums etc – paving the way for a new era of citizen journalism.
Social network services are in some cases causing a shift away from conventional news sources, as even Journalists are focusing their attention on MySpace, Facebook, Bebo etc. For example, this year many newspapers picked up on pop singer Lily Allen’s MySpace blog entry titled ‘fat, ugly and shitter than winehouse,’ where she confessed that she felt “fat and ugly”. Many newspapers used her blog as a source for their articles and some even printed extracts of Lily Allen’s blog post.
Click here to view an article that the Daily Mail Posted and Lily Allen’s MySpace blog entry.
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