Week 19 - Social Networks

Time line of social networking

• 1971 - The first email is sent, where the two computers where sitting next to each-other
• 1978 - BBS (Bulletin Board Systems) started to be used where the exchanging of data was done over phone lines with other users
• 1994 - One of the web's first social networking sites, Geocities, was founded.
• 1995 - theglobe.com gave users the freedom to publish their own content and interact with users that have similar interests.
• 1997 - sixdegrees.com was launched allowing the creation of profile and listing friends.
• 2002 - Friendster was launched, where users could contact with other members and maintain those contacts. Also online content and media could be shared with those contacts.
• 2003 - Myspace was launched
• 2003 - a business-related social networking site named Linked-in was founded.
• 2003 - hi5 has been launched
• 2004 - Facebook was first launched at Harvard College, used to connect US college students launched, originally as a was of connecting US college students. More than half of the 19500 students signed up within the first month.
  
• 2006 - Twitter was launched
• 2008 - Facebook overtakes myspace as the leading social networking site.
• 2011 - Google+ will be launched

Here's an interesting video on Social Media Revolution:

Google+

Google+ is a social networking service launched on the 28th of june 2011, where right now it is and invite-only testing phase. The following are features added in google+:

• Circles - are used so that users can organize contacts into groups where other users can not view what the names of the circles are. Circles are ideal because u can share something only to that circle; therefore there will be more privacy.
• Hangouts - are group video chat, where the maximum amount of people participating in a single Hangout is 10.
• Huddle - is a feature available to SMS devices so that one can communicate through instant messaging within circles.
• Instant Upload - will store photos and videos in a private album so that it will be shared later.
• Sparks - is used to enable user to identify topics they might be interested in sharing with others.

Here's a quick look on Google+:

Conclusion

In my opinion, social networking is one of the best creation that one have ever made. Through social networking, you can connect with people you have not seen for a long time. Although google+ is still in the testing stage, during the lesson the majority of the class had the opportunity to join.