From the moment the first email was sent, users were quick to adopt the Internet as a platform for communication. The most recent development is the explosive growth of dedicated social networking platforms that provide a centralized way of communicating and sharing information with friends and colleagues. In the past five years sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Orkut, Bebo and Linkedin have become the default communication hub for many users.
Reading this week – Social network sites: definition, history and scholarship (Boyd and Ellison)
I found this reading to be crucial to my understanding of social networking. In this reading they describe the rapid growth of social networking sites and their popularity.
Boyd and Ellison define social networking platforms in terms of what they allow users to do. To reiterate, users can:
* construct a public profile or semi public profile within a bounded system
* articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection
* view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system
Activity – Introducing twitter
We were asked to join Twitter and add a #net11 tag to anything that may be of interest to others in the course. We then visited http://beta.twittervision.com/ which is a website that shows you real time tweets from all over the world.
I was fortunate in this activity as I joined Twitter earlier in the year but never really used it. Now that i have other students and the tutors to follow I find it is a significant tool for communication and collaboration by asking and answering questions and chatting with one another. I find myself using this tool everyday. I have learned a great deal from accessing this site and it has made my study a little easier. I have even encouraged some of my family members to join the site as well and we communicate with each other daily on this website. I really found the Twittervision site to be addictive and interesting to see that a new tweet comes up constantly and from all over the world, I sat and watched it for quite some time.
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