Why Social Networking? The internet has made the world smaller. People of all ages and backgrounds have discovered that they can enrich their lives through the contacts they make on social networking websites. Social networking sites give you a great chance to keep in touch with your old friends, keep tabs on current friends and family, and to create new online friendships with people who share similar interests and business connections. Evaluation criteria to compare the top ten social networking sites Networking features: A good social network goes above and beyond simply allowing people to post a profile and update pictures. Additional features should include instant messaging, photo tagging and notifications, shared music playlists and videos. The best social network sites allow you to join and create groups based on your interests (like the U3A interest groups but much wider). Profiles: The heart and soul of social networking sites are people's personal profiles - a place where people can express their thoughts and feelings, post their photographs and interact with their network of friends. The most popular social network websites put a strong emphasis on the user's profile, making it easy to use, yet still be reflective of each user's personality. Search: The object of a social network is to find friends and expand relationships. Top social networking websites allows members to search for other members in a safe and easy-to-use environment. Common search functions include the ability to search for people by name, city, school and email address. Security: The internet can be a dangerous place to post personal information. All social networks should provide privacy customization and give you the ability to set your profile or parts of your profile to public or private. Additionally, these sites should give you the ability to report inappropriate behaviour and content and to block specific people entirely. Note from Jane: A lot of older people are put off social networking because of their personal information being ‘shared’. Advanced settings on most sites allow you to determine what’s seen by others, and who sees what. We discussed Facebook’s plans to sell users’ web browsing habits to advertisers so that ads appearing on Facebook pages are ‘more relevant to your interests’. Most of us will be opposing this move by signing a petition on Facebook. Despite this negative, there are some great opportunities to meet a wider circle of like-minded people with similar interests through social networking. Evaluating most popular social networking websites Each social network promotes a platform and user experience that makes it unique. Each approaches online social relationships from a specific perspective. The top social networking sites have become the most frequently visited pages on the internet. It's important that you find the ones that best represent your personality and allow you to share your thoughts and feelings with the widest selection of friends. The following reviews of ten social networking sites begin with the most popular, Facebook. 1 When social networking took off in the early 2000s, Facebook was designed specifically for college students to socialize and connect. It didn't take long for this service to expand and become inclusive of people of all ages. To stay on top, Facebook's service is constantly updating with a wide variety of picture, video, advertising and security features. Facebook has become a way of life. Network Features: You can't visit many sites without seeing the social media buttons that allow you to share the content on Facebook. When you log in to this social media site, the first thing you see will be a news feed that keeps you updated on the lives of your friends. The Facebook toolbar will notify you immediately if you have a new friend request, an unread message in your inbox or if someone commented on or liked your status or posts. Where Facebook thrives in terms of advertisements is through the growth of small businesses owned by Facebook members. You can create a page for your business, band or event and gain publicity by asking for likes and keeping people consistently informed about your business. You can also gain attention and reach for new likes by creating your own Facebook advertisement. The mobile app for this social network is very impressive and can even provide for a better experience if you only care to see what is highlighted by the news feed. It cuts out the majority of ads, suggestions and friends that are current online and open to chat. These options are still available from your smartphone or tablet, but they are hidden unless you swipe the screen, either right or left. A wide 2 variety of information can be uploaded to your Facebook account. You can post YouTube videos and watch them directly from your news feed without even following the link and opening a new window. Also, beyond uploading photo albums, you can upload personal videos, just in case you have relatives who may have missed out on special memories, like a child's first steps or footage of your friends they may have forgotten about after a night of partying. Facebook really does allow you to keep in touch with friends in many different ways, even if much of it is over sharing. Profiles: Facebook's website design is straightforward. It has few graphics or decoration, but most users adore the uniform, utilitarian interface. Although you can't customize skins or change the colour scheme, you can rearrange the position of some of your information boxes on your profile by simply dragging and dropping them to other spots on the screen. When you edit your profile, you can be as specific as you'd like to be. You can make your profile a mini resume with your current and past jobs. You can also add items to your education networks. Once you add this information, Facebook can focus on specific suggestions for people you may know from your university or current job. You can also add your basic information such as where you live, your favourite quotes, your website, and your religious and political views. Search: Facebook's search bar will allow you to search based on any aspect. If you want to join a fan page, you look up keywords or names. Though this social networking website isn't only for college students, there is still a big focus on finding friends that you have gone to school with. If you search by email address and find friends who aren't Facebook members yet, you can send invites and, should they choose to eventually start an account, they will immediately be notified of your friend invite. Security: You must be at least 13 years old to register with Facebook. You cannot browse the Facebook database without registering for an account. In its terms of service agreement, Facebook states that it does not allow offensive content such as sexually charged language and explicit photos. However, it also states that it is not responsible for closely monitoring the content on the website. Facebook encourages members to report content they find offensive. Facebook also allows you to block individual users, report spam and report profile abuse. Facebook has some of the most specific and custom privacy setting of all the social network sites. In addition to making your entire profile private, you can select which sections of your profile you would like displayed and to whom. For example, your wall can be open to everyone, but your photographs can be set to only display to your friends or friends of friends. The same is true for your personal information, education, work and contact information. Twitter Networking Features: Twitter is one of the easiest social networks to pick up and start using with a nickname @sign/follow and followers. It’s meant to be used on the go. ie smartphone rather than a pc where you can update with 140 character tweets/upload pics/video links immediately. Local businesses looking for a way to increase their reach can also take advantage of quick updates, creating loyalty in their followers and rewarding them with coupon links and promotional codes through their tweets. The Discover feed shows you news stories that have either been tailored to your interests or stories that were tweeted by those you follow. Trends feed shows both keywords that have been used recently in Twitter and hashtag keywords, and follow the conversation regarding the most popular news stories. Profile: The profile page fits in two small windows (optional Photo, location, website, short bio). Search: The downside of searching for friends on this social media site is that most users, other than celebrities, use nicknames that closely resemble their names, so it's difficult to find and connect with friends unless you know their @ names. Security: Twitter has a surprising number of security features - option to allow others to find you by email address. Several Twitter accounts are locked and you can only see tweets written, no follow/ers. It's very easy to reset your password at any time. In what should be standard with every social media account, Twitter allows you to associate a mobile phone number with your login and password. This greatly reduces the chance of Twitter hacking. 3 Networking Features: Google+ is the most recent major entry, launching 2011 with 500 million users, with a significant advantage of being on your web browser at all times. Focus is on creating circles to distinguish connections. The four standard circles are friends, family, acquaintances and those you're following. You can create as many custom circles as you'd like.