Facebook Overview
Mar 16th 2009
Facebook Overview
Facebook has now been a social networking website for awhile now, but what most people don’t know is that Facebook started out just for college students to interact. As college students starting passing the word around it became one of the most popular websites on the internet. Facebook saw the potential and opened membership up to everyone so now millions of people around the world use Facebook as a means to socialize. Apart from meeting and socializing with people there is a lot more that you’re capable of doing on Facebook and more new features are added everyday. Facebook has a very modern and sleek looking template that is very easy to navigate through which is one reason it’s become so popular over time. A lot of people that use social networks aren’t very knowledgeable when it comes to navigating a computer screen, but Facebook does its best to make the user experience enjoyable.
Features
- Show Pictures of Yourself
- Invite anyone with an email
- Share stories
- Great for meeting people
- Amazing Applications
- Groups
- Chat - Private Messages
- + a lot more
Friends and family can all get together in one place and talk on Facebook which makes it really cool and one of the best ways families can keep in touch with each other. The news feed that displays as your homepage once you sign-in to your profile is where the magic happens. You can view all the new things happening on your friends and families profile from one direct interface which makes keeping up with all the gossip as easy as reading one page.
There are many settings that can be chosen when setting up your profile which limits the people who will be able to see your profile. If you only want your friends and family to be able to view your profile then you’re able to choose that setting. This will make your profile guarded and also everything on your profile including your pictures. For safety and security reasons it’s best to have your profile on limited status so that only friends can see it, as there is no reason for any strangers to be looking at your profile.
When you join Facebook you also join what’s called a network, you can join multiple networks as well and what it does is allows people from the same network to find your profile easier. Networks consist of cities, countries and even schools. So there is always a network that you can join and then anyone else from the network will be able to view your profile easier. It’s great for finding old school mates simply because you can search through any school network so as long as the person joined the network you’ll be able to find them on Facebook.
MySpace Overview
MySpace is the most well known social network site on the internet and it’s got users from every corner of the world. It’s been around the longer then the other popular social networking sites which is one reason it remains the top dog in the market still, but others are catching up with the traffic MySpace receives. MySpace has always been one of the most user-friendly sites and even a computer beginner could customize their profile to their liking. You can add tons of things to your MySpace profile and there all super easy to add, normally requiring only a click or two. Like most of the popular social networks its audience is worldwide and of all ages, it’s great for friends and family to meet and stay in touch will each other as well. MySpace is now beginning to start to implement some of the more technical features that other social sites have and it’s probably good thing if they want to remain the number one social networking site on the internet.
Features
- Pictures
- Music
- Video
- Forums
- Groups
- TV
- + a lot more
MySpace has just implemented a new profile editor which makes it very simple to edit your profile whenever you choose to. You can add pictures of yourself, music, video plus a ton of other things. You can find great backgrounds and graphics on a lot of MySpace generator sites around the internet. There are literally hundreds of these sites you can find that will allow you to use things on their site to pimp your profile. MySpace is all about having a unique profile and updating it all the time so that your friends and family know what you’re up to.
You can also use forums and groups to meet people you’ve never met before that share the same interests of you. I’ve used groups many times on MySpace to find people that share the same hobbies as me and you can find great conversation in some of the active areas of the site. MySpace I believe is still the best social networking site out there but Facebook is definitely catching up to them and I like the applications a lot better on Facebook. We’ll see who makes more improvements as time continues to pass, but for now MySpace will stay at the top of my list.
FlickR Overview
FlickR was designed to give everybody the chance to share their photos and videos with whoever they want to share them with. You can decide to share them with the world or you can keep them private and share them with friends and family only. FlickR is owned and operated by Yahoo and all you need to sign-in to FlickR is a yahoo member account, if you don’t have one then you can simply make for free and use that to log-in to FlickR where you can begin sharing photos and videos. FlickR is continuing to evolve by adding new ways for photos and videos to be shared and currently there are already tons of great technological methods available to share digital items.
Currently on FlickR you’re able to share photos and videos from the web, mobile devices, email, RSS feeds and many other ways. This means no matter how your friends or family share there photos and videos you’ll be able to utilize one of the ways FlickR offers to download the content. Keeping in touch with family is now becoming amazing and you can literally chat with family in other countries now using the internet. All you would need is a web cam and video software to create videos and then you can share them with your family.
FlickR allows people to also tag your photos and add categories to them. You can allow your friends and family to be able to do this too so that they can organize the photos into tags they use. If you’re trying to share your photos with the world then you would want to find tags that are being searched often to list your photo or video under. The power of tags is very important when looking to distribute your photo to a wide audience and if you can manage to play with the tags to get the most traffic from them you’ll see your pictures get tons of attention.
FlickR also implemented a stats function so that now everyone with a pro account can see how their photos and videos are doing. You can use stats to find referrers of traffic amongst a lot of other stuff, this can be used to find out which methods of advertising your photos and videos are working and which methods aren’t working. Being able to track your stats for anything is important and it’s a great function that FlickR has implemented by allowing us to now track our stats.
Youtube Overview
Youtube is one of the most visited websites on the internet right now and allows for people to share videos with world and many people have become famous using Youtube. When you use Youtube you can make a super viral video that can spread to millions of individuals around the world all of which can view the video and either rate or comment it afterwards. There are videos for any topic you could imagine on Youtube except for XXX Adult content which is filtered and deleted the second they see it which is usually right away so they have done a good job keeping the site mainstream only.
Using Youtube is really simple and all you do is register an account and then click upload video at which point you upload the video, add a title, description and keywords and you then have a video on Youtube. You can build links to your video and promote it to help it rank better in the search engines so that it receives more traffic or you can just leave it and over time it will get traffic. Depending on how creative you are you might also be able to create a viral video that gets millions of views across the world.
Most people who visit Youtube have no interest in uploading videos they only have an interest in watching videos that there interested in. Many topics are popular and if your research the topics and make videos on the popular topics you’ll notice you get more views. If you can target keywords in popular niches then you stand a good chance at getting a lot of views to your video.
People make videos for different reasons, some are just for fun and to meet people while others are simply advertising a product. If you’re advertising a product then generally there would be a link in the description pointing to the products website and there might also be text with the products website spelt out inside the video somewhere. If you’re making videos just for fun then you don’t need to worry about linking anywhere unless you want to advertise a website you own which you’re free to advertise. Creating a unique video and using the right keywords is the key to having a successful and highly watched video on Youtube and with millions of videos now hosted on the website it’s harder to create something unique.
LinkedIn Overview
LinkedIn is a social network that is designed to allow businesspeople to network with each other and to keep in touch with former colleagues. Most social networks started out catering to one audience and then grew into huge worldwide networks catering to many audiences. LinkedIn is focused on the business world and they’re constantly adding new features to their website to make it easier to communicate with prospects and colleagues.
The first thing you should do once you create your profile with LinkedIn is to find all colleagues and classmates that you’ve lost touch with. With millions of people now using LinkedIn there is a chance that your old colleagues and classmates will be on the system which would allow you to get back in touch with them very easily. The power of social networks is incredible and although the idea behind LinkedIn isn’t unique, the way they have marketed and targeted their network is unique. Because LinkedIn has remained focused on a specific niche, it’s continuing to grow while most social networks that cater to the general audience are losing traffic because of their lack of focus. Facebook and MySpace seem to be the exception to the rule but their content is becoming increasingly diluted and people are spamming each other with promotions, further degrading the experience.
You can find jobs and list jobs on the LinkedIn network which means you’ll always have the inside scoop on all the new jobs and businesses that are being started. Having this information is invaluable and could lead to a great job with a huge salary down the road. You can also ask and answer questions which is a great way to demonstrate your expertise. When you answer questions, people will regard you as an expert in your field and hire you or offer you a job. Since the network is filled with experts in business you can get some great advice from a highly qualified audience. You’ll usually find very in-depth answers that can help you when you’re starting your own business or furthering one you’ve already established.
With so many professionals under one roof LinkedIn is definitely the most targeted business networking site you could join. You can also subscribe to premium memberships that give you more options to further your networking. Facebook and MySpace are more popular social networking websites, but LinkedIn’s business focus makes it the place to be if you want to build business relationships.