3/25/2013

The social web is both an exciting and dangerous place to be. One must beware of all of the risks involved before making the choice to join a social website. The social web offers an amazing way to stay in contact with anyone from family, friends, to co-workers. The PC Magazine Encyclopedia defines the social web as, a Web site that provides a virtual community for people to share their daily or even moment to moment activities with family or friends, or to share interest in a particular topic, or to increase their circle of acquaintances. These social Websites have evolved over the years, vastly. They slowly grew to become a popular means for contact with close friends or loved ones and now almost everyone you can think of belongs to some sort of online group or social site. There are now several social websites to choose from. These sites offer many different ways to stay up to date with the ongoing lives of loves ones whom may not live nearby anymore, or business partners who have traveled far away, there are now even ways to get an education online! This paper will cover the pros and cons of using the social Web, as well as what may happen in the future to some of these social Websites, as technology continues to grow.
To understand just exactly what these social Websites include we will discuss some of the more popular sites and applications. Let’s start with Facebook, a leading social networking site. This site allows individuals to create profiles that include almost anything they want to post, and dynamically links their information to others with similar interests. Once you create your personal page it is entirely up to you as an individual to decide whom you allow to become a Facebook “friend”. A Facebook “friend” is someone that sends a request for friendship, (or you may send a request too) once you accept the request these people are now able to view your personal page. Anything that you have decided to share, the people on your friends list now have access too. This could include: your personal photos, thoughts, family. Depending on what you decide to share in your personal settings, a person may now know where you are located, if you decided to include that. So while the social web is excellent for staying in contact with family, friends, and co-workers it does have the potential to be a dangerous as well. Having employers seek you out on the web is a common scenario today. Job seekers are wise to research their interviewers on the social web, as well. Finding commonalities can help you make an immediate connection, says Katie Shanahan. We will look at all of the pros and cons of these sites and also toward the future to see what the future holds for the social network.
Now that you understand Facebook, we can take a look at some of the other websites used for socializing. Today it is not uncommon for you to hear a friend or a person next to you talking about a tweet. A tweet is simply a brief thought or sometime a quote or incomplete sentence that you basically would share with your followers. A follower is much like a “friend” they can include family, friends, and so forth. People may follow you at random, there are also privacy setting to ensure safety, and keep the unwanted followers away. Someone may choose to follow Michael Jordan and see what he’s tweeting about today. There are plenty of differences between these sites and you will have to do the navigating yourself to see what suits you the best.
Instagram is becoming a huge hit! This is being called a “secret site for teens” says, Jennifer Van Grove, also chiming in that teens and even tweens are quickly joining Instagram because their parents would not allow them to have a Facebook. The children with the Facebook accounts had their grandparents on their list of friends, so seeking more freedom they turned to the apps located in their