What is Online Social Networking?
Let’s face it, the Internet has forever changed the way we live and it has become an integral part of our lives.
Instant Messaging, Voice over IP and Portals have become critical to life & business – a whole lot of us would have a hard time surviving without the Internet and a whole more could not imagine life without online social networking.
Today, you commonly hear phrases such as “Hey, check out my Facebook”, or, “Connect with me on LinkedIn” or “I will tweet you”. I can understand Facebook, Linkedin and the others, but I must admit that I am intrigued by “Tweet” and “Twitter”.
Online social networking is based on the use of specialized websites, aptly called social networking websites that allow you to directly or indirectly connect with individuals of your choice for various purposes. The purpose is to build online communities of people that share common interests or activities, or people that are interested in learning about the interests and activities of others.
The sheer beauty of online social networking is that it allows you to keep in touch with your contacts across the entire world – there are no limits to the number of friends you can have and they can be located anywhere as long as they have access to the Internet.
The concept is simple. You are either are invited to join a social network website or you join it on your own and you then search for your contacts and then invite them to become part of your network or you get invited to join your contacts’ networks. You interact with your contacts and continually grow your network by adding more and more contacts. The main purpose is to share all sorts of information within the network and keep each other informed about your activities, events and in general, life. You can share photos and videos, messages, updates, events and scores of other things.
One word of advice – be careful of who you connect with and how much information you share with them – protect your identity at all times and be sensible about your activity.
