Social Networks

A social network is an online website that connects people together throughout the world.  It is an easy way to connect with an old high school friend or teacher you have  been dying to meet up with again.  This intrigues many people by exploiting a chance for old boyfriends or just plain old friends to meet back up.

A social network service usually consists of a user profile.  This helps another user to see who you are and what your interest are.  The main reason for a social network site is for people to interact with another to share ideas, activities, events, and interests.  Not only does it share ideas, activities, events and interest, it also helps connect former friends/classmates.

As of right now, you are probably thinking that these so called "social networks" are only good for social, entertainment and recreational causes.  Well think again because they are also a great business tool.  One main social networking site that specifies in business connections is LinkedIn.  It connects many people through business relationships.  This can be very useful to people to find old bosses to do business with or even to snag a job of your own. 299 words

As you can see, social networks can be very useful to people for social, business, entertainment, news, and recreational purposes.  It connects the world through various webs of people that share common interests and goals.  Since social networking is a relatively new service, few networks actually change money for a membership.  Companies like MySpace and Facebook sell online advertising on their site as an ultimatum to making money for their websites.  Overall, social networks are a great way to catch up with old friends and meet new ones.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site.  It was launched in 2003 and is mainly used for professional networking.  It has more than 80 million registered users, spanning more than 200 countries and territories worldwide.  Not only is the site available in English, it is also available in French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.  With 80 million users, LinkedIn is ahead of its main competitor Viadeo.  About half the members are in the United States and others are scattered around the world.

The main purpose to the site is to allow registered users to keep in contact and maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust.  This helps many people to keep in contact with business people they normally would forget about.

A contact network is built up that has list of their direct connections, the connections of each of their connections and also the connections of second-degree connections.  This can be used to gain an introduction to someone you wish to know through a mutual contact.

LinkedIn can also be used to find jobs.  Employers can also list jobs and search for potential candidates.  Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and discover which of their existing contacts can introduce them.  This can be a very helpful tool for people who have the proper experience and education to land a job in this tough market.

 Another great feature that LinkedIn offers is the LinkedIn Answers.  It may sound similar to Yahoo! Answers but it really is not.  It allows users to ask questions for the community to answer.  This is a free feature that allows users to ask any type of business oriented question. 294 

Along to the LinkedIn website that can be accessed by the computer, there is a mobile version of the site that launched in 2008.  It gives access to a reduced feature of the LinkedIn website but it also is available in six different languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish.

Overall, LinkedIn is a great product to use to stay in touch with past business connections.

Twitter

In as little as five or so years, Twitter has become mainstream. It has established itself as an everyday part of many people’s lives.  It can be used for social, business, entertainment, news, and recreational purposes. 
Honestly, I believe Twitter should only be used for business purposes.  Most people will say how they don’t understand how a 140 characters responding to the question “What are you doing now?” can grow your product or business.  It provides incredible networking and helps make new customers.  It also gets your product or business out into the public for little to no money at all.

Titter is also used as a social tool for many people.  I believe that tweeters tend to overuse this aspect of twitter by answering the “What are you doing now?” question with showing, sleeping or anything to that extent.  Many people don’t care what you’re doing minute by minute.

Entertainment is also a main factor to Twitter.  Many tweets can entertain users and can provide valuable information for news purposes. One example of an entertaining tweet would be a sports player talking smack to another by tweeting their opinions or feelings.  An example of a news purpose for twitter if someone just got robbed and tweeted “I have been robbed, stay out of the Townsville area because he is on the prowl.”  

Twitter can also be used for recreational purposes.  One way you can do this is to post sport scores on their twitter account.  An example of this would be posting your high school soccer team’s record or game score as your tweet to inform other users.

As you can see, Twitter has many uses for a variety of different people.  Overall I believe businesses benefit most from Twitter.  Twitter will keep growing bigger and bigger and will increase the amount of businesses that use Twitter as a tool to market.

Mr. Henning's Costume

At first when I walked in the room, I didn't even spot him.  But after hour after long hour of looking I finally found Waldo.  Decent costume.  I tip my hat to you Waldo.