Landscape of Social Networking Sites
Mon Jul 20, 2009 at 07:49 AM by Ethan uAmplify has been collecting data and has grasped the social networking landscape in a greater sense through it’s observational study on some of the latest social networking sites across the web. In total 41 networking sites were observed, some of which are more widespread than others, the most popular sites being: myspace, facebook, Friendster, livejournal, orkut and bebo. The most well known of these are coming out with the latest ideas for making their individual site look hip and chic and as up to date as possible, so naturally some of the less known sites are catching up and are coming up with new ideas of their own. While just about all of the sites observed have the basic features, like friend lists, photo and video, internal email systems and content sharing, there are a good number that don’t have all the features found on myspace and other top tier sites.
Some of the newest features that many social networking sites are in the process of adopting are applications, surveys, contests, forums, chatting and mobile capability. Myspace and Facebook have been able to reach just about everybody in all markets on an international level and they can only grow more and more, which is saying something about how far they’ve come. Myspace was primarily used at the start for music groups to promote themselves, while facebook was a site for college students to connect; at this point both can be used by anyone with internet use. Some networking sites are designed only for certain people and these sites don’t expect to widen their audience, like eons, faceparty, livedoor, opendiary, zorpia and others. Being open to limited users who fit a certain description is what makes these sites unique and allows them to set themselves apart from their competitors. If people with certain interests prefer smaller networking sites to share content and enjoy their exclusivity, then smaller networking sites are here to stay. | Tags: uamplify, social networking, facebook, myspace, friendster, bebo, orkut, livejournal, niche social networking, eons, faceparty, livedoor, opendiary, zorpia | | | |
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