Social Networking

Fun facts and slightly serious thinking.

Many people rely on social networking to communicate to others on-line. So many people use this that there was a recent study that stated over 700 million people across the globe have a profile on a social networking site.

Facebook is by far the most popular means of interaction. Well recognised as the "original" social networking website, users can update their status, instant message friends, like pages and post photos. Although the site does offer a significant lack of freedom of customisation as the only things you can edit on your profile is your "cover photo" and profile picture. None the less the site has over 750,000,000 visitors a month and counting with over 400million unique users today.

Twitter is another popular social networking site. Although there is limited messaging capabilities and the fact you have to fit "what you are feeling or doing" into 150 characters, hasn't stopped the huge increase in users in the past year.  The site has over 250,000,000 visitors a month with over 80million unique users today. 

YouTube is 'the' most popular video sharing site on the internet with individual video views reaching well into the millions. Users can upload videos, comment, like and respond to other videos. Everytime a user or guest watches a video the 'view' counter tracks who has viewed the video. Many users who have applied to be partners of YouTube can now recieve money in return for displaying ads in their videos or on their individual channel. The site has over 490 million unique users each month.

Sources: http://mashable.com/2011/02/19/youtube-facts/

              http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social-networking-websites

Stefan F. Meyer, 2012