Social Networking

Social networking sites are constantly the subject of debate and controversy. Lots of people have been at odds with the rapid rise of social networking in the last few years and they have wasted no time in voicing their complaints. The most vehement of issues have surrounded privacy.

However, social networking also has a lot of supporters, not least the thousands upon thousands of people who subscribe to and use sites like Twitter and Facebook on a daily basis. These sites are growing too, as more and more people seek ways of connecting with people via the internet.

One person who has spoken out in favour of the effect social networking sites have had on society is (perhaps unsurprisingly) Biz Stone, the co-founder of Twitter. Stone holds that sites like Twitter and Facebook have made a positive impact on society at large. He claims:

[Twitter] is not going to be a triumph of technology - it’s going to be a triumph of humanity … the growth potential is there from a positive change perspective, not just a business perspective.

He also outlined his expectation that social networking will grow as a mobile discipline, with users eventually moving away from desktops computers.

Police are cottoning on to just how useful social networking sites can be when it comes to seeking out criminal activity. As a result, it has been reported that detectives are to receive special training in order to help them to use popular sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook and Twitter have hundreds of thousands of users worldwide and so they are a vital resource for police. The internet is really valuable when it comes to seeking evidence on suspects and the police are hoping to make the most of this by providing the special internet training.

Among the things that officers hope to learn are disciplines like the following:

• How to trace suspects via the social networking sites they are members of
• How to interpret clues that suspects my leave on sites like Twitter and Facebook
• How to inspect computer equipment and mobile phones in order to locate evidence

Deputy Chief Constable Nick Gargan, who is in charge of NPIA (National Policing Improvement Agency), explained that the new measures are crucial in modern policing. He said:

This programme is a vital part of the career pathway for detectives and the new training covers sensitive areas of policing where limited guidance existed previously.

These improvements are exactly what detectives need to tackle the challenges and complexities of modern policing effectively.

Facebook really dominates the social networking scene on the internet at the moment with over half a million users worldwide. However, its competitors are still trying to muscle in on its popularity, if not to tempt users away from the site then to give them something a little different that they might want to be part of at the same time.

MySpace used to the favourite social networking site on the web, but since the emergence of Facebook its popularity has waned significantly with many users simply abandoning it. However, MySpace has now relaunched its site in a bid to get back on board with internet users.

MySpace’s origins lie in the field of music and the relaunch takes this into account. Instead of vying with Facebook in terms of straight social networking, the site is focussing on giving its users access to music and video content by subscribing to the pages of their favourite acts.

Significantly, MySpace has also given the site a whole new look because its previous incarnation clearly failed to engage users as much as was hoped. It remains to be seen whether MySpace’s revamp will stand it in good stead to compete with other popular social networks in the future.

Facebook is incredibly popular with people of all ages and backgrounds. As a result, the site is of great interest to those studying social behaviour and has actually opened up an entirely new field of study to do with online practices.

The latest study into the behaviour of Facebook users is related to the way people download Facebook apps. The research looked into the download rates of a number of different Facebook apps to see whether any trend could be found.

According to the study, users of Facebook exhibit sheep-like behaviour in the way they download apps. Apps marketed on Facebook apparently grow very slowly in popularity until a certain degree is reached, at which point the floodgates open and downloads of the app increase rapidly. This suggests that users often jump on the bandwagon when it comes to discovering apps.

Dr Jukka-Pekka Onnela, one of the researchers connected with the study, said of the findings:

There appeared to be a threshold of popularity, and users only seemed to be influenced by the choices of others for apps lying above this threshold.

Social influence is strongly present in online cultural consumption but, at least in this case, only for a subset of products.

Social media has seen incredible growth in the last few years as people seek ways of communicating and staying in touch. The vast growth of this industry has seen the particular growth of sites like Facebook and Twitter, but social networking is also used as a professional tool, as in sites like LinkedIn.

Members of LinkedIn use the site in order to re-connect with past colleagues, get in touch with future colleagues, find old classmates, share questions and answers and find ways of networking in a professional capacity in order to further work prospects.

It is perhaps testament to the growing popularity of LinkedIn that it is now being targeted more frequently by criminals. Malware attacks have plagued sites like Twitter and Facebook because they are used by so many people worldwide, but less well-known social networking sites have escaped relatively unscathed until recently.

The latest attack of LinkedIn has been reported as a Zeus data theft program which has been spamming users and which has the capability of infecting computers and mobile devices in order to steal personal information. Aggressive malware campaigns of this kind are usually on the lookout for online banking details, so it is only natural that alarms are raised.