Brief overview of the most popular social networking sites.

1. A brief overview

3.  An internet based, social networking site which
allows users to create a personal profile and
communicate with other ‘friends’ with whom they
have a connection with (Taraszoe et al, 2010).
 Over 500 million users (Boyd & Hargittai, 2010)
 Facebook is the most popular online social
networking site in the world (Weaver, 2010).
 Can share photos, videos, links, play games and
communicate with others.

4.  Online website which shares videos
 Allows users to upload and share videos
 “Go to website for finding topical and obscure
streaming video clips” (Hilderbrand, 2007, p.48).
 Can include home videos, remixes, trailers,
commercials, music and highlights from
television/movie history.
 Tens of millions of visitors daily (Hilderbrand, 2007)

5.  Tool to organise internet site addresses (eg.
Favourites)
 “Social bookmark manager which allows you to
easily add sites to your personal collection of
links, to categorise those sites with keywords,
and to share your collection” not only on your
computer but between users (Schachter 2004, in
Mathes, 2004, n.p).

6.  Online website which shares photos (uploaded by
users)
 “Offers photo management and web application”
(Mathes, 2004, n.p)
 Can ‘tag’ photos

7.  Online encyclopaedia which any individual may
contribute to (Kittur & Kraut, 2008).
 Collaborative knowledge building.
 One of the top ten most visited websites (Kittur
& Kraut, 2008).
 Over two million pages contributed
to by more than six million users
(Kittur & Kraut, 2008).

8.  Status updates or messages which are less than
140 characters (O’Reilly & Milstein, 2009).
 Status updates are public.
 Individuals with Twitter gain ‘followers’.
 Can share photos and links.