Social Networking

Why Social Networking?
Social networking, allows people to stay in touch with current friends, reconnect with old ones or create friends through similar interests or groups.
Most social networking websites offer features like blogs, forums, customizing profile page to reflect user’s personality in addition to include music and video sections.
Social networking can also help members find a job or set up business contacts.

What to Look For in Social Networking
Profiles
Security (Privacy) Networking Features (Additional Features)
Search
Help/Support
Legitimate Friend Focus

Facebook
According to Social Media Revolution
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8)

1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S last year met via social media
Years it took different Medias to reach 50 million users
38 years for Radio
13 years for TV
4 years for Internet
3 years for iPod
Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months
More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc) are shared on Facebook daily.

Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 400 million users.
Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students.

The original idea for the term Facebook came from Zuckerberg’s high school (Phillips Exeter Academy). The Exeter Face Book was passed around to every student as a way for students to get to know their classmates for the following year. It was a physical paper book until Zuckerberg brought it to the internet.

Facebook users’ addiction, to the site is unmatched: more than half use the product every single day and users spend an average of 19 minutes a day on Facebook. Facebook is 6th most trafficked site in the US and top photo sharing site with 4.1 billion photos uploaded.

References:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8
http://social-networking-websites-review.toptenreviews.com/
http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social-networking-websites
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/facebook
http://ezinearticles.com/?Top-Reasons-Why-Facebook-is-So-Popular&id=1089087
http://www.surfnetkids.com/safety/a_simple_comparison_of_myspace_and_facebook-18958.htm
http://social-networking-websites-review.toptenreviews.com/facebook-review.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook