The hottest trend on the internet these days is social networking. A recent study
of the social media users revealed that India has recorded world's largest
growth in 2013; and a 2013 survey found that 73% of U.S adults use social
networking sites.
So what really is a social networking site? Well, the simple answer is, a
social
networking service (
SNS) is a platform to build
social networks or
social relations among people
who share interests, activities, backgrounds or real-life connections.
It’s a web-based service that provides a means for users to interact over
the Internet, such as e-mail and instant messaging and allows individuals to
create a public profile, to create a network of followers/ friends with whom to
share connections, and view and cross connect within the system to share ideas,
pictures, posts, activities, events, interests with people in their network.
Social network sites are varied and they incorporate new information and
communication tools such as mobile connectivity, photo/video/sharing and
blogging.
The main types of
social networking services are those that contain category
places such as the former school year or classmates, means to connect with
friends and are usually found with self-description pages, and a recommendation
system linked to trust.
Some of the more popular social networking sites are American-based services
such as Facebook, Google+,LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Vine, Tumblr, and Twitter
are widely used worldwide; while others like Nexopia in Canada; Hyves (The Netherlands), Soup (Austria), Glocals in Switzerland, Skyrock, The
Sphere, StudiVZ (Germany), Tagged, Tuenti (mostly in Spain), Myspace, Xanga and
XING in parts of Europe; Hi5 and Orkut in South and Central America; just to name a few have large following in their respective
countries and regions.
Getting started with a
Social Networking Site is easy, all you have to do is
CONNECT, start networking, invite your friends to follow you and encourage them to do the same.