Social Growth of the Internet

Social Growth of the Internet 

Social Networking has revolutionised the internet. With the emergence of websites like Twitter and Facebook the internet has changed for good. Even though these sites may not last forever, social networking is something that will be around for a long time. An early form of social networking sites are forums. These, like any other type of social networking platform allow people with similar common interests to communicate with each other. 


Facebook

Since its year of release Facebook has dramatically changed the internet. Now the web isn’t filled with millions of anonymous people, it is instead filled with friends, friends of friends and a host of different groups. There are 3 main ways in which Facebook has changed the internet. 

1.      Finding People
You can easily search for people on Facebook. When you type in their name you can search through a list of people that all have the same name as the person you’re looking for. By using profile pictures you can easily find the correct person you are searching for. 

If you were trying to use a search engine to find your friend then you would end up sifting through thousands of pages that could only have some small reference to somebody with the same name. This is not an efficient method. 

2.      Privacy

We post a lot of pictures on sites like Facebook. Anything from nights out to days at school.
Facebook however, allows privacy settings to be applied to your account. These settings allow you to determine who accesses the information, so you can confine things to be seen by only friends, friends of friends or by the whole internet.

However one of the biggest issues of Facebook is their view on privacy. In the past few years, there have been times where the privacy of members has been compromised and all of their information has been on show for the whole internet. This has been seen not too long ago when you could report Mark Zuckerberg’s profile picture and access his private photos. 

3.      Connections

Many different websites have links to Facebook. Most of these being a like button on a particular article or picture. You can look at thousands of websites and see how many people have liked the article including your friends. 

These likes then contribute towards your Facebook profile where your friends can see the articles or images you have liked recently. 

Twitter 

Twitter sees over 300 million tweets a day. A tweet is just a little message about what you or your organisation is doing. 

Twitter has a major community following it because it can be accessed through almost any connectable device which makes it is easy to use and follow with just basic functions from technologies. 

The way in which twitter has been made successful is that it connects ordinary people like you and me to celebrities and anyone else using the follower system. This is interesting in the eyes of 1.6 billion people following them each day.

Socially, Twitter has had a large impact on the internet because of the huge member base that it has gained since its release. Many celebrities use twitter as a way of sharing what they are doing with their fans. Due to this it gives the opportunity for stars to communicate with absolutely anyone. 

YouTube

YouTube’s slogan “Broadcast Yourself” has been one of the most successful catchphrases because it’s exactly what people did. 

YouTube has a massive fan base and has had a huge impact on the way we receive and distribute information between ourselves. Over the years it has maintained its spot as the largest video sharing website since it was founded in 2005. 

The thing that makes YouTube great is the features that it offers. It allows anyone and everyone to upload whatever they want as long as it is within the guidelines set. This has changed how people use the internet for their social life, because many users have channels dedicated to Vlogging. These people frequently post videos that share their opinion about current events and interests. Vlogging has also seen an increase in viewers because of social networking sites where links can be posted.  

YouTube has helped the music industry by spreading artists work instantly across the world and making stars such as Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga. The music industry has definitely seen a rise in the popularity of music since Vevo was introduced with people now listening to a larger variety of music. YouTube has inspired an active audience, we don’t just read about the news but people now post videos portraying their opinions through a variety of video genres.  

Facts and Figures 
Between 2008 and 2011 millions of videos have been uploaded in many different categories, here are some figures since launch. 

• Total number of YouTube videos -- Over 120 Million
• Number of videos uploaded per day -- About 200 Thousand
• Time required to see all the videos -- Over 600 Years
• Number of videos watched daily -- Over 3 Billion
• Amount of content uploaded every minute -- 48 Hours
• Number of accounts on YouTube -- Over 300 Million and Rising 

Skype

Skype was launched in 2003 and is a type of Voice over Internet Protocol software. It allows people to make phone calls around the world and is a totally free piece of software, so it now boasts the largest number of users in the VOIP arena, with 663 million registered people as of September 2011. 

Not only can people call their friends and relatives for free, but they can video call them which gives the whole process a more personal feel and this makes it more desirable for an older generation to talk to family. 

Skype and all other VOIP software have helped to develop the internet socially because they allow anyone to talk to everyone with no limitations. You can call about business, to have a chat with a friend, or even hold a group conversation. VOIP has made its way into many different parts of the internet and is a great piece of software for social interaction.

Email

Email has been one of the largest contributors towards the social growth of the internet since it was invented in 1973. Over the years it has been upgraded to the services that we have today. Emails allow people to send messages anywhere in the world instantly and with very little cost.

When Email was first introduced we were only able to send simple text based messages to each other. However, we are now able to do so much more with the technology than what we used to be able to. We are now able to attach files, and even use basic formatting features to make our emails look better. 

Socially, Emails have changed the internet because of the things that they can do. We can now easily share news articles with each other, forward messages containing useful information and even write to pen pals without needing pen and paper.

Online Gaming

One of the biggest growths of the internet for social use is online gaming through the three major institutions Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. The games designers had a vision of people playing games with each other from across the world and communicating as they did so. 

The demand for online gaming is massive, currently Xbox Live has 20 Million users alone and PlayStation Network has 17 million. A lot of games currently offer co-operative play and it is now modern to give the option of team playing over the internet. You can group up with friends to be against other people from around the world, or join a team of random people.

Online gaming has had a great social impact because many people make friends with those they meet and can play with them regularly. However, online gaming is very anonymous and people can hide behind their screen name which generally makes this part of the social internet to be a very verbally abusive place.

Conclusion
Overall we think that these contributors have increased the use of the internet in massive numbers due to the social aspects that they bring. There has been a huge increase in the number of different ways in which we can interact over the internet and this can be seen in everyday life.