Social network- an interactive multi-user website, the content of which is filled by the network members themselves. The site is an automated social environment that allows you to communicate with a group of users united by a common interest. These include thematic forums, especially industry ones, which have been actively developing in recent years.

Communication is done through the web service of internal mail or instant messaging.

Structure

And if LinkedIn was created with the aim of establishing/maintaining business contacts, then the owners of MySpace and Facebook relied primarily on satisfying the human need for self-expression. Indeed, in accordance with Maslow's pyramid, it is self-expression that is the highest human need, ahead of even recognition and communication. Social networks have become a kind of Internet haven, where everyone can find a technical and social basis for creating their virtual "I". At the same time, each user got the opportunity not only to communicate and create, but also to share the fruits of their creativity with multi-million audience any social network.

Largest networks

In different regions of the world, the popularity of different social networks varies. So, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn networks are more popular and widespread in North America;
Nexopia - in Canada;
Bebo - in the UK;
Facebook, Hi5, dol2day - in Germany;
Tagged.com ( English), XING and Skyrock - in different countries Europe;
Public Broadcasting Service, Orkut, Facebook and Hi5 in South and Central America (55% of Brazilian network users prefer Orkut);
Friendster, Multiply, Orkut, Xiaonei and Cyworld - in Asia (Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore).

Facebook (750,000,000 ), MySpace (255,000,000 ), Twitter (200,000,000 ), Vkontakte (150,000,000 ), Windows Live Spaces (120,000,000 ), Habbo Hotel (121,000,000 ), Friendster (90,000,000 ), Hi5 (80,000,000 ), Tagged.com (70,000,000 ).

English-speaking Russian-speaking

• My network

• Connect (yes Russian-language interface)
• exSlife (there is a Russian-language interface)

• Vseti (there is a Russian-language interface)

• Hayland (there is a Russian and English interface)
• Kuku (there is a Russian-language interface)

• Draugiem.lv
• ONE.LV

Subspecies

Service social networks allow users to unite online around their common interests, hobbies or on various occasions. For example, some sites provide services through which users can post public access personal information needed to find partners. Examples: LinkedIn , VKontakte .

Commercial social networks are focused on supporting business transactions and building people's trust in brands based on their opinions about the product, how to make it better, etc., thereby allowing consumers to participate in product promotion and increase their awareness.

Advertising

For advertisers, social networks provide unique opportunities direct contact with consumers. Every day, millions of users are talking about companies, their products and services, sharing their opinions and impressions. As a result, a single member of the network community can ruin (or vice versa) the reputation of a company with a multi-million dollar turnover.

The social media advertising market is growing steadily. In 2007, according to eMarketer, it reached $1.225 billion. When compiling the report, eMarketer experts took into account all types of advertising placed on social networks, including display, contextual and video advertising, as well as the costs of marketing projects in which marketers create profiles for their products and brands on social networks. In addition, for the first time, spending on widgets and apps is included in the forecasts. According to a recent study by eMarketer, total social media advertising revenue in 2011 will reach $5.54 billion According to eMarketer's forecasts, the size of the social media advertising market will double by 2013.

Currently the greatest interest companies in sectors such as consumer goods, liquor manufacturers, automakers, and entertainment companies are showing to social networks. Consumer brands have not been aggressively advertising on the Internet until recently, but for 2009 many of them have budgeted for social media marketing.

The growth of advertising in social networks leads to pulling budgets. Such popular advertising platforms as search networks, websites of major newspapers and magazines, online media, are now forced to cut advertising budgets or adapt to the realities of Web 2.0, optimizing their sites for social media functionality.

dangers

Many people do not understand that the information they post on social networks can be found and used by anyone, including not necessarily with good intentions. Information about social network participants can be found by their employers, parents, children, former or current wives or husbands, debt collectors, criminals, law enforcement and so on.

For example, there is a case when a criminal was looking for outwardly similar women, killed them and sold their apartments.

There is a known case of manifestation of psychosomatic disorders on the basis of dependence on communication in social networks. In Belgrade, user Svetlana Pavlović ended up in a psychiatric clinic after her social media post Facebook networks did not arouse interest among her friends. The doctors of the clinic called this case "Svetlana's syndrome", explaining the patient's behavior as ordinary stress from the dissatisfaction of the individual's social needs in the modern world.

Some employers prohibit the use of social networks - not only to save money, but also to prevent information from leaking.

D. Boyd, based on survey materials in 16 US states, concluded that there are two main “fears” caused by social networks: sexual harassment and confidentiality of information. Content analysis of periodicals in Denmark allowed M. Larsen to compile a list of the most frequently mentioned problems in connection with social networks, which include: sexual violence and pedophilia, intimidation and harassment, threats and violence, the spread of nationalist ideas. K. Fuchs in the course of an online survey of German and Austrian students received the following list of risks: data confidentiality, spam, the possibility of losing personal information, creating a negative image, Internet addiction. S.V. Bondarenko, based on the study of virtual network communities in the south of Russia, concluded that there are the following forms of manifestation of deviant behavior: hacking, violation of secrecy, defamation, cyberterrorism, computer pedophilia. A survey conducted on the SU-HSE portal showed that, according to the respondents, the networks “drag out” and take too much time, crowd out real communication, and provide “excessive communication and information”. “Privacy issues,” the report mentions, “are of less concern to social media users. Most of these fears are related to easy accessibility. contact information for spammers, and not with the work of special services.

Applications

social software- this is wide range software systems, allowing users to interact and share data. This method of computer-mediated interaction has become popular with the advent of social sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Odnoklassniki.ru, Flickr and YouTube media sites, eBay commercial sites.

Many of these applications have General characteristics like: open APIs, service-oriented design, the ability to host data and media files remotely. Such applications are commonly referred to as Web 2.0 systems.

Within social software, two groups of software tools can be distinguished: communication and interactive.

Communication tools are used to record, store and present communication data, most often in text form, but increasingly in audio and video formats.

Interactive tools are used to support data-mediated (different media formats) interaction between individual users and their groups. Unlike communication tools, the emphasis is on supporting the connectivity of users and communication mechanisms between them. In contrast to communication tools, which are usually asynchronous, interactive tools are predominantly synchronous, allowing users to interact in real time (as in the case of Internet telephony, video chats, etc.) or almost synchronously (instant messaging services, text chats etc.).

Can be called following examples software systems related to social software:

• Instant messaging systems (IM - Instant messaging) allow you to communicate with another user over the network in real time (in a relatively secure mode). The most popular of them include Skype, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, Miranda IM. Business-oriented systems include IBM Lotus Sametime, Microsoft Messenger, and Jabber.
• Internet Relay Chat (IRC - Internet Relay Chat) allows several users to communicate simultaneously in real time.
• Internet forums have replaced electronic conferences (predating the WWW). A forum user can create a new "topic" that is available to others. Other users can view the topic and leave their comments in sequential recording mode.
• Web blogs, or blogs for short, can be thought of as personal online journals of individual users. The blog owner can post posts to his journal, while other users (readers) can leave comments on them.
• Wikis, or simply wikis, are essentially websites whose content can be edited by site visitors. Most famous example- Wikipedia.

IDC experts predict that the market for social media marketing and business applications will grow in the coming years. "Social media is getting more and more popular and there are applications for a variety of purposes that will drive the growth of this market," said Rachel Happe, research manager at IDC. - We expect that soon there will be popular apps for various marketing companies and firms, as well as corporate applications.

In addition, the report states that the growth of the social networking application market will slow down only by 2011.

see also

Notes

With the spread of the Internet, more and more various users there are questions affecting social networks - what is it and how do they differ from other sites. The most correct answer to them would be to define such networks as platforms for building between people who share certain interests, activities, or have real connections outside the Internet. As a rule, the functionality of a social network is to provide each user with his personal profile, in the ability to create links with other accounts, as well as in a number of additional services.

Thus, social networks on the Internet are sites that provide services that allow people to create a public profile, add a list of users with whom to share various information and keep in touch. Most of these resources have a means of user interaction through, for example, instant messaging.

Social networks - what is it today?

These sites are now diversified and include new information and communication tools such as photo/video sharing and blogging. In addition, on the basis of many social networks there are so-called Internet communities that unite people according to narrower interests and preferences. Regardless of the original purpose, social networks allow users to exchange ideas, photos, messages, activities, events, communicate with different people and so on.

What is their main difference?

Basically, these services unite people according to various classifying criteria - former schools, universities, places of work, hobbies, and so on. Each country has the most popular social network, the formations in which (groups, publics, communities) are unique in accordance with local traditions. In addition, some services have spread around the world and have become popular among users in most countries (including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.).

History of social networks

To fully answer the question "social networks - what is it?", you need to familiarize yourself with the history of their appearance. Initially, to ensure communication between network users, such services as Usenet, ARPANET, mailing lists and bulletin boards were introduced. Many prototype social networking features have been present in online services such as America Online, Prodigy, CompuServe, ChatNet, and a few others.

Services more similar to modern ones began to appear in world wide Web in the form of generalized online communities like Theglobe.com (in 1995), Geocities (1994) and Tripod.com (1995). Many of these early resources focused on bringing people together and communicating through chats, as well as encouraging users to share information and ideas through personal pages, providing easy-to-use publishing tools and free or low-cost hosting. Subsequently, social networks appeared on the Internet, using a different approach, connecting people through Email and messaging. The first such service in the world was Classmates.com.

Most up-to-date services

In the late 1990s, user profiles became the centerpiece of social media, allowing users to build "friend" lists and search for other users with similar interests. New operating principles for these services were developed in the late 1990s, and sites began to try to promote a better user experience. This new generation of social media flourished with the advent of SixDegrees.com in 1997, followed by Makeoutclub (2000) and Friendster (2002), and soon became part of the Internet mainstream. Friendster was followed by MySpace and LinkedIn (a social network for workers). Facebook was launched in 2004. It soon became the largest social network in the world.

What services are the most popular today?

Facebook is a social networking site headquartered in the US, in Menlo Park, California. As mentioned above, this website was launched in 2004 along with its college dorm roommates. The founders initially limited the site's visitors to Harvard students only, but later made it available to many other students. Since 2006, this project has become available to everyone who has reached the age of 13.

After registering on the site, users can create a profile, add other users as friends, exchange messages, make status updates, add photos, share videos, and receive notifications from friends. In addition, users can join interest groups and categorize their friends in lists, such as "People from work" or "Close friends". Facebook has over 1.44 billion active users as of March 2015.

Blogs and business website

Twitter is an online service that allows users to post and read short messages 140 characters, called tweets. Registered users can read and write tweets, unregistered users can only read. Users access Twitter through the website interface, SMS, or the Twitter app. mobile device. Office of Twitter Inc. based in San Francisco and has over 25 branches worldwide. In May 2015, Twitter had over 500 million users, of which over 302 million are active.

LinkedIn is a business-oriented service. In other words, employees and employers. Founded in December 2002 and launched on May 5, 2003, it is mainly used for professional communication. In 2006, LinkedIn was expanded to 20 million members. As of June 2013, LinkedIn reported over 259 million users in over 200 countries.

The most famous social networks in Russia

VK (originally VKontakte) is Russia's largest social network. It is available in several languages, but is especially popular among Russian-speaking users, in particular, in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Like other similar social and entertainment networks, VKontakte allows users to send messages to each other publicly or privately, create groups, pages and events, share images, audio and video, and play browser-based games. As of November 2014, the service had 280 million accounts.

"Odnoklassniki" (or OK.ru) is a search site former classmates and old friends. It is popular in Russia and other former Soviet republics. The site currently claims to have over 200 million registered users and 45 million daily unique visitors. This resource has been around for eight years.

Livejournal

Forecast and development

This article gave a detailed answer to the following question: "Social networks - what is it?". Currently, there are new and new resources similar to those listed above, but every year it is more and more difficult for them to withstand competition and become leaders.

There are special sites on the Internet, the meaning of which is to unite people. Through them, you can chat, share photos, listen to music, watch videos, play games and much more. Such resources are called social networks.

Such sites can be either a specific focus (for example, only the publication of their own poems), or without it.

We can say that their meaning is to even inexperienced user was able to solve a problem. For example, publish your photos or post a video on the Internet. But this is too simplistic.

For example, I recently went on vacation to the sea and brought a lot of cool photos from there. I want to show them to friends, relatives, colleagues. Social networks allow you to do this very quickly: I just add pictures there and those to whom I wanted to show them see them immediately.

How it works

First you need to go to such a site and register. This is a free procedure - you just need to answer a few questions.

Immediately after registration is issued personal page. Well, then, as they say, it's a matter of technology - we publish information and exchange it.

Choose Weather Dating Celebrities Culinary Children's Men's Women's Family Fashion Garden My Home

Select Jobs Business Banking Payments Accounting Insurance Transport Construction Communication Forex Trading Delivery

Choose Sports Interesting Congratulations Unknown Technology Medicine Education Art Food Military Patriot

Select Cinema Photo Video Files Music Movies Games Poster Programs Computers Mobile

Choose Auto Space Reviews Fun Tickets Hotels Animals FAQ Entertainment Travel Tour Operators

Choose Unisex American Chinese Brand Clothing Shoes Bags Beauty Decoration Sports Products Furniture Home Furnishing Discounts Gifts Flowers Toys Baby Pharmacy Books/CD/DVD Appliances Electronics Building Auto Parts Home & Garden Pet Supplies Fishing

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Main Top Useful Most visited Popular Media Business Internet

• Social network

• In contact with

  In contact with - universal remedy to communicate and find friends and classmates, which is used daily by tens of millions of people. We want friends, classmates, classmates, neighbors and colleagues to always stay in touch.

  Attendance: 15 | Clicks: 2565

• Instagram

  Attendance: 16 | Clicks: 2130

• Tumblr

  Tumblr is a microblogging service with social networking elements that allows users to post text messages, images, videos, links, quotes and audio recordings to their tumbllog, a short blog. Post whatever you want. Share photos, videos, quotes, chats, links and text entries.

  Attendance: 66 | Transitions: 1979

• Badoo

  Fill your life: chat, flirt, meet and have fun! Among millions of users, find those who you like. Chat with new friends! Badoo is already the world's largest and fastest growing social network for meeting new people.

  Attendance: 949 | Clicks: 2442

• Mirtesen

  Attendance: 2016 | Clicks: 2097

• Foursquare

  Foursquare helps you and your friends discover exciting new places and maximum benefit spend time in each one. Get personalized recommendations, find what you're looking for and use hints and special offers wherever you are!

  Attendance: 2261 | Clicks: 696

• 2ch.hk

  Two.h is a system of forums where you can communicate quickly and freely, where any point of view has the right to life. There is no registration and no signing is required, although this does not relieve you of the need to follow the rules. All forums (except /B/red), and their list is below, have their own clearly limited topics. In a word, everything that is not prohibited by the rules of a single forum and relates to its subject matter is allowed on this forum.

  Attendance: 3388 | Clicks: 919

• surfbird

  Attendance: 18756 | Clicks: 550

• MillionStatus

  Most cool statuses for classmates, new and funny statuses Vkontakte, statuses about love, life and mood. Only the best and new statuses for icq or qip.

  Attendance: 32677 | Clicks: 569

• Get Styles

  The service allows you to easily and quickly change your theme for the social network VKontakte, without any specific knowledge! Over 800 different designs, themes. Choose any!

  Attendance: 34685 | Clicks: 369

• Nekto.me

  Attendance: 42384 | Clicks: 1024

• PinME

  Attendance: 43440 | Clicks: 709

• Full of energy

  Attendance: 57944 | Clicks: 447

• eNeighbors

  Neighbors marked many places. Very different, believe me. Landmarks around the world, illegal dumps, cities and towns, secrets. But why did they do it? Why are these places discussed?

  Attendance: 150575 | Clicks: 536

• Classmates

  Attendance: 170349 | Clicks: 1688

• Friend around

  Convenient service to chat and find new friends, which will show who is next to you. Here you can download the FriendAround application to your phone or computer for free.

  Attendance: 203127 | Clicks: 1003

• Nirvana.FM

  Attendance: 225327 | Clicks: 637

• FileCloud

  FileCloud.me - social network synchronization service! Upload, copy and sync your photos and files from different social networks. networks in 1 click. Do you want to conveniently upload or download VKontakte music with a program? Copy all your albums and photos from facebook to classmates? Synchronize files in all social networks with each other and with your computer?

  Attendance: 313060 | Clicks: 253

• netlog

  Netlog is a young community through which users can keep in touch with their social network and expand it. Netlog has the ability to create your own own page with a blog, upload photos, watch videos, find events and play games.

  Attendance: 316228 | Clicks: 320

• flirchi

  Attendance: 575675 | Clicks: 882

• Kolkhoz No

  Attendance: 586117 | Clicks: 941

• pluso

  Pluso - the most popular social buttons in Russia. By visiting the pages of sites, share interesting information with friends on social networks. Many pages can be mailed, bookmarked, or printed

  Attendance: 970108 | Clicks: 340

• The world is me

  Worldis.me is a network for comfortable communication, with rich communication and convenient control. Read and speak out: opinions, blogs with photos, videos and music. Chat: video chat, group chat, dating service Invitations. View and show: photo and video. Listen: music and online radio. Groups and communities. Custom online stores. Everything is absolutely free.

  Attendance: 1029674 | Clicks: 865

• i-Worker

  iWorker.ru is the most democratic platform in the Russian segment of the Internet for building relationships between people who are interested in studying, working and careers, where professionals can earn with their knowledge. Every day, users of our portal actively exchange information about everything related to professional and personal development - from training courses and lessons to information about companies and employees.

  Attendance: 1267754 | Clicks: 268

• UpToLike

  Service social activity Uptolike.ru allows you to install social media buttons in one click. Provide your users convenient way share your website information in VKontakte, Facebook, Twitter, Odnoklassniki and other accounts.

  Status catalog

  Attendance: 6761274 | Clicks: 319

• MegaMix

  MegaMixGroup International advertising and social portal. The MegaMix social network is a useful platform for finding acquaintances and friends, pleasant communication and useful pastime!

  Attendance: 7592391 | Clicks: 546

• Eco World

  ECO-MIR.org is an ecological social network that unites people and all areas that promote an ecological lifestyle. You will get to know more people who are interested in eco-life, you will find new friends. Look at the set interesting videos helping to live more environmentally and comfortably. You can easily find eco-services and eco-goods for all occasions, and if you have something to offer, millions of people will know about you. All eco-entrepreneurs, eco-groups, eco/ancestral settlements will become available to you.

  Attendance: 19954853 | Clicks: 556

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Social networks with the largest number users

• Created: October, 2010
• Founders: Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger (later joined by others)
• Number of accounts: 200,000,000

Short description: It is said that some normal people use this application to share their photos and videos with friends. However, the tightened guys with an overestimated sense of their own importance were even more delighted with the new lure, which allowed them to share with the whole world the look of their lunch, dinner, carpet, toilet bowl and slippers.

9th place. Classmates

• Created: March, 2006
• Founders: Albert Popkov
• Number of accounts: 205,000,000

Brief description: Odnoklassniki is said to rank first among domestic social networks in terms of the number of downloaded pornography. Also "Odnoklassniki" remembered paid registration from 2008 to 2010 (only a truncated demo version of the account could be opened for free). Average age of users: about 30 years old.

8th place. Tumblr

• Created: 2007
• Founders: David Karp
• Number of accounts: 210,000,000

Short description: social network for bloggers. You write a blog, post pictures and reveal your amazing inner world to others. Your friends do the same. To cheer each other up in this simple matter, you can like and comment on individual elements of personality disclosure.

7th place. Badoo

• Created: November, 2006
• Founders: Andrey Andreev
• Number of accounts: 220,000,000

Short description: perhaps the most popular international dating site, which includes all the elements of a social network.

6th place. LinkedIn

• Created: May, 2003
• Founders: Reid Hoffman
• Number of accounts: 225,000,000

Short description: business social business network. The site interface is available in 20 languages. About 200 representatives are registered in the network various countries. Users have the opportunity to leave a resume, find a job, publish lists of available vacancies, search for information about various enterprises, establish business contacts, share information about upcoming conferences, business meetings, visits, etc. In a word: boredom. And no Frenzy Farm.

5th place. In contact with

Short description: of course, this social network is no worse than others. But it is annoying only because of the significance it plays in the minds of schoolchildren and adolescents: in the most clinical cases, you can admire a real network addiction. Giza ... Tellingly, the creator of the eyelid, Pavel Durov, retired in the spring of 2013 and now has only a “historical” relationship to Vk.

4th place. Sina Weibo

Short description: It is easy to be a popular social network if your homeland is China. Sina Weibo has combined the functions of Facebook and Twitter, targeting a Chinese audience. The Chinese said "Ni hao!" and since then they have been living together. By the way, this is the only social network from our rating that does not have a Russian interface.

3rd place. Twitter

2nd place. Google+

Number of accounts: 540,000,000

Short description: the funny thing is that many of these social media opponents of yours have become involved in the Google+ sect. And it all started harmlessly: by arranging a tempting mailbox from google. Its temptation lies in the following: firstly, it ends with kosher worldwide.com, and secondly, as nice bonus each user gets virtual storage on google drive.

And so you use your mail, upload a couple of photos, put +1 on the publications of your friends and quietly laugh at the losers who have been sucked into social networks.

What is interesting: one of the main principles of its work, Google called privacy (already ridiculous). At the same time, the info that the user posts, sends / receives by mail, directly affects the result. search queries. Google says it's personalization George Orwell says that big Brother watching you O.O