What is social networking

Social Networking, Forums and Blogs

We all express our thoughts and ideas through various mediums in our everyday life. The internet has become a dominant means of communication across the globe. It has evolved into a huge graffiti board where anyone can stick up their creations, for feedback and comments from people from all walks of life.

Social networking websites provide a platform to their users to build social relations on the internet. These are primarily services that allow users to come together and share their thoughts. You can post your personal information on these social networking websites and create a personalized profile for everyone to see. You can state your name, age, sex, location, interests, likes, dislikes etcetera and share it with other users on the site. You can post pictures and videos and keep your profile updated.

You can not only add old friends and family to your network, but also make friends from around the globe and get closer to them as most social networking services provide facilities such as email and instant messaging. You can also use social networks to develop business relationships. Social networks have truly redefined and revolutionized the World Wide Web.

Blog is the short name for ‘web logs’. They work as online journals or diaries. There are many free blog services on the Internet today and anyone can create a blog. The owner of the blog can post a message or article periodically on the blog and other users can comment on the blog entry. Different users maintain a blog for different reasons and hence, the subjects vary accordingly. Most people generally share the happenings of their daily lives and express their creativity while others like to share their views on popular topics like media and politics. Blogs are a great way to publish your mind on the Internet.

An internet forum basically functions like a message board, where users can post topics of their choice and all other users can post their own comments on it, one after the other, in a linear fashion. Thus, a thread of posts continues under one heading. Forums may be moderated to allow only certain content to be made public, to maintain the quality of the forum.

Forums are generally divided into topics and subtopics. Users can also include images and files in their posts, which is a common feature in most forums. Users can also quote another user’s post and format their text. Some forums also provide spelling and grammar checks. In simple words, forums are the electronic equivalent of bulletin boards.

Services like blogs, forums and social networking are an extension of one of our most important necessities—the necessity to communicate: our ideas, plans, expertise and dreams. The urge to socialize is inherent in all of us. These platforms simply extend the sociable instinct online, where there is virtually infinite audience.

A Computer Guy

Social Networking, Forums and Blogs