The words are flying around news media more and more everyday: Twitter, Facebook, tweets, social networks, blogs, micro-blogs.
When you see that Ashton Kutcher is battling CNN to gain 1 million Twitter followers, you wonder "What is Twitter?" and "Why does this matter?"
When Facebook announces that there are 200 million active users, you feel like it would be easy to get lost among the faces.
And forget blogs, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, and Myspace.
True, there are many social networking websites out there these days. But the experience doesn't have to be overwhelming or scary.
We have assembled a guide to three popular social networking sites and how you can start using them with little trouble.
So, where to start? How about
Facebook.
Facebook describes itself as “a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers.”
Users sign up and search for people they know. When they find someone, they request to be added as a friend. Once two users are friends on Facebook, they can communicate and share items with each other and keep updated on each other’s lives and activities.
In February of 2004, Harvard University student Mark Zuckerberg launched The Facebook with his college roommates. The site was originally open only to Harvard students, but in March expanded to Columbia, Stanford, and Yale.
In late 2004, the “the” was dropped from the name, making the site officially Facebook. The total number of registered users at the end of 2004 was 1 million.
Originally, Facebook users had to belong to a registered network on the site. The first networks used were Colleges and Universities. In 2005, Facebook launched a high school version, and expanded to include major companies in 2006.
Before the end of that year, Facebook was open to anyone with a valid e-mail address who was 13 or older. The site reached 12 million active users before the end of the year.
On April 8, 2009 Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would reach its 200 millionth user that day.
Internationally, Facebook has surpassed rival MySpace in unique visitors. It is predicted to surpass MySpace in the U.S. this year, making it the number one social network in the United States.
Facebook contains numerous features that have been developed since it started 5 years ago. We’ll start with the basics.
Profile: Where your friends find out who you are. The profile section shows as much or as little information as you like. Your birthday, relationship status, religious views, and political views are the first steps. Then you can dive deeper and share your interests, activities, job information, and favorite movies, books, and quotations. Finish up with an “About Me” description and you’ve got a profile set up.
Status updates: The basic form of communication on Facebook. Doing anything interesting? Have something to share? Maybe a quote, comment, link to a favorite website or video? Share it with your friends in the “What’s on your mind?” box that appears on your front page as well as your profile.
Photos: The most popular Facebook application. If you want to share pictures of your life or fun events, go to your profile and click on the “Photos” tab. There, in the upper right corner, click the button that says “Create an album” and use the easy interface to upload your pictures. After you’ve uploaded them, you can tag your friends that are in the pictures, write captions, and give your album a name. Publish your album and your friends will catch a glimpse of your life!
From there, you can dig around and enjoy more of Facebook’s many features. You can write notes (similar to blogs), comment on your friend’s photos, write on the walls of your friends, even join groups or become fans of products, people, and companies.
But be careful, you may find yourself spending too much time navigating the social network.
So how can you get in on the Facebook action? It’s as easy as clicking
here to go to the main page for the website and entering your basic information on the right side of the page. Click “Sign Up” and you are now a member of the Facebook community.
You can become our fan on Facebook by clicking
here after you've registered!
