Mabaloo - Review Social Networking Websites Part II: Facebook

Review Social Networking Websites Part II: Facebook

Written by Deepesh

Another online social networking phenomenon is Facebook. This site is a strange hybrid in the virtual world of social networking.

I was drawn to this site about a year back by a friend of mine who just couldn’t stop talking about it and since then it has continued to grow and amaze me. I know this sounds like a bold statement for a social networking site, but trust me on this.

Let’s provide you with a bit of history about this site:
Facebook was first launched in 2004, created by Mark Zuckerberg. The idea was simple to create a social networking website that allowed users to interact with one another, much like any other social networking website.
Before September 2006, only certain users, from certain academic school were allowed to join the website, and like many my university at the time was not registered, however after September 2006, Facebook was made available to all email addresses.
As of 2006, Facebook had revenues totaling $50 million and employed some 300 people, mostly at their headquarters in Palo Alto.

This website also allows users to register, become members, and connect to other users by searching the online database or through their friends. Members can create their profiles, enumerate about themselves and their interests and hobbies and etc etc.
A member can also become a part of a network , like a book group of people, who have something in common.
Having used myspace and hi5, I had noticed just how easy it was for anyone to view my profile and my pictures, even if I didn't give them permission, now this does have a danger as we all no there are some sick predators looming the internet, and there are thousands of teenagers signed to both myspace and hi5 and can be victims, unaware of a predator. However, Facebook changed that; people could not view your profile and therefore your pictures unless they had been accepted into that person's friends list. In other words, one would have to ask to be invited into someone's lists in order to view their pictures, etc. How clever, I think this is what made Facebook so unique and different as not many social grouping sites offered this type of protection; it made me feel safe that I knew whom exactly was viewing my profile. Besides this, there is a feature called ‘poke’(which could have been appropriately named). Quite simply, if you see someone in a search result and you think you know them but don't want to make a fool of yourself with a message, poke them. This gives them access to your profile for a week, they become aware of your existence and, if they do in fact know you you've successfully been reunited with an old friend. If they don't know you, they ignore the poke and no harm is done. Similarly, you can poke people on your friends list - to remind them that you're there, to nudge them into giving you a call…or for whatever other reason you may want to 'poke' a friend

The two most interesting parts of Facebook are its walls and its array of applications. The wall is like you page, were your friends etc can write messages. Messages wishing you happy birthday, welcoming you to Facebook, reminding you of something you had done or are about to do etc. Its almost like an instant messenger, however you wont get a reply straight away. Writing on your wall is like showing people how popular you are in the community, obviously the more writing you have, the more you use Facebook, and the more fans you have.
This is one of my favourite features. There's literally thousands, of applications to choose from which you can add to your account to spice things up a bit. These range from basic photograph, video, moods applications, through to the ability to give gifts to friends, pledge your allegiance to your favourite TV show with a box to display pictures and quotes, catalogue and rate every book you've ever read (and ‘chuck a book' at friends to recommend they read them too). You can adopt a pet for yourself and your friends to feed and play with (and then race it against your friend's animals), you can draw pictures for a friend's graffiti wall, you can join causes and recruit others to join them too…the possibilities are almost endless. New applications are being created all the time, so there's something to suit most people.

Despite all of this Facebook needs some improvement in the aspect of site navigation. The news and mini-feed can become a bit unnerving until one finds out how to deal with personal settings.

Even though applications are fun, they aren't created by facebook and, if they go wrong, it's on your head for choosing to add it. You can usually tell if an application will have bugs before you add it by checking the facebook page for it - if there are problems you'd usually see a wall full of complaints. Of course, this isn't really a big issue if the application stops working, just click the little x in the box on your profile and choose to delete it.

The Facebook mania has gripped the entire world, except for many schools and offices where such social networking sites have been banned, but still, there is always hope for people to learn.

Cheers.