Social Nets

Over the course of the past few years, no one would have ever thought of the big, great boom that both the geographical world and the virtual world is currently experiencing. In a globe that’s dominated by oceans that keep us from physically seeing each other, mankind seemed to have found an imaginary medium where globalization seems to be completely within reach. Welcome to the world of social networking.

We all know how the internet was first made to improve communications within a certain group – some group I will disclose simply because I am not in the position to be able to provide the perfect facts. However, we also know how this plan of inter-connectivity has grown – and yes, it has grown big.

From the standard, hard-coded, table-based static layout sites, to the more complex framework-driven dynamic sites, the internet has become so diverse that even three-year-olds can easily access the latest videos on YouTube – on their own. It is only in cyberspace where you can find more information than your home encyclopedia set, and even that is an understatement.

However, it was only a few years back where people actually used the internet for “personal” use. Being generally used by companies for promotion, information, and advertising then, the internet is now laden with what the general public would refer to as Social Networks. From the huge success of Facebook, to the old-and-tried Friendster, most of us as at least been part of one for at least once in our cyber lives.

Social Nets – How It Works Together

When the internet was still laden with company websites and e-mail applications, the client-server relationship was mainly about business and work. It couldn’t appeal to the general public simply because, for a fact, not everyone engages in business online and would rather prefer doing business on a personal level. Aside from the feature of creating your own e-mail username and mIRC ID, the internet lacked the one reason for enticing people to go online – personalization.

Have you ever come to wonder about the difference of the nature of websites then, and the features they offer today? Most of them allow you to build your own personal profile. They give you the option to upload your personal portrait, and even give you your own profile page where you can view your details in one place. I can vividly remember e-mail web applications giving us this feature, but a few people decided to take this feature a bit more further – and boy, was it genius.

Because the features of building a personal profile were in place, someone must have thought to himself and realized that what if there was inter-connectivity between these online profiles? And while they’re at it, why not throw in a few more customization functions and an option to leave testimonials for everyone else to see? Things like these add up to user experience – the feeling of being involved in what you’re doing and not just sitting back and feel like an audience just like everyone else.

That’s One Big Net There

Facebook, Multiply, Plurk – these words are just some of the biggest names in the world of Social Networking, and the one reason they stay in front of the pack is that they are able to give their users what only a few in real life feel like they actually have – power. Add a few hundred friends here, post up a status message describing your current state, and it will take all of two seconds for your one hundred friends to know what you’re doing. Do you see where I’m going? Now, a few of those hundred friends realize that they actually have something to say about that status update. Have a dynamic textbox right below that update, take all of five seconds to say what you’re thinking, and the rest of those hundred friends will also know what your thoughts are.

The scope here is just too large, too wide to even begin tracing. And it is this nature of social networking sites that draw people to them. It isn’t about being cool, or having the most citations on your profile. In fact, if we take a look at it, it all goes back to one of the most basic human aspect – and that being we humans are naturally social beings. To interact with one another is both a want and a need, and for something that consists of silicon chips and copper wires, the internet has touched that string and made the experience even more exciting.

The Person and the Personality

It’s still a fresh new world that cyberspace is slowly becoming. The scope of the internet today is just too large that a professor of mine used to remind us that the internet can no longer be shut down due to it’s immensity. And if we find a way to break those geographical barriers and create a system that’s designed to tap into the human potential for socializing?

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