Social network service focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most social network services are web based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services.
Short explanation of social networking websites and why they are popular. This video comes in an unbranded “presentation quality” version that can be licensed for use in the workplace
Social networking has encouraged new ways to communicate and share information. Social networking websites are being used regularly by millions of people, and it now seems that social networking will be an enduring part of everyday life.
The main types of social networking services are those which contain category divisions (such as former school-year or classmates), means to connect with friends (usually with self-description pages) and a recommendation system linked to trust. Popular methods now combine many of these, with MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn being the most widely used in North America;[2] Nexopia (mostly in Canada);[3] Bebo,[4] Facebook, Hi5, MySpace, dol2day (mostly in Germany), Tagged, XING;[5] and Skyrock in parts of Europe;[6] Orkut, Facebook and Hi5 in South America and Central America;[7] and Friendster, Orkut, Xiaonei and Cyworld in Asia and the Pacific Islands.
Social networks have for several years been the toast of new media. Their principal strength has been an ability to gather tens of millions of unique users. Their main shortcoming, however, has been the inability of several social networks to monetize their volumes of signed-up users.
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Social Networking Lab: Search Engine & Social Media Marketing, B2B and Technology News 