Social Networking

Social Networking has taken over the media thesedays. We all know that it has helped people re-connect with their friends from childhood to present, but these sites have grown so rapidly overthese years that it has been used by the corporate world as one of their marketing strategies. Now a days whenever we log on to facebook, advertisments are posted all over the homepage; these adverstisments are matched according to the information you post on your profile. Hence, the companies can also pull your contact information easily if you do not change your privacy setting which can get pretty annoying. On the other hand, it is a good marketing strategy for the business because it just takes one like from a person to share it with hundreds of other people in their friend's list. Celebrities use these sites to keep up with their fans which can be good and bad at the same time. It is good because this does not involve a third person: the celebrity interacts with their fan and visa versa in a lot more personal level. On the other hand, all the fans aren't always good, they might use these sites to threaten them.

Moreover, there is a professional social networking site called linkedIn that was launched in May 2003, where most of the CEO's and all these corporate people have joined linkedIn. The article, "Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting by Frank Langfitt" mentions that social networking is the best thing that ever happened in recruiting and such sites also help job hunters market themselves online by setting up profiles, listing work history and specific skills. My point is, people can write you reccomendations and you can connect with these top notch personnel and apply for jobs on these sites. Isn't that amazing? It is, isn't it? But, it might not be so amazing when you have an interview and the interviewer looks at your pictures on these networking sites and judge you even before you know them.

I also read an article that social networking saved a man from being arrested because he had updated his status on facebook while the robbery happened. Funny, but thats what it was written. Take an example of the couple who ran into white house during thanksgiving couple years back. They attended the dinner and uploaded pictures on facebook who were obviously caught later.

Over the coming years, I think social networking sites are going to make a huge impact on the news, corporate world and the features that would help to make people feel even closer to their near and dear ones. You find jobs in these sites today and you never know, you might be giving interviews in these sites in near future. Moreover it was funny to read in the article "Dictionary word of the year: 'Unfriend'"that Oxford defined the word Unfriend as to remove some one from their friend's list on facebook. :)