There are hundreds of Social Networking Sites — places on the Internet where people meet in cyberspace to chat, socialize, debate, and network. Regardless of the language, culture, or the nation where the Social Networking Site originates, all of them share the same feature of helping people connect with others who have similar interests.
Social Networking Sites are immensely popular with teenagers and young adults. These sites have become the in-place to meet people and begin to explore something more than chatting online. On these sites, the young person begins by describing his or her likes and dislikes in movies, television programs, books, and music. They post a photo of themselves and upload music files. They give general information on age, sex, and city of residence. Each visitor has a screen name that protects their identity.
The Origins of Social Networking Sites
One of the first social networking websites, launched in 1997, was SixDegrees.com. This site started the trend of enabling users to create personal profiles and make lists of their friends. Two years after the fall of SixDegrees, LiveJournal offered authors options to add a list of friends to their profile page. Other early social networking sites include Friendster and online dating service Ryze. MySpace launched in 2003. However, the site didn't start drawing the attention of the masses until well into 2004, due largely in part to MySpace changes that allowed teenagers to join the social network.
Social Networks Online Today
Social networking sites are growing by the day. comScore Media Metrix pegs traffic to MySpace.com at 114 million global visitors in June 2007. Facebook.com saw 52.2 million visitors and Bebo.com attracted 18.2 million visitors. Not only are established social networking groups growing, but new social networking services are launched with more frequency also. One of the more impressive newcomers is ECPod.com which combines photo, video, blog, document and etc, all in one place. To this end our list of services is by no means a complete list, but it certainly can help you find a good networking site in which to create a profile and start socializing.
