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Social network service

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A 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.

Social networking has encouraged new ways to communicate and share information. Social networking websites are being used regularly by millions of people.

While it could be said that email and websites have most of the essential elements of social network services, the idea of proprietary encapsulated services has gained popular uptake recently.

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 Facebook widely used worldwide; MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn being the most widely used in North America; Nexopia (mostly in Canada); Bebo, Hi5, StudiVZ (mostly in Germany), Decayenne, Tagged, XING;, Badoo and Skyrock in parts of Europe; Orkut and Hi5 in South America and Central America; and Friendster, Multiply, Orkut, Wretch, Xiaonei and Cyworld in Asia and the Pacific Islands.

There have been some attempts to standardize these services to avoid the need to duplicate entries of friends and interests (see the FOAF standard and the Open Source Initiative), but this has led to some concerns about privacy.

For more information about Social network service, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.


News tagged with social networking sites

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Twitter to overhaul user list seen as partisan

Technology / Internet

created Nov 17, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

(AP) -- Social-networking site Twitter plans to end a service that links prominent message posters with new users, a service that was criticized in California because of perceived unfairness toward GOP gubernatorial ...


Retailers use social media to advertise deals

Technology / Internet

created Nov 12, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

(AP) -- You may want to check Facebook and Twitter before heading to the mall the day after Thanksgiving.


Drug industry presses FDA to allow more online ads (AP)

Drug industry presses FDA to allow more online ads

Medicine & Health / Medications

created Nov 11, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 1

(AP) -- As federal regulators take their first tentative steps toward policing the wild west of medical information online, pharmaceutical companies are pressing their case to market drugs via Google, Twitter ...


Members of an Australian college have provoked outrage after they launched a "pro-rape" group on website Facebook

Australian students 'pro-rape' Facebook scandal

Technology / Internet

created Nov 10, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0

Members of an elite Australian college linked to Sydney University provoked outrage Tuesday after it was revealed they had set up a "pro-rape" group on social networking site Facebook.


Tagged.com settles with NY, Texas in invite fight

Technology / Business

created Nov 09, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

(AP) -- The social networking site Tagged.com has adopted reforms on the use of invitation e-mails after an attorney general alleged that the Web site essentially stole the identities of some 60 million Internet users.


Twitter user list favors Dems in Calif. gov race

Technology / Internet

created Oct 27, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 1

(AP) -- When people sign up for Twitter, the popular social-networking site presents a list of suggested users to follow, driving significant traffic to sports figures, celebrities, politicians and other prominent posters.


Berlin Twitter Wall lets people write on wall

Technology / Internet

created Oct 21, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

(AP) -- The Berlin Wall is gone, but people can still tag their memories on it online.


Newspaper column sparks Twitter rage, complaints (AP)

Singer death column sparks Twitter rage

Technology / Internet

created Oct 19, 2009 | popularity 3 / 5 (1) | comments 0

(AP) -- Britain's press watchdog said Monday it had received a record 21,000 complaints about a newspaper column on the death of Boyzone singer Stephen Gately after critics used Twitter to brand the article ...


Monitoring social networking sites could prevent suicide

Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry

created Oct 14, 2009 | popularity 1 / 5 (1) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Analysing posts on social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook could help to prevent suicide, according to two Victoria University researchers.


Twitter co-founder Biz Stone says Twitter is still looking for ways to make money despite taking the world by storm

Twitter still seeking ways to cash in

Technology / Internet

created Oct 14, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Micro-blogging pioneer Twitter is still looking for ways to make money despite taking much of the world by storm, co-founder Biz Stone said.


Can social networking help consumers get healthier?

Other Sciences / Social Sciences

created Oct 13, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Can social networking sites help people make wise health decisions? A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research says it depend on people's willingness to take action on the information they gain from the sites.


Twitter's becoming an important tool for job seekers and employers

Technology / Internet

created Oct 09, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

As the Internet's microblogging superhero Twitter continues to balloon with 40 million users worldwide and countless apps like Twhirl and TweetDeck, the Twittersphere has been overrun lately with refugees from the real world's ...


More than half of US companies do not allow employees to visit social networks such as Facebook while at work

No Facebook at work in most US companies

Technology / Internet

created Oct 08, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

More than half of US companies do not allow employees to visit social networks such as Facebook, MySpace or Twitter while at work, according to a new survey.


Hot micro-blogging service Twitter was experiencing technical problems on Thursday

Twitter goes down, users 'tweet' about it

Technology / Internet

created Oct 08, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Twitter went down on Thursday prompting devotees of the micro-blogging service to share how they coped without it.


Are mobiles and social networking sites changing the way we behave?

Are mobiles and social networking sites changing the way we behave?

Technology / Other

created Oct 08, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- How dependent have we become on mobile phones, and are social networking sites changing the nature of our relationships with other people? A three-year Oxford University study is to address ...