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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

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Facebook (and systems biologists) take note: Network analysis reveals true connections

Facebook (and Systems Biologists) Take Note: Network Analysis Reveals True Connections

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Dec 07, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (9) | comments 8

(PhysOrg.com) -- Facebook figures out that you know Holly, although you haven't seen her in 10 years, because you have four mutual friends -- a good predictor of direct friendship. But sometimes Facebook gets ...


Facebook profiles capture true personality, according to new psychology research

Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry

created Dec 01, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 0

Online social networks such as Facebook are being used to express and communicate real personality, instead of an idealized virtual identity, according to new research from psychologist Sam Gosling at The University of Texas ...


Nokia 6700 slide

New Nokia 6700 slide and Nokia 7230 unveiled

Electronics / Consumer & Gadgets

created Nov 25, 2009 | popularity 3.6 / 5 (5) | comments 0

Nokia today unveiled two new 3G slider phones, the Nokia 6700 slide and Nokia 7230, made for the design-conscious consumer and optimized for socializing and sharing with those closest to you.


Loneliness can be contagious

Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry

created Dec 01, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (4) | comments 4

Loneliness, like a bad cold, can spread among groups of people, research at the University of Chicago, the University of California-San Diego and Harvard shows.


Mathematical models key to tracking gossip, terrorists

Mathematical models key to tracking gossip, terrorists

Other Sciences / Mathematics

created Dec 09, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (4) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Thanks to the Internet and online social networks (OSNs) news and gossip now spread literally like wildfire -- uncontrollably and seemingly without any order. But according to one Ryerson ...


Want privacy on Facebook? Here is how to get some (AP)

Want privacy on Facebook? Here is how to get some

Technology / Internet

created Dec 17, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (3) | comments 0

(AP) -- Over the past week, Facebook has been nudging its users - first gently, then firmly - to review and update their privacy settings.


Message gone viral? Blame it on altruistic, yet image-conscious Internet  'e-mavens'

Message gone viral? Blame it on altruistic, yet image-conscious Internet 'e-mavens'

Other Sciences / Economics

created Nov 26, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (3) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Why do some online ad campaigns go viral while other online marketing messages gather "cyber-dust" on the information superhighway? The key may lie in the motivation of Internet users to email ...


NASA Launches Web Site for Teenagers That Want More Class

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Dec 14, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (3) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA has launched a new Web site created specifically for teenagers that provides teens access to current NASA spacecraft data for use in school science projects, allows them to conduct real experiments with ...


MIT wins Pentagon prize in social networking contest

MIT wins Pentagon prize in social networking contest

Technology / Other

created Dec 07, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (2) | comments 0

A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has won a 40,000-dollar prize for using social networking tools to identify the locations of 10 large weather balloons in a contest sponsored by ...


You may be ready for online ritual suicide with the aid of a new website  that helps you kill your virtual identity

'Anti-social network' aims to be Facebook killer app

Technology / Internet

created Dec 10, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Facebook makes you despair? Social networking makes you want to end it all? You may be ready for online ritual suicide with the aid of a new website that helps you kill your virtual identity.


Swedish service performs your last online wishes (AP)

Swedish service performs your last online wishes

Technology / Internet

created Dec 11, 2009 | popularity 1 / 5 (1) | comments 0

(AP) -- Sunniva Geertinger was devastated when her boyfriend took his life early this year.


HP researchers try to tell you who your friends are

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Dec 17, 2009 | popularity 1 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Most people have scores of contacts, scattered around their mobile phone, e-mail address book and multiple social networking sites. Scientists at Hewlett-Packard can tell you which of those contacts are your closest friends.


For stars, high-tech gaffes hard to hide (AP)

For stars, high-tech gaffes hard to hide

Technology / Internet

created Nov 28, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

(AP) -- So, you fail to take a deep breath and to count to 10 - and you post something you probably shouldn't on Twitter or Facebook, or somewhere else online.


New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo

Facebook, MySpace ban New York sex offenders

Technology / Internet

created Dec 01, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 2

Facebook and MySpace have closed the accounts of 3,533 convicted sex offenders in New York state under a law combating online predators, officials said Tuesday.


This handout image courtesy of Facebook.com, shows founder Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook tops 350 million users, tightens privacy

Technology / Internet

created Dec 02, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Facebook is enhancing privacy controls and eliminating its regional framework for online communities as the Internet's most popular social networking service tops 350 million users.