3.5 SOCIAL NETWORKING

 A social network is a network of individuals which have some sort of interdependence on each other. This interdependence may be in the form of friendship, kinship, common causes and so on. A Social networking service may be offered through a web site on the Internet. Some of the popular social networking services are – Orkut, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedln, MySpace, Friend Finder, Yahoo! 360, Classmates and many more. 

You need to register to a social networking service in order to use it. Some of the features provided by these services are:

 Creation of a profile page of your own informing others about the information that you would like to share about you.

 Viewing of profile pages of others.

 Creating your own network of friends.

 Searching online friends.

 Putting your albums online for your friends.

 Sharing your thoughts and experiences.

 Sharing of audio and video may be through youTube – a popular website where you can put your videos for general public viewership.

The Social networking technologies have opened up a new way for information and knowledge sharing. Social networking allows instantaneous communication of information to large audience. It helps in generating large scale public response to emergency situations that may occur during disaster. One such use of social networking and mobile technology is cited in the further readings, where these tools were helpful for emergency rescues, and gathering and disseminating real-time information by government agencies, in the case of typhoon disaster in Taiwan. 

The figure 3.14 shows a screen of common social networking services :

Social networking sometimes can be potentially unsafe. You are advised not to put any confidential information about you on such sites. You must use such services for good reasons and not misuse them. Some basic security policies for such sites are:

 Please do not share your account related information such as username and password.

 Always scan your computer for viruses and spyware.

 Do not add strangers as your friends about whom you are not sure about this/her identity.

 Always make sure to sign out once you have done your intended activities

 Restrict the individuals who may see your profile.

 Do not use bad or aggressive vocabulary on such web sites.

 Do not allow people to use such sites for unlawful purposes.