Social Networking Sites Expand
Facebook, MySpace, and Orkut, three early social networking sites (SNS), were designed specifically to enable social
networking within their framework and to provide a Web presence for anyone interested. A wider definition of social
networking now includes WordPress, Blogger, and LiveJournal. On Blogger and WordPress, members post blogs and
readers post comments creating an asynchronous dialog among an interested social network. LiveJournal combines the
ability to post journal entries and the traditional social networking ability to collect friends. This current generation of social
networking is more content-driven than Facebook, MySpace, and Orkut, which are driven by the desire to connect socially.
Different groups of students are using different types and generations of social networking software depending on their
friends and their preferences. For a scholarly discussion of social networking sites, see the October 2007 issue of the Journal
of Computer-Mediated Communication.
Digg
www.digg.com
Digg allows you to bookmark (digg) Web pages that are
then added to your online profile. Similar to del.icio.us and
other bookmark managers, others can then see your book-
marked (dugg) pages. Digg also keeps track of the most
popular Web sites and lists them on its front page with
comments and additional links from Digg users.
MySpace
www.myspace.com
MySpace is an SNS with a strong emphasis on promoting
music; bands and musicians of all types make heavy use of
MySpace. Before Facebook opened its doors to all users,
teens were heavy users of MySpace. Studies have shown
that Hispanic college students and students whose parents
have less than a high school education appear to dispro-
portionately use MySpace.
Facebook
www.facebook.com
Facebook is the SNS most familiar to college and univer-
sity administrators. It was initially developed by and for
Harvard students but is now open for anyone to use. Many
colleges and universities use Facebook to cheaply and
quickly advertise to students with some faculty taking
tentative steps to integrate Facebook into their classes.
Ning
www.ning.com
Ning is an SNS creation tool. Ning provides hosting and
templates that allows users to create their own SNS
tailored to their interests. For example, at Indiana
University–Purdue University Indianapolis student groups
have begun to add this ability to their organization Web
site to share ideas and files.
LinkedIn
www.linkedin.com
LinkedIn is an SNS focused on
professional networking and refer-
ences. Users create a professional
profile that is centered on employ-
ment history and professional
relationships that can be searched
to find people in similar fields or
professions. Users ask other users
to “introduce” them to their
contacts to broaden their profes-
sional social network.
Prepared by members of NASPA’s Technology
Knowledge Community.
