Social Networking Effects on Society

Social web sites are structures made up of individuals or organizations within a network called nodes. These nodes are tied or connected by a number of specific types of interdependency, such as kinship, financial relationships, sexual relationships, religious relationships, friendship, common interest, dislike, knowledge or prestige. Research has also shown that more females join social web sites than men and they tend to be younger than the men who join.

The benefits of Social Network sites

Because of the wide interdependency these networks tend to operate on many levels, from the lower level of families and friends to the level of nations. Thereby playing a critical role in determining the way organizations are run, the manner in which problems are solved and the degree to which individuals succeed in attaining their objectives.

According to researchers the usefulness of these networks are usually determined by their size. A network that is not open to outsiders tends to not be very beneficial to its users, as they will be limited to what and who they already know. On the other hand a network that is open to outside members, offers their members the opportunity to meet new people with quite possibly new ideas, and new and interesting cultures. This affords organizations and businesses the opportunity to market their goods and services to a wider populace.

Social network sites have been able to bring families close to gather, long lost relatives and friends have been able to find each other using sites such as Face book, MySpace, and Hi5 among others. Elections campaigns have been afforded a competitive edge from the use of social networking sites. It is said that the American President Barrack Obama depended heavily on social networking sites such as Facebook to steer his campaign for the presidency of the United States of America in 2009.

Organizations have recognized the competitive edge that can be gained, when using these networking sites to market their products. These sites have been known to assist in research about competitors, providing information on the existing and potential staff of an organization.

Another benefit of these sites is the social capital that is gained from their use. This social capital is amount of users that is signed up to use these sites. Sites such as Facebook and MySpace have mentionable social capital since they have over one hundred million users signed up to their sites. The market value of these sites are also determined by how much the market will pay for the site, its online brand-building potential, advertising earnings, the number of users sign up on the site and search engine optimization among others.

In recent times there has been a consistent increase in the number of sites submitting patent applications to protect new technologies that have been created for social networking sites. There are approximately over one hundred social networking sites in operation currently ranging from dating sites to religious sites, and even sights for specific professions.

With the economic down turn there will certainly be less of these sites being created or launching until there is some improvement in the global economy. Those that are still around and are doing well will find themselves getting better, as organizations continue to recognize the value that is added to their goods and services when they utilize these sites to market their products.