Social networking websites

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Blog in under 140 characters!! Yeah... doesn't sound so cool when you tell it like it is, does it? It's not even that popular, really.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8089508.stm BBC News - Twitter hype punctured]</ref> Multiply this by the complete lack of meaningful content<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8204842.stm BBC News - Twitter tweets are 40% 'babble'  
 
Blog in under 140 characters!! Yeah... doesn't sound so cool when you tell it like it is, does it? It's not even that popular, really.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8089508.stm BBC News - Twitter hype punctured]</ref> Multiply this by the complete lack of meaningful content<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8204842.stm BBC News - Twitter tweets are 40% 'babble'  
 
</ref> and you obviously have the makings of the greatest website ever...
 
</ref> and you obviously have the makings of the greatest website ever...
 +
 +
Stephen Fry is on it!
  
 
===Livejournal===
 
===Livejournal===

Revision as of 12:46, 29 September 2009

Social networking websites are places where people who do not possess much of a social life in the real world can blather on to each other about meaningless twaddle that only they care about. Obviously these people are nothing like us.

Moving swiftly along, social networking sites help people keep in touch, now that people move around a lot because the tabloids tell them to (gotta keep those house prices up!). Some, such as MySpace, provide a useful platform for people who want to show off their atrocious HTML skills to the wider world.

Contents

Major sites

Myspace

Myspace is a social networking website, in particular, it is the most popular with over 250 million members. It requires you to fill in tons of personal info in order to join. Once you join, a million people you don't know will know your personal info. Also, your inbox will be filled with spam and "friend requests" promising you free pron if you add ILIKEKIDSEX4 as your friend.

Myspace is famous for the really annoying, often Emo orientated, music that plays as soon as you enter almost any profile.[1] As users can choose their own layout of their page, most profiles appear to have lime green text on purple scrolling backgrounds. Prolonged exposure to this dangerous combination of psychedelic text, whiny music and potentially fatal HTML errors (even the homepage has enough errors in it to make the W3C lose sleep at night) can lead to PTSD and/or defection to rival social network Facebook.

The Washington Post Magazine of March 16, 2008 listed MySpace as obsolescent, alongside such things as cassette tape mixes, rotary dial phones, answering machines, making cigarette ashtrays in kindergarten craft projects, and computer paper with holes in the side. Funny thing, print newspapers were somehow not on their list. Clearly then, MySpace is a thing of the past; after all, the Post is America's Newspaper of Record and would never jump the gun on a thing like this.

Facebook

Facebook has horrible ads that claim your friends have a crush on you. How yuk is that?

Facebook is a social networking site stalking tool for college students massive data mining operation which reserves the right to collect information about you from other websites and use it to supplement your Facebook profile[2]. They did just that when starting in November 2007 they launched Facebook Beacon, in which Facebook's partner e-commerce websites, including eBay and Travelocity, provide Facebook with news of all your purchases (the partner websites knowing you are on Facebook because you have cookies from Facebook stored on your browser disclosing your Facebook identity to these other websites). Incredibly, Facebook then broadcast news of every purchase you made off-site to all of your Facebook "friends", and initially did this without even requiring the user to first opt-in to Beacon. Needless to say, there was a rapid public outcry over this practice.

As with other social networking sites such as Myspace and LiveJournal, Facebook is very popular among college students who post all sorts of personal information about themselves, without realizing the potential for it later coming back to haunt them. However, for security purposes[citation needed], Facebook makes it deliberately difficult to delete your account and the information you have provided. Initially, they did not even provide this option at all.

Since Facebook replaced MySpace as the social networking site of choice for most people, some longtime users have noted a trend towards puerile harping and frivolity. Basically, all the people from MySpace came over because they were sick of how crap MySpace was and turned Facebook into MySpace and are now getting sick of how crap Facebook is now that they've turned it into MySpace.

Jesus himself endorses Facebook.[3]

Friendster

Friendster is lame, too.

Bebo

Annoying little chavs like to announce at high volume who they've just "met" on Bebo whilst using a public library computer.

Twitter

Blog in under 140 characters!! Yeah... doesn't sound so cool when you tell it like it is, does it? It's not even that popular, really.[4] Multiply this by the complete lack of meaningful content[5] and you obviously have the makings of the greatest website ever...

Stephen Fry is on it!

Livejournal

Livejournal has a goat. And a RationalWikian. And a Jinx!

Mostly though, Livejournal is far too full of furries, pagans, the sort of science fiction fans and role-playing gamers who confuse the difference between in-universe and real life, dragon and vampire wannabes, and other kiddie fantasy-land subculturists. Again, nothing like us.

Livejournal pages are also mirrored and archived by at least two different (probably unauthorized) websites, making it a privacy risk to post anything there (same as with all other social networking sites), regardless of whether you set your Livejournal account to block search engines from your page or post in "friends only" mode - everything will wind up on Google forever anyhow because of these unauthorized mirror sites.

Get Closer

Get Closer is a new one (as in, it's still in beta), and it's the first(?) such site looking to cash in on the "success" of social networking sites by making people buy stuff (especially Joy Division albums, judging by the name). Unlike your standard social networking sites, which is all about making people be your friends by impressing them with how gaudy and tasteless you can make your personal page, this seems to be about encouraging you to become "friends" with as much music and films as you can, by making obscure (or not so obscure) connections between them, then buying them from the UK retailer HMV (who runs the site). One thing to note is that since HMV's colors seem to be pink and black, you have a head-start in the gaudiness factor.

Christian networking sites

At least fourteen Christian networking sites have sprung up. They emphasise their clean, family-friendly nature - which mostly goes only as far as removing "offensive" content.

"If you post a picture on this site, everyone in the picture must be modestly dressed (by our standards), not promoting any sinful activity (drinking, smoking, tatoos, gambling, etc), and not crude in any way (sodomites, abortion pics, etc)," says Big Baptist while Christianblog says: "We have dedicated volunteers who review each and every blog entry to make sure that all content that is posted is family safe and Christian based." - in fact they all say different versions of this, so we won't bore you with minor variations in wording. Of the others, ChristUnion has found an appropriate Biblical quote as its strap - Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ - see, the Bible foretold social networking sites! And therefore, it's true. Ditty Talk allows linking to Myspace, which kind of misses the point. The scarily-named FaithFreaks has "a network of filters and monitors", so they're either control freaks or sound engineers. Christian.com is "heavily monitored" and says It’s not "My" space; It’s "His" space! JCFaith's "about us" page is mysteriously blank, except for phone commercials.

Let's Get This Right

There's a conservative social networking site as well. Called Let's Get This Right, it promises links to "100's (sic) of conservative resources" and has forums, some of whose posts get up to an incredible six[6] replies.

Dangers?

In early 2009, during their quest to split the entire inanimate world into things that cause cancer and things that cure cancer, the Daily Mail ran a story essentially entitled "Facebook causes cancer".[7] This was based on a report by Dr Aric Sigman in the Journal of the Institute of Biology. Noted science writer, blogger, and columnist Ben Goldacre then refuted the claims, stating the Sigman had selectively quoted his evidence and ignored all the evidence that social networking use had no effect - or even a positive effect - on people's social lives, particularly those suffering from loneliness. Ben later appeared on Newsnight specifically to tear Sigman a new arsehole over the scaremongering.[8]

Footnotes

  1. This auto-play feature can also act as an open invitation for viruses and other malware to just walk straight into your computer.
  2. This is explicitly stated in their "privacy" policy
  3. Jesus's Facebook profile.
  4. BBC News - Twitter hype punctured
  5. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8204842.stm BBC News - Twitter tweets are 40% 'babble'
  6. As of 17 May 2009.
  7. How using Facebook could raise your risk of cancer
  8. Ben's face halfway through Sigman talking is especially priceless.
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