Web 2.0 tools: Blog, wiki, Social Networking, RSS

Lecture Notes-2
Paper- Internet and Web resources
Dr. Sabitri Majhi
Web 2.0 Tools: Blog, Wiki, Social Networking, RSS
2.8 Blogs
Blog is one among such developments on the web which provides a platform to facilitate
people to write together collaboratively and also to post their own thoughts, information, and links etc.
This term web-log, or blog, was coined by Jorn Barger in 1997 and refers to a simple webpage consisting
of brief paragraphs of opinion, information, personal diary entries, or links, called posts, arranged
chronologically with the most recent first, in the style of an online journal (Doctorow et al., 2002 cited in
Anderson, 2007). Readers can provide response to the blog post by putting comments below the existing
post. As Blogging platforms enable people to start and run the blogs, without any programming
knowledge, it became so popular among the people.
2.8.1.1 Terminologies and features
Each post in the blog is labeled or tagged with a keyword, which helps the subject of the
post to be classified within the blogging system. The users can click on the tag to explore a list of other
posts by the same author on the blogging site that uses the same tag.
The permalink or permanent link is a URL which is generated by the blogging system and is
meant for a particular post. Older posts or entries of a blog often disappear from the front page and
they are archived on different pages but the permalink remains the same. Even if the post is renamed or
the content is changed in any way, the permalink remains unchanged for ever, it is at no risk to link
break.
Trackback enables to send an automatic notification when a particular blog post has been
referenced by another blog or a website. The blogging system automatically creates a permalink of the
referring post. Trackback only works after it is being enabled on both the referring and the referred
blogs1
.
1
Anderson, Paul. What is Web 2.0?: Ideas, technologies and implications for education. JISC Technology and Standards Watch,
Feb. 2007. [Online] http://hc.rediris.es/pub/bscw.cgi/d3608631/Anderson2007_WhatWeb20.pdf

The Blogroll is a list of links to other blogs on the web that a particular blogger likes or finds
that useful. It is similar to a blog ‘bookmark’ or ‘favourites’ list.
Web syndication is a facility of a blogging system which allows information about the blog
contents is made available to other blogs via RSS. A feed reader can subscribe the blog’s feed and can
get alert when any new content is published. Every time the user doesn’t have to visit the individual
blogs for updates and hence can save the time and effort in getting the updates.
The blog contents may also include video and other rich media as light-weight publishing
tools which provide control to an individual or group of individuals for publishing contents or making
comments by the users on the content.
2.8.1.2 Popular Blogging Platforms
There are considerable numbers of free blogging systems available on the Web. The
first Blogging platform was Pitas, which was in immature or basic form, designed for creating,
managing and maintaining weblogs. Later, several other remarkable blogging software were
developed, such as Wordpress, Blogger, LiveJournal, Tumblr, Medium etc. Blogging software
comes in two forms such as downloadable software and a hosted service. Downloadable software
is made for running on user’s own server. The user has to download and install the software on
his computer to use the Blogging service. But in case of hosted service the software is already
installed and run on the host’s servers. In order to avail the Blogging service the users only have
to open there web browser and they have to log in to the blogging platform available on the web.
Blogger was created by a tiny company in San Francisco called Pyra Labs in August
of 1999. It is one of the most popular blogging platform, which gained interest from million of
web users just after its release and in 2003 it became part of Google2
.
The blog-publishing platform Medium was founded by Twitter co-founders Evan
Williams and Biz Stone in August 20123
. It provides a new place on the web where people share
2
The story of Blogger. https://www.blogger.com/about
3
Shontell, Alyson. 2012. The Cofounders of Twitter launch a new big platform, Medium. In Business Insider.
http://www.businessinsider.com/biz-stone-evan-williams-and-jason-goldman-launch-medium-2012-8?IR=T

ideas and stories that are longer than 140 characters. It’s designed for posting little stories on the
web.
The Blogging platform LiveJournal started in the year 1999 by Brad Fitzpatrick4
,
which is little different from other Blogging platforms. This publishing platform differs from
other blogging platforms by providing facilities for social networking.
Tumblr is a micro blogging platform founded by David Karp and owned by Yahoo!
Inc. The service allows users not only to text but also to post multimedia and other content to
the blog. Users can follow many other users' blogs, as well as they can make their blogs private.
As of December 14, 2014, Tumblr hosts over 214.6 million blogs5
.
WordPress is an open source blogging application which was released in 2003 and
has evolved as a content management system. The user can download and install a software
script called ‘WordPress’ available online at https://wordpress.org/. ‘WordPress’ is completely
customizable and can be used for creating website and also can be used as a content management
system. There is also a service available at “WordPress.com” which enable the user to start a
new and free ‘WordPress’-based blog in seconds, and is less flexible than the downloadable
“WordPress”6
.
2.8.1.3 Blog Searching
There are thousands of blogs on the internet. So it is highly essential to keep track
of the list of Blogs essential for a particular user from that huge number. For keeping track of
the blogs many specialist blog search engines have been developed. Out of many remarkable
blog search engines, few examples are Technorati, Techmeme, Google Blog Search,
BlogScope, etc.
The Blog search engine Technorati was founded by Dave Sifrey in the year 20027
. It
acts as both blog search and analysis tool. This service determines the top 100 blogs by
analyzing the number of unique incoming links to the blog.
4
How did LiveJournal get started? Who runs it now? http://www.livejournal.com/support/faq/4.html
5
https://www.tumblr.com
6
About WordPress. https://wordpress.org/about/
7
David Sifry. 2009. DLD Conference Speaker. http://dld-conference.com/users/david-sifry

People may take interest to know what kind of content is being created by people on
several blogs. Anyone interested to know this can watch it on BlogPulse Live, which provides a
real-time view of the most popular topics being posted by bloggers on several broad categories-
politics, movies/TV, technology, sports, health, religion, meme, food and more. BlogPulse was
developed by Intelliseek and Data Mining blogger Mathew Hurst and was later purchased by
Nielsen Company of USA (Warlick; 2010).
The number of people interconnected and engaged in blogging is increasing
continuously. Bloggers engage themselves regularly in several blogging activities including
linking to other bloggers, post comments on each other's blogs. These activities of bloggers’ give
rise to the concept of “blogosphere” which is made up of all blogs and their interactions as a
social networking service in which everyday authors can publish their own opinions (Hagen;
2015)
2.8.1.4 Classification of Blogs
There are numerous types of blogs with different features not only by the type of
content but also by the type of media use, device use, purpose, etc. The following table provides
a visual classification of the Blogs into eight main categories.
41

Table-2.3 : Classification of Blogs
Types of Blogs
(1)
Personal
Blogs
(2)
Collaborati
ve blogs or
group blogs
(3)
Micro
blogging
(4)
Corporate and
organizational
blogs
(5)
By genre
(6)
By media
type
(7)
By
device
(8)
Reverse blog
A diary or
commentary
written by an
individual.
A weblog in
which
more than
one author
collaborativ
ely write
and publish
posts.
Unlike
traditional
blogs,
micro
blogging
allows small
pieces of
digital
content
including
short
messages,
pictures,
links, short
videos, etc.
Blogs created by
business houses,
clubs societies,
organizations,
etc. for the
purpose of
branding,
marketing, or
public relations.
Blogs
dedicated
to a
particular
subject,
such
as educati
onal
blogs, hea
lth
blogs, tra
vel blogs,
etc.
Blogs
comprising
of specific
media
types, such
as videos,
links,
sketches,
etc.
Blogs
defined
by type
of
device
used to
compos
e it,
such as
a mobile
phone
or a
PDA.
Blogs which
are written
by entirely
by its users
not by a
single
blogger.
These blog
posts are
screed and
selected for
publication
by the blog
publisher.

2.8.1.5 Usage and application of blogging tools
Blogs have been designed for multiple application and usage. On the basis of their specific
applications and use, blogs may be categorised in to different categories. However, Kelleher and Miller
(2006) have classified according to the functions of individual blogs. The following are some of the major
applications of blogging systems:
Personal purposes
Blogs are predominantly used for personal purposes as a medium of publishing users’ life or
works in the public. Micro blogging sites such as Twitter allows bloggers to share their personal thoughts
and feelings instantaneously with their friends and family and is much faster than e-mailing or writing.
Business
Blogging has been used as great business tools by business organisations. They can be used
as online platforms to promote products and services which can reduce advertising and marketing costs
and reach to millions of target customers instantly (Haugen & Claire, 2006 cited in Bajuna R. S., 2008).
Knowledge Management
According to Madadipouya, “blogs can be used for knowledge works in articulating ideas,
structuring thoughts, communicating experiences, opinions through writing which lead to create new
knowledge” (Madadipouya, K. 2013).
Education and Learning

The recent concepts of e-learning 2.0 are fundamentally manifested through the application
of Web 2.0 tools into education and learning. Blogs have very high potential for fostering educational
activities such as teaching, learning and research. For instance, the instructors post class times and rules,
assignment notifications, suggested readings, and exercises. The students also post their creative ideas
and requests for the peers’ comments onto it, share reading materials, conduct group discussions on an
assigned topic.
Promotion of Library Services
In libraries blogs are being used for providing current awareness service, marketing of
library products and services, informing lists of new arrivals in library etc. The blogs in the libraries also
used as a communication link with its internal users and the external world.
The opportunity created by blogging is literally endless. It enables users to network with
others, access information provided by others and giving feedback to the online writers. It facilitates
aggregation of ideas and viewpoints of people from different geographical locations. Again, it acts as a
motivational platform by giving the provision for immediate posting of information and getting feedback
from people immediately. It transforms reading/learning process from ‘personal activity’ to a ‘group
activity’.
Although Blog have created lot of opportunities, it is not free from the limitations. Because
of immediacy feature of the Blog, lack of attention in creators’ part will give rise to problem by
immediately passing on the message to public. Users comment from genuine visitors is boon to the site,
but when irresponsible visitors provide negative comments to the blog post, that becomes a hassle for
the site. Another weakness of blogging site is that, the site is unusable during up gradation of the site.
2.8.1.6 Essential Parts of a Blog
Since blogs are highly customizable, the bloggers can configure their blogs with the look and
functionality as per their choice. However, every blogger expects that the readers would visit, read and
regularly follow his/her blog. Blogging experts Susan Gunelius8
and Alek Stanojevic9
have suggested the
following fundamental parts of a blog that every blog should have in order to meet visitor expectations
8
Gunelius, Susan. The Fundamental Parts of a Blog: Essential Parts of a Blog that Every Blog Should Have [Online]
http://weblogs.about.com/od/partsofablog/tp/The-Fundamental-Parts-Of-A-Blog.htm
9
Alek Stanojevic. 10 Essential Parts of a bLog. [Online] http://www.slideshare.net/alekstanojevic/10-essential-parts-of-a-blog

and deliver an adequate user experience that leads to growth and success. However, the bloggers can
add more elements to their respective blog.
Figure-2.2 : Essential Parts of a blog
Home Page
‘Hope Page’ is the index page of the blog which describes about the details of the blogger’s
identity, objective and content of the blog. This page is referred to access the latest posts, comments,
categories, archives and all the other parts of a blog.

Header
A blog header appears at the top of a blog on all pages. Usually the header gives a specific
look and feel and creates a brand with text and an image. In some blogging systems, header designs
include space where a blogger can include special links or ads.
Blog Page
Just like a web page in a traditional website, a blog page is typically a static piece of content
on the blog. Most often, pages are accessible through links in the top navigation bar of a blog. Popular
blog pages include an ‘About Page’ and a ‘Contact Page’.
Posts
Posts are the pieces of content designating a theme or an idea posted by the blogger and
arranged in chronological order usually from newest to oldest. A blog post can be an article, photo,
audio, and video. The popularity of the blog posts lies with their regular updating on an ongoing basis.
The visitors of the blog not only view the latest posts by the blogger but also the comments by the other
visitors.
Category
Category is a general topic the posts of a blog can be classified in. It helps in organizing the
posts in a classified order as per the topics. The readers browse specific categories to view all the posts
on that particular topic.
Archives
Archives contain links to the previous posts in a blog. The archived posts could be browsed
in different ways- chronologically, alphabetically, by category, by most number of comments, etc.
Blogroll
Blogroll points the reader to the favourite blogs or websites. It helps the reader in finding
the other related sources which are related to the same topic.
Comments

Unlike simple websites where the reader is not able incorporate his comments, blogs allows
comments by the readers just at the bottom of each blog post. This feature has made the more exiting
and interactive as compared to other websites.
Opt-in-Form
The Opt-in-Form is a personalised feature of a blog which facilitates the visitor to sign up
and getting free email newsletters, free email course, e-books, etc. It provides an invitation to readers to
register and come visit the blog again and again as a regular visitor.
Permalinks
Permalinks allow other bloggers to refer to a blog, a page or a post on their own blogs
within their blogroll section. The Permalink is a permanent link which that points to blog posts (s) even
after it has moved out from the front page and transferred to the archive.
Figure-2.3 : ‘INFOSABITRI’, a blog created on Blogger

2.8.1.7 Famous Indian Blogs
The use of social media has been on the rise over the past several years in India.
According to one statistics10
, “India has 125 million Internet users. On an average, Indian web
users spend 26 minute online each day and 87.1 million users experience Internet on their smart
phones and this number is expected to grow to 165 million by 2015”. In the similar pace the
blogging behavior of the people in India has increased to a great extent. The latest edition of the
Indian Tops Blogs (ITB), a directory of best Indian blogs11
which is published every year since
2011 contains 525 Indian blogs (blogs by Indians and blogs on India) in english, arranged
alphabetically. These blogs are a great source of first hand information about hundreds of notable
Indians. The ITB also invites submissions for inclusion in its directory for proper showcasing of the
top blogs. It reviews the activities in the individual blogs listed in the directory every year and
suggests for its re-inclusion or for suspension from the list based on the review.
2.8.2 Wiki
The word Wiki originates from a Hawaiian term “Wiki” which means “quick” or “super fast”
and refers to a kind of website which is designed to allow its users to quickly and easily create and edit
web, using only a web browser (Jones & Hafner, 2012). The first wiki was launched by Howard G.
Cunningham whose wiki site was named as ‘WikiWikiWeb’ on March 25, 1996. The interesting story
behind the origin of ‘wiki’ is connected to Cunningham’s visit to Hawaii. He was informed by an airport
employee that he needed to take the ‘wiki wiki’ bus between the air port’s terminals. Not
understanding what the person was telling him, he inquired further and found out “wiki” means
“quick”12
. As popularly known, a wiki refers to a web site that anybody can edit (Salehe, B.R 2008).
According to Leuf and Cunningham (2001), creators of the original wiki concept, “a wiki is a
freely expandable collection of interlinked web pages, a hypertext system for storing and modifying
information-a database, where each page is easily edited by any user with a forms-capable Web browser
client” (p. 14). The underlying concept of a wiki is a collaborative tool which facilitates effective
production of group work and hence it plays a vital role in education. Wiki systems are different
10
23 Interesting Social Media Statistics and Facts about India. [Online] http://simplify360.com/blog/23-interesting-social-media-
statistics-and-facts-about-india/ Retrieved 04/05/2015
11
Indian Top Blogs: The Directory of Indian Blogs. http://www.indiantopblogs.com/p/the-directory-of-best-indian-blogs.html
12
Where from the word ‘wiki’ comes from. (Oct 15, 2010). [Online] http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/10/where-
the-word-wiki-comes-from/

interpretation of the functionality being provided by the content management systems (CMS). Both blog
and wiki software are based on different aspects of CMS. While blogs are specially designed to publish
individual works, wikis are designed to publish the work created by large number of people collaborating
on the same work. Mattison (2003) states that “a wiki can be a blog, but a blog does not have to be a
wiki.” A single page in the wiki website is called as a “wiki page”, whiles the entire collection of pages,
interconnected by hyperlinks, is "the wiki". A wiki is basically a database for creating, browsing,
searching and editing information.
Over the period of time many remarkable wikis were developed, such as Mediawiki,
PBWorks, Wikipedia, Wikibooks etc. A great example of a large Wiki is the Wikipedia
(http://www.wikipedia.org), a free encyclopedia which can be edited by anyone on the web. Wikipedia
was created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger in 2001 (Anderson, 2012). In spite of concerns about the
quality of openly editable information, Wikipedia has become one of the most popular online resources
on the web. Its popularity is evident from the fact that the first hit to any query on the Google is from
‘Wikipedia’. According to ‘Alexa.com’ ranking, ‘Wikipedia’ is one among the top 10 sites in the world.
Featured contents of the Wikipedia represent the contents which undergo a thorough review
process to ensure the best quality content. These contents include articles, pictures, topics, Sounds,
Portals etc. Wikipedia editors consider Featured articles as best articles. Before listing the articles under
featured list, they are reviewed for accuracy, neutrality, completeness and style according to the
Wikipedia’s featured article criteria.
2.8.2.1 Key Features of Wiki
Wikis can be public or private: A public wiki is available to anyone on the web, without
logging in to the wiki people can search wiki pages on the web via the search engine. A private wiki is
only accessible to the people having password, or who have been invited to join the wikis by others
having password to access.
Multiple versions: Even if the content on the wiki are changed and updated, the older version is also
saved with all the information regarding the date and time when such change was made. It is an
excellent feature which allows archiving all the versions of the content for reference starting from the
first version.

Track changes: Since all the versions of the content on the wiki are saved, one can easily
track what changes was made and when.
Help with text formatting: When we edit a wiki page, the tips for using punctuation is
displayed in wiki markup language to format text. It also provides a link to a more comprehensive list of
tips for using wiki markup language.
Formatting icons: The formatting options along with different icons and dropdown lists
make the task of text formatting, adding attachments, etc. quite simple.
Mathematics: The Math plugin lets you create mathematical notation for your wiki by using
the TeX markup language.
Email notifications: this feature allows the creator and the registered user of the wiki to
automatically receive an email alert to the registered email ID immediately after any change to the wiki
is made.
Permissions at the page level and the tool level: Different levels of permission for the users
may be specified on different pages of the wiki.
Figure-2.4 : Screenshot of Wikipedia logged in with user name Sabitree
2.8.2.2 Usage of wiki
The most common uses of wiki are as follows:

 Content Management: As wiki creates a platform for content posting, it works as a Content
Management System. It always has an important place in the publishing world.
 Project Management: A wiki can be used as a great platform to plan and manage a project, from
beginning to completion. Assigning tasks to the workers, making a timeline for completion of the
work, pasting of essential images and any other thing needed for a project can be done through
the wikis.
 Software Development: Wiki is being used in software development processes such as technical
documentation, client approval, issues tracking, internal workflow, quality and process
management, software design, reference information, application maintenance and operations.
(Majchrzak et al., 2006, cited in Salehe, B. R. 2008)
 Business Profiles: Business organisations can use it to put the manuals online for the workers, so
that it can be updated easily when things change. Things are changing so quickly that a printed
version of a manual may become outdated till it’s printed and distributed.
 Event Management: Wikis are the great platforms for event management such as conferences,
meetings etc. Different pages or sections can be created for different planning areas such as:
ideas, images, contact information, and many more. People can access those plans and will act
accordingly.
 Reference Source: Libraries can use wiki as reference source and subject guides for the users.
Wikis can be used for doing all of the above works, and more. Because of its simplicity and
flexibility, very little technical skill is required for accessing and creating contents for wikis. Hence, it
inspires and attracts more people to contribute. It facilitates people for collaborative content creation
from different geographical locations and the contents created by them are visible to world audience.
Again it’s a productive one as it keeps the things together in one place in organised manner.
Although the importance of wiki is literally endless, there are undeniably problems for these
systems which allow such a level of openness, and Wikipedia itself has suffered from problems of
malicious editing and vandalism (Stvilia et al., 2005 cited in Anderson 2007). Thus, the users in general
and the learners in particular should handle it with care.
2.8.2.3 Wikipedia

Wikipedia is the world’s largest online multilingual encyclopedia which is both
written and used by the people. The best feature of Wikipedia is its collaborative nature of
content creation and modification and because of this openness has included tremendous amount
of content. The articles on the Wikipedia are constantly been edited by thousands of people who
have access to the Web. Wikipedia was founded by Jimmy Wales and launched online on 15th
January 2001 on its own domain. According to Wikipedia13
, it is regularly edited by about
77,000 editors including expert scholars to casual readers. As of today, out of 34,000,000 articles
in Wikipedia, more than 3,500 articles have been designated by the Wikipedia community
as featured articles, showcasing the best articles in the encyclopedia. Another 15,000 articles are
designated as good articles. Wikipedia has more than two hundred and eighty languages,
including Simple English version, and related projects include a dictionary, quotations, books,
manuals, and scientific reference sources, and a news service. While Google is the top most
website ranked No. 1, Wikipedia ranked No. 6 as per Alexa14
rating.
Figure-2.5 : Screenshot of Wikipedia15
2.8.3 Social Networking Sites (SNS)
Social networking is one of the greatest phenomena in Web2.0 environment. The
Social Networking Sites (SNS) have been essentially attributed with building up online
communities of individuals enabling them to share their interests and activities and to explore the
same about others. According to US Security Agency16
, “rather than using direct point-to-point
13
Wikipedia: About. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About
14
How popular Wikipedia.org? http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikipedia.org
15
Wikipedia.org
16
https://info.publicintelligence.net/NSA-SNSSecurity.pdf

communication to stay in touch (e.g., face-to-face, phone, text/video messages), SNSs allow
users to publish information that can be read later by other users (a one-to-many form of
communication) and follow their friends’ postings and provide comments”. It provides a variety
of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services etc. As social
networking sites (SNSs) are having simple user interface and giving access to rich user data,
there is no barrier to enter the site. Boyd and Ellison17
defined social network sites as, “web-
based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a
bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3)
view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. The
nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site”.
Many social networking sites are available on the Web such as Facebook, Google+,
Friendster, LinkedIn etc. However, according to Alexa ranking, the Facebook ranked at top most position
showing the highest popularity next to Google. This popular site ‘Facebook’ was founded by Mark
Zuckerberg in 2004. Millions of people use Facebook everyday to keep in touch with friends, upload
unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and read more about the people they gather. On
April 14, 2015, Facebook announced that it has one billion users, the equivalent of about one in seven of
the world's population. Based on the one billion figures if Facebook were a country it would now be the
third largest in the world, behind China's 1.34 billion people and India which has a population of 1.2
billion18
.
2.8.3.1 Key Features of Social Networking Sites
The foundation of Social Networking Sites (SNSs) is consisted of user profiles. The user
profiles are the personal descriptions of the characteristics of the persons consisting of attributes like
their geographic location, date of birth, schools attended, place of work, interests, etc. and an ‘about
me’ section also. Such profile information is used as a basis for grouping users, for sharing content, and
for recommending or introducing people who would likely benefit from direct interaction. Most of the
SNS also support users to upload a profile photo and change it as and when they like. The visibility of a
17
Boyd, D & Ellison, N. Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship.
http://www.danah.org/papers/JCMCIntro.pdf
18
Revealed: The third largest 'country' in the world - Facebook hits one billion users. The Independent 14 April, 2015.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/revealed-the-third-largest-country-in-the-world--facebook-hits-
one-billion-users-8197597.html

profile varies from sites to sites and according to user’s discretion. By default, profiles on Friendster and
Facebook are crawled by search engines, making them visible to anyone, in spite of whether or not the
viewer having an account.
On the other hand, LinkedIn controls what a viewer can view. Sites like MySpace permit
users to prefer whether they want their profile to be public or ‘‘Friends only.’’ But a different approach
is taken by Facebook by default, individuals who are part of the same ‘‘network’’ can see each other’s
profiles, if profile owner has not decided to deny permission to individuals in their network.
Since there are many different SNSs existing on the web, more or less their features differ
from each other. However, few common features are available with most of the SNSs.
The following are the common features of a SNS:
Free Space : SNSs maintain a free space for each of the users in order to upload their content.
Free web address : As soon as the user opens an account with a SNS, he/she gets unique web address or
URL which becomes the identity of that individual or business on that particular SNS. These URLs could
be used by tem as an identity like the email ID, personal website, or an official profile online.
Build Profile : Building of personal profile is an essential feature of a SNS. The profiles developed by the
users help the friends to identify them by their personal attributes such as name, location, work, etc. It
also helps the system to group individuals with similar attributes.
Upload content : The Social Networking Sites allows instant uploading and publishing content by the
users which includes text messages, photographs, audio and video files free of cost. These content
postings are arranged in descending order of chronology staring with the recent message first.
Build conversations : Content posted by members can be browsed and commented upon by all
members who form part of the community. Content can also be tagged from third party sites on
subjects that interest the group.
Chat client : SNS allows chatting with the users who are online at a particular point of time and
share conversation on real time basis.
E-mail : Members can send e-mails to each other. The Social Networking Sites also send e-mail alerts
whenever a member is tagged in a third party post. This enables members to learn when a fellow
member has connected to them.

Create Pages : Members are allowed to create pages where they can post articles or photographs
related to a theme. The pages can also be used to promote businesses.
Home Page : Facebook's homepage opens up a new amazing world for users. After logging in to the
SNSs the users immediately get the home page which is having the tabs: newsfeeds, pages, groups etc.
Profile page : This page functions as user’s personal page. Usually this personal page includes
information such as date of birth, location, interests etc.
Friendship : The key activity of users in SNSs is connecting with friends, colleagues, classmates, etc.
There are various mechanisms to add friends and making links with them. Most of the SNSs allow the
users to click on “add as friend” button, displayed on the profile page to add them to their own network.
Few sites allow adding friends’ email address so that an automatic invitation can be sent to join the site.
In SNS friendship is maintained by mutual approval. If someone is interested to accept the friendship
request, then only that individual can join the networks of friends.
Groups : Groups or communities allow people with common interests, locality etc. to join together
within the site.
Figure-2.6: Screenshot of Facebook displaying Group Page
2.8.3.2 Usage of Social Networking Sites

People from cross sections of the society make use of SNS for their personal as well as
professional purposes starting from business to education and from flirting to seriously building up
social contacts.
 Social networks connect people across geographic borders and therefore, it is a great
platform for businessmen and to develop their contacts with the whole world free of any
advertising cost. It also helps the users to increase their visibility by showcasing their
talents and professional credibility.
 It is an incredible source to find old friends and contacts just by typing a few letters
describing any of his personal attributes.
 Social networking tools allow professionals to exchange information, opportunities, and ideas.
Hence, professionals are able to stay informed with new knowledge, new ideas and
opportunities about their fields of interest.
 Social networks focused on supporting relationships between teachers and between
teachers and their students are now used for learning, educator professional development,
and content sharing. Many educators are using ‘Ning’ and ‘Linkedin’ for developing
educational purposes.
 Social Networking Sites are also adopted by healthcare professionals to manage institutional
knowledge, share peer to peer knowledge and to highlight individual physicians and institutions.
It is also there for the patients who suffer from life-threatening diseases to converse with one
another, allowing them to share data on improving their outcomes and to learn any techniques
or medication. ‘PatientsLikeMe19
’ is such a social networking site on health that enables its
members to share treatment and symptom information in order to track and to learn from real-
world outcomes.
Fig-2.7 : Screenshot of PatientsLikeMe, a social networking site for patients Source:
https://www.patientslikeme.com
19
http://www.patientslikeme.com/

 Social Networking Sites are boon for empowering the educational process by supporting
collaborative learning, creativity of the students, collaborative problem solving, cooperation,
and interactions among fellow learners. It also helps for improving student’s academic
performance and thinking skills.
 Social Networking Sites are the place where people gather and exchange ideas and information.
Taking this as an opportunity library can reach out to the users on SNS for interacting with them
to take their suggestion for service enhancement and also to understand their perception about
library services and facilities. Again, libraries may use SNSs for publicity of the library by putting
banners, information about the collection and services etc.
As SNSs facilitates worldwide connectivity, these are media for virtual social lives of people
all over the world, which created a lot of opportunities for several applications beyond the traditional
communication system. Individuals define themselves in such sites, connect with others, seek new
friends, receive ideas from others and make group with people of similar interest.
However, the user communities should use this tool with caution. Users may lose their
privacy for being on SNS. Again people may create false profile by giving wrong information, which
creates nuisance for others. Sometimes addicted users may waste time, by spending lot of time in
searching friends and constantly reading the comments provided by people.

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