Social Networking Sites

     Four popular social networking sites: MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. How are they different? What are some similar features?

     First, let us look at MySpace. It used to be a lot more popular than it is now. People used to communicate with their friends and meet new people, although there was no way of knowing who you were really talking to. As its popularity has died down, it has become a place where amateur musicians can promote their music. It seems like every profile still in existence has some sort of music player of some band or musician trying to get people to listen to their new songs.

     Next, there’s Facebook. It’s been around for a while now and a large majority of the population has their own profiles. Facebook is very convenient if you want to communicate and share your posts with large groups of friends or family. It’s mostly used between people who already know each other.

     

     In contrast to Facebook, Twitter is better for sharing your thoughts with the entire population of Twitter users. It is easy to post something for large groups of strangers to read. It is also easy for people to communicate with celebrities and other figures with greater influence than themselves. Many people even find jobs through Twitter and companies use Twitter to find recruits.

     Instagram is a little different from these other three sites. It is specifically meant for use with a mobile device and it allows people to get a little more creative with their phone cameras. People can post pictures along with their thoughts, and their followers can view them in an organized way.

     

     All of these social media sites have the same general purpose: communication. What is different about them is how and with whom users can communicate.