Social Networking Sites: Facebook

Online social networks and face-to-face social networks form for similar reasons: like-minded individuals associate for mutual gain and the greater good. Currently the most popular online social networking Website, Facebook began as a Website exclusively for college students but is now available to the public worldwide. Facebook claims more than 500 million active users. Approximately 150 million users access their accounts via mobile telephone. Many scholars recognize that Facebook provides “social space” for the formation of conversations, relationships, groups, and social networks.

Unlike other social networking Websites, such as Myspace, Facebook provides a template to assist each new user to develop a Facebook homepage, also called the user's profile. The template provides a series of standard questions about demographic information (such as name, birth date, sex, and job), questions concerning popular culture (such as favorite television shows, movies, and quotations), and questions related to personal information (such as relational goals—to make friends and/or to meet [Page 360]potential dating partners). However, the new user is never asked information about nationality, ethnicity, or race. The user may answer as many or as few of these questions as desired. After completing the template, users can elect to personalize their profiles further by displaying a profile photograph, a personal Website, or selected applications available via the Facebook Website.

A laptop user in the Czech Republic posting a photo of his or her computer screen while browsing Facebook reinforces the company's claim that it has over 500 million active users in over 200 countries. In most countries as of early 201 I, Facebook was either the first, second, or third most popular Website.

(http://Photos.com)

Applications range from informational (for example, to display “bumper stickers” that represent users' philosophies) to serious (for example, to display charities and political candidates that the user supports financially and thus to encourage others to do so) to frivolous (for example, to take the quiz “What kind of chocolate are you?”). Facebook now claims to display 550,000 active applications offered by independent developers for the Facebook Website.