Journal Seven- "In Your Face: How Facebook could crush MySpace, Yahoo!, and Google"

By: Christopher Beam

In today’s technological society, many people are turning to online communities and other social networks as a way to communicate with old friends and met new ones. The two most popular interfaces to accomplish this are MySpace and Facebook. Although MySpace is three times the size of Facebook, the author believes that has become showy and infested with spam. Facebook is the smarter choice for those people who want all the technology without all the clutter. However, Facebook has added a new tool kit called Facebook Platform which allows anyone to create programs, also known as applications, for the users to add into their profile. Out of the nearly 900 programs released on Facebook, the majority do not reach the potential they have to eliminate any use for the Internet. Although Yahoo! and iGoogle also allow user to add their favorite websites onto their homepage, they lack the social network aspect. If Facebook were to allow users to send real e-mails, not just messages, Instant Messages, and provide RSS feeds for real news, it will allow users to accomplish everything they wish to in one place.

Questions

1. Why do you believe social networks have become so popular among the middle and high school age groups?
2. Although Facebook is believed to be safer then MySpace it still allows anyone to create a profile, do you feel it is safe for children?

Answers

1. I feel social networks have become so popular with these age groups because it allows them to communicate easily with all their friends in one place. I feel social networks are also a form of high school popularity contests. Some people on the social networks want to be friends with everyone, even if they do not know them, because it makes them feel like they know a lot of people.
2. Facebook only allows people within the same network to view each others' profiles and privacy settings can further make it so a persons' profile can only be viewed by the friends they have chosen. With these features, I believe Facebook is a safe place for children as long as the parents or other guardian are involved in how the child uses the program. For example, I believe the parents should have the child password and be able to check their child's site everyday to make sure they are aware of everything being done.