Published in The Gudgeon - May 2008

The popularity of social networking websites has increased exponentially over the last two years. Once these websites were the preserve of teenagers, but now all age groups can claim a social networking website of their own.

So what is a social networking website? It is a website where you can create a profile of yourself and share it with a personal network of other users. Your profile is likely to tell people about your life, likes and interests. It may include updates of what you are doing now, and it will allow you to share photos and videos. You can also leave messages, coments and jokes on your friend’s profile pages.

Most websites will only allow people that you permit to see your full profile. However, there has been some recent controversy with Facebook making private information available to 3rd parties in order to more accurately target advertising. This has since been withdrawn after Facebook users organised a successful protest.

According to research, most people use these sites to keep in touch and make plans with friends.

The most popular social networking websites include Facebook which started out as a way for college students to connect on campus. It is now open to everyone and is a great way to keep in touch with friends and colleagues. Users cover a wider age range than most other social networking websites.

Myspace is predominantly a music website. Bands set up their own pages and post songs and news online. Users can become friends of bands and with each other.

Bebo is very popular with UK teenagers, and like Facebook, allows you to share your life with your friends.

LinkedIn is a networking website for business people and aims to connect you with your close colleagues and then link you with their wider network. The idea being to give you a wider list of people that you can do business with.

Bradford on Avon also has its own social networking website. This is aimed at Bradford on Avon artists, creatives, makers, poets, technicians, hangers on, audiences, musicians, actors, writers, enthusiasts, enablers, funders, entrepreneurs, wannabes and others...

As always, you can find links to all of these websites at www.del.ico.us/gudgeon

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