In our well-connected world today, it is possible to keep in touch with and communicate with people from all over the world with much ease. Mention online communication tools, and one would immediately think of MSN Messenger and Skype.
Online networking sites, such as Friendster and especially Myspace and Facebook, enjoy worldwide popularity. According to estimates, more than 530 million people are using social networks worldwide. Many have already hopped onto the bandwagon of getting a Facebook account. It is not hard to understand why.
So by now, many should have heard of Facebook. If you haven’t, then you are missing out on a chance to reconnect with your long-lost friends or old school mates. Or even an opportunity to maintain your connections with your clients and customers. And possibly, as a campaigning tool too.
Not to be left behind, some companies have turned to Facebook to market their product, which appeals to vast majority of the Y generation. One example would be Victoria’s Secret. Through advertisements and forums, Victoria’s Secret can promote their products and widen their customer base. These advertisements, can then work on the emotional aspect of wealthy ladies, also known as pathos.
Facebook can be used for multiple purposes. It is at the basis, an interactive model of communication, where one can leave a message on another person’s wall in virtual space. It is also a two-way process, because the receiver can then reply through the same means, resulting in a series of messages.
Not only that, one can also explore their friends’ profiles, look through their photo albums and comment on them. It is therefore easy to find a like-minded friend sharing similar tastes in music and hobbies. In this way, Facebook helps to converge lives.
Moreover, on Facebook, you get to set your own privacy settings and decide how much you want to share with friends. There is a status feature that allows you to announce to your circle of friends, your current activity or feeling. And in doing so, it acts as a platform for self-expression.
Yes, but how long more can the Facebook frenzy remain before the fad runs out?
As such, it can be considered a very useful tool of communication, only if used properly.
4 years ago
8 comments:
just popping by, browsed your article briefly. btw, there's a line
"According to estimates, more than 530 people are using social networks worldwide."
interesting statement? anw, will comment more later.. dinner time.
Speaking from the point of view of one of the VERY FEW people who use friendster/facebook/myspace for themselves,
I DON'T FEEL LIKE I'M MISSING OUT ON A LOT
I won't know how much of a chance i am missing out to reconnect with friends, or maintain connections etc etc, but seeing as to how i've managed to keep in touch with friends overseas and those from my old schools, i don't reckon i'm missing out on much.
I do know that companies like to use such platforms to advertise themselves, but i doubt i'd actually bother about those companies if i actually had facebook.
Although i don't claim to hate technology, (seeing as to how i can get dependent on my internet and handphone to keep boredom at bay), i feel that interpersonal communication and such should be done face to face, or at the very least, with a phone call.
I use facebook. And... it's interesting, lets you keep in contact with friends you will hardly make a phone call to frequently, or chat to often online. Anw, i feel it is a very useful tool for reaching out to others, as well as letting others reach out to you.
I've seen some of the ads, and i keep seeing those my Murdoch/Kaplan advertising their psych courses. It's all quite effective, but only because i have done reseach myself on some of the courses they offer. i used to have the idea that most online advertisements can't be trusted (i know, bias), so i guess such a stigma will have to be removed, for me at least, before i will form an immediate favourable impression of online ads and actually click on them when i've never even heard about them in the first place.
In this case, Kaplan has many other channels of advertising, be it msn videos, newspapers, mouth-to-mouth (they pay you benifits when you introduce a friend who signs up for a course). Having heard and known abt them already, and having a somewhat favourable opninion of them, there is a higher chance i will click on such online ads. Thta's just a personal observation of mine.
I think Jo has a point. While deep, meaningful relationships with others have to be formed and maintained through other ways such as .. i dunno, more interactive ways, sometimes it's just too difficult to do this with everybody. The online social networks allow a more.. pedestrian (aka 'slack') way of handling relationships with other people. (= don't be mistaken, it's not that i don't treasure deep friendships! but with regards to the 'models of communication' - linear, interactional, transactional - sometimes it's easier if we don't have to always be providing immediate feedback. For example, i may be wondering, oh this friend just started work, and i'm interested to know how he is doing, so i paste a message on his facebook (virtual) wall to ask him, and this gives him time to think about how he feels about his 1st week or so at work, and reflect upon it, better than him givin me an immediate response which wasn't what i was looking for in the first place. You know what i mean? aiyah... something like that lah. Haha.
It's like email! but less formal.. i think social networking sites will be here for a long long time. Like mobile phones, or online chats, they won't be going away anytime soon. They will only get bigger, and some players (ie. Facebook, or a huge one currently dominating the virtual space in China whose name i forgot) will have bigger impacts on many people's lives.
Then again, maybe alot of these is just noise in the virtual space, and distracts us from other things in real life. Hmm.. who knows?
Hey Min here =)
The facebook frenzy is still on don't worry. One reason will be that you have celebrities such as the Muttons on 987fm coming online to start an account.
This is one way for them to get to know their friends and also to know their fan base( mainly listeners ) But on the other hand it's another way of how celebrities compete to see who has more fan. Again in the case of the Muttons vs the Shaun and Ros show team.
But for me, facebook is still a way to connect with you ( friends in school) and friends whom I went to sch with.
See ya in class :D
personally, facebook for me is really a tool to connect with old friends and classmates, to keep in contact with everyone in a simple way.those additional applications are just funny gestures that we can use to make someone's day,show them i'm thinking of them!haha
facebook's about the same as friendster,since it kind of connects people,and people are so tech savvy lately,i'm sure it could last sometime=)
even with facebook,i'm still using friendster!
facebook is here to stay!
(somehow there has been a fascination with social networking sites of all kinds) i believe that facebook can sustain itself because it's like an upgraded version of friendster if you know what I mean. :D
and truly, facebook connects people. all of a sudden, you might see a message from a friend/acquaintance that you last met ten years ago. sure, you could still keep touch without facebook. but if the thought didn't occur before, facebook is here to put it in your head. a chance sighting of a long lost friend's profile/name could prompt one to start reconnecting! and in that sense, facebook aids interpersonal communication.
I agree, Facebook is really the hot topic now since it has beaten many other social networking websites to be at the top of its game; the most popular thus far (as I've read on yahoo). More and more people have been joining this online social network daily! Most of my friends have stopped updating their friendster profiles and have moved on to Facebook or Skype.
I initially had a bet with my friends saying that I won't have a Facebook account since I found it simply a trend and too common like the time when friendster was so popular. Well, I obviously lost the bet since I just created an account a few months ago. I created it since my friends and I were trying to find our primary and secondary school mates for class gatherings. I was able to find every single one of my secondary school classmates! So personally, I found it really easy to use. It's really good for planning events. It's convinient and loads of fun when we can play games and do quizzes within the website itself without having to go to online gaming websites and stuff.
Yes but I do agree with Jo to some extent. It is important to meet up with the friends and meet up for group communications, that way it is more meaningful.
i use facebook too, but i dont regularly update it.. facebook has become a platform for advertisers now... i agree with jo tht face-to-face comm is still the best way to connect with friends.. but we are all so busy, facebook still seems a rather good alternative.. last time when facebook is not created yet, i often wonder how my primary school friends are now but i have no way to know how they are since i have lost contact with most of them.. but facebook has allowed me , and im sure many others out there to find some long-lost friends.. and sometimes we find tht a certain grp of our frens actualli know another circle of frens.. so ya its a small world.. so i think Facebook is here to stay!
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