Essay 1 - Me and Social Media

I have connected myself to the internet since I first got a computer and the internet running up at home in 2001. Now I use it almost every day as a source of information, entertainment as well as a major communicating channel since I am away from home. Social Media Technologies have influenced my life since I found a small online community in a form of webboard, a technological evolution of the dialup BBS, on a website of my former university. The webboard has been up and running since 2001. I first found some interesting topics and discussions, especially the ones posted by some people I know of. Since then, I have become an active reader. It was not long before I began to reply the threads and turned to be an interactive user. The webboard provides free space for everyone to publish their ideas as well as give comments on others. The topics I chose to participate in were not only the one related to the subjects I was studying but also many discussions about news and general issues, e.g. current events, what was going on inside the university, music, etc. When I was at the university I also used this webboard as a mean to communicate news and event that would be held by a club I have joined. I then started to use internet everyday as to update news, to get in touch with friends on msn, to search for information needed, etc. Later on I registered for a social networking website, Hi5, when I received tons of invitations to join the network in my email. The website is based on web 2.0 concept where users can edit, decorate, and add gargets onto their own profile page. I added many friends who has had an account on Hi5 to my friend list and also sent out invitations to those who have not been registered to the network. The website was fancy and quite innovative at that time so I spent a lot of time decorating my page, exploring my friends’ pictures, leaving my friends comments, etc. I felt the network was very useful to stay in touch with friends especially the ones who live far away since it takes much less time than writing an email and, ofcourse, it is fun to see activities the others have done. However, I found this kind of social network low in degree of privacy since not only your friends can view your profile and the pictures you have published, but also the people in your friends’ friends list and even strangers who randomly search for friends. Everything you publish on the web page is risky that it may be taken and used from others for an unpleasant purpose. Nevertheless, the admin, later on, added a new function to enable an adjustment of degree of privacy so the users can control who can view their profile, either everyone or friends only.
A few years later, I registered for Bebo, another online social network. I use Bebo with the same purpose that I use Hi5 but with different group of friends. I only have a few friends on Bebo so I rarely use it. Similarly, I registered for Facebook when I came to Sweden to join the Master’s program’s group blog, created by the program’s coordinator. What I have found out from looking at different network is that all of them have active users from all segments including demography. However, the popularity of each network varies in different geographical areas. For example, Hi5 is very famous in Thailand while Bebo is heavily used in New Zealand and Australia. Facebook has burst out in the last few years and become top most visited website in many countries worldwide.
In addition, since I’m very interested in photography, I also have my blog on Multiply.com where I have the photos taken by myself uploaded on my site. Multiply differs from the general social network websites as Hi5 and Facebook in the sense that most of the users are amateurs or experienced photographers who want to share photos as well as techniques used in shooting pictures and editing process. From this community I meet new people who share the same interest and learn from their experience and skill. Also, some people sometimes invent an event such as a photo trip to go out and take photos together, some even make money from organizing a trip for photo lesson and invite the people to join. I am very satisfied with this network and enjoy it a lot. In my opinion, this type of social network is growing and maybe more popular in the future since it serves users’ specific needs.