Socializing

Who hasn’t heard of Facebook, the social networking site founded by a 20-year-old Mark Zuckerberg? But Facebook is only one of the more recent such sites that include Myspace, Second Life, Linkedin, Dailymotion, Friendster, Google’s Orkut, Friends reunited in the UK and many, many others.

Their prime aim is to bring like-minded people together so that they can interact to their mutual benefit, be it in a professional or purely social sphere. They have notched up extraordinary growth and are still going strong.

Second Life was one of the first, founded in 2002 by California’s Linden Lab. It enables its enthusiasts to take a break from reality and live in a virtual world, complete with its streets, buildings, shops, clothes and even money. This parallel universe has attracted literally millions of users, but also blue-chip companies like IBM, Dior, and Toyota, as well as political parties. In fact, IBM for one has even started to recruit employees from Second Life.

Myspace is the biggest such social site, with something like 80 million visits a month. It was originally designed as an open space for artists to post their work, but has since evolved to become a social network site for young and old. Last year it became part of Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate. YouTube, on the other hand, is a space for people to post their videos; within a year it boasted 12.5 million visits a day. It has been so successful, that Google gobbled it up a little over a year ago for a colossal $1.65 billion.

Facebook is the social network site that has hit the headlines most in recent months. It is here that everyone and anyone can find old school friends, build networks of people with similar tastes and occupations, post photos and generally keep friends and fellows updated on one’s comings and goings, preferences and dislikes. In short, what Facebook calls the “social graph.” Facebook now has 50 million users (growing by some 200,000 a day) and 30 million visits a day. Some people sign on 10 or 20 times a day just to keep updated. Microsoft recently bought a 1.6% holding in Facebook for $240 million, valuing the three-year-old company at an incredible $15 billion.

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