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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I am grateful to NIFT for providing me an opportunity to do research work on Study on growing Usage of Social Networking Sites. I express my whole hearted thanks to my guide Ms. A.Sasirekha, for her encouragement and moral support in organizing my work and giving me valuable tips for making it presentable.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER NO.
1 2 3 4
NAME
INTRODUCTION LITERATURE REVIEW RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ANALYSIS BIBLIOGRAPHY ANNEXURES
PAGE NO.
1 9 15 16
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, who, for example, share interests and/or activities and people with similar or somewhat similar interests, backgrounds and/or activities make their own communities. A social network service consists of a representation of each user (often a profile), his/her social links, and a variety of additional services. Most social network services are web-based and provide means for users to interact over the Internet, such as e-mail and instant messaging.
LiveJournal's creator suspects that he fashioned these Friends after instant messaging buddy lists on LiveJournal, people mark others as Friends to follow their journals and manage privacy settings. The Korean virtual worlds site Cyworld was started in 1999 and added SNS features in 2001, independent of these other sites. Likewise, when the Swedish web community LunarStorm refashioned itself as an SNS in 2000, it contained Friends lists, guestbooks, and diary pages. The next wave of SNSs began when Ryze.com was launched in 2001 to help people leverage their business networks. Ryze's founder reports that he first introduced the site to his friendsprimarily members of the San Francisco business and technology community, including the entrepreneurs and investors behind many future SNSs. In particular, the people behind Ryze, Tribe.net, LinkedIn, and Friendster were tightly entwined personally and professionally. They believed that they could support each other without competing. In the end, Ryze never acquired mass popularity, Tribe.net grew to attract a passionate niche user base, LinkedIn became a powerful business service, and Friendster became the most significant, if only as "one of the biggest disappointments in Internet history".
EMERGING TRENDS
As the increase in popularity of social networking is on a constant rise, new uses for the technology are constantly being observed. At the forefront of emerging trends in social networking sites is the concept of "real-time web" and "location-based." Real-time allows users to contribute content, which is then broadcast as it is being uploaded - the concept is analogous to live radio and television broadcasts. Twitter set the trend for "real-time" services, wherein users can broadcast to the world what they are doing, or what is on their minds within a 140-character limit. Facebook followed suit with their "Live Feed" where users' activities are streamed as soon as it happens. While Twitter focuses on words, Clixtr, another real-time service, focuses on group photo sharing wherein users can update their photo streams with photos while at an event. Facebook, however, remains easily the largest photo sharing site - Facebook application and photo aggregator Pixable estimates that Facebook will have 100 billion photos by Summer 2011. Companies have begun to merge business technologies and solutions, such as cloud computing, with social networking concepts. Instead of connecting individuals based on social interest, companies are developing interactive communities that connect individuals based on shared business needs or experiences. Many provide specialized networking tools and applications that can be accessed via their websites, such as LinkedIn. Others companies, such as Monster.com, have been steadily developing a more "socialized" feel to their career center sites to harness some of the power of social networking sites. These more business related sites have their own nomenclature for the most part but the most common naming conventions are "Vocational Networking Sites" or "Vocational Media Networks", with the former more closely tied to individual networking relationships based on social networking principles.
KEY FEATURES
BUSINESS MODEL
Few social networks currently charge money for membership. In part, this may be because social networking is a relatively new service, and the value of using them has not been firmly established in customers' minds.
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Companies such as MySpace and Facebook sell online advertising on their site. Their business model is based upon large membership count, and charging for membership would be counterproductive. Some believe that the deeper information that the sites have on each user will allow much better targeted advertising than any other site can currently provide. Social networks operate under an autonomous business model, in which a social network's members serve dual roles as both the suppliers and the consumers of content. This is in contrast to a traditional business model, where the suppliers and consumers are distinct agents. Revenue is typically gained in the autonomous business model via advertisements, but subscription-based revenue is possible when membership and content levels are sufficiently high.
SOCIAL INTERACTION
Put simply, social networking is a way for one person to meet up with other people on the Net. That's not all though. Some people use social networking sites for meeting new friends on the Net. Other's use it to find old friends. Then there are those who use it to find people who have the same problems or interests they have, this is called niche networking. Following this trend is the emerging trend of people meeting online to meet offline. More and more relationships and friendships are being formed online and then carried to an offline/in person setting. Experts in relationships, such as the German psychologist Erich H. Witte, say that relationships which start online are much more likely to succeed, and he goes on to say that in less than 10 years, online dating will be the most widely used way to get to know someone for a possible relationship. One such popular site accredits that's 2% of all marriages start off its site which is equal to 236 marriages a day. Other sites claim 1 in 5 relationships start online. Social networking sites play a vital role in this area as well, being able to meet someone as a "friend" and see what common interests you share and how they have built up their friend base and "likes" you can truly see a more whole picture of the person you are talking with and most sites are free instead of being pay based which allows younger people with stricter budgets to enjoy some of the same features. While not the intended or original use for these social sites a large area of their current function has stemmed from people wanting to meet other people in person and with so many of us so busy it is a fast reliable and easy way in which to do so that costs you little time and money.
TIME CONSUMING
If this is not your kind of thing that it would just be a waste of time for you. The key to social networking is that it is supposed to be fun, whether you are just doing it for kicks or clicking around for business purposes. That should be reasonable enough for anyone, but there are those people who don't see the point. For them, it can be a disadvantage.
Users have already clued into that fact, or screwed up themselves, and are beginning to establish new social conventions. Articles outlining the "proper use and etiquette of social networking" pop up around the Internet on a near-daily basis, and self-proclaimed experts regularly police sites like Twitter to call out users they believe are acting inappropriately. Social networking sites thrust people together in mind-boggling combinations of attributes -conservative/liberal, geeks/non-geeks, parents/child-free, religious/atheist/agnostic..
Facebook: More than 1.5 million local businesses have active Pages on Facebook The average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook Facebook has 400+ million active users, with over 1.5 million business pages.
Twitter: Twitter has 24+ million unique visitors per month, with 500 million tweets per day. 11 Percent (or 33.88m) of US Online Adults Use Twitter There are approximately 50 million Tweets sent per day, at about 600 tweets per second.
LinkedIn: LinkedIn has 60+ million professionals worldwide, including all Fortune 500 companies. The global average time spent per person on social networking sites is now nearly five and half hours per month The active US-Based social network audience grew roughly 29% from 115 million in February 2010 to 149 million in February 2011
Facebook - 850M monthly active - 250M photos uploaded every day - 425M mobile users
LinkedIn - 2 new members join every second - USA leads membership at 57M, Europe has 34M members - $552M revenue in 2011
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contact other turmeric growers across the country? Salunkhe had opened a Facebook account three months back to trace his college friends. Now he decided to use it for more pressing reasons. "I knew some farmers in Andhra Pradesh with Facebook accounts. I immediately asked them what should be done about prices. They suggested that we should reduce supply for a few days. I conveyed this view to everyone in the village," says Salunkhe, who uses his Smartphone to access Facebook. Farmers depend on market sales for regular income and don't find it easy to give it up even temporarily. His neighbours in Atpadi village sought time and thought it over for a day. Eliminating Middlemen On January 13, farmers of Atpadi village asked Salunkhe to send out a message that no one should participate in the local auctions. In a matter of minutes, Salunkhe conveyed this to 35 farmers on social media from Sangli district alone. The news went viral after that, says Salunkhe. Every village of Sangli district, which has 25,000 turmeric farmers, heard of the boycott call. "For the next few days, each afternoon we chatted online to finalise details of the boycott," he says. On the morning of January 22, the Sangli auction yard stood empty. Thousands of farmers had stayed away. A protest that would have earlier taken months to organise now occurred within 10 days. When the farmers resumed selling their produce at the auction, the prices doubled from Rs 4 per kg to Rs 8 per kg. The boycott had served its purpose. "Facebook farmers played a crucial role in stopping the auction and solving the problem," says Raghunath Ramachandra Patil, president, Shetkari Sangathana, a political party with farmer members. The small protest at Sangli may not be a patch on the social media-led 'Arab Spring', but it does point to the growing importance of social networking websites in the Indian countryside. From sharing critical information in real time to eliminating middlemen to opening up marketing opportunities for companies looking to tap rural consumers, social media is
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becoming a powerful tool of communication across India's 600,000 villages. Technology experts say the community has always been central to rural India and therefore its acceptance of social media tools is not surprising. "Community concept has always been prevalent in villages," says Asheesh Raina, analyst at technology research firm Gartner India. "Earlier, a village sarpanch would sit under a tree and discuss certain issues with villagers before taking a final call. Facebook and Twitter are an extension of this concept." Farmer bodies are quick to point out the advantages of social media. "Earlier, we used to grow two-three crops together. Agricultural inputs were different for each crop and often farmers would find it difficult," says Yogesh Kumar Dahiya, chairman of Farmers' Forum in Saharanpur, UP. And it's catching on. Small tea growers in West Bengal will launch a website this month and link it with Facebook and Twitter so that growers can interact with international buyers directly, says BG Chakroborty, Confederation of Indian Small Tea Growers Association. Farmers involved in dairy, horticulture and floriculture are increasingly using social networking sites, adds K Prabhakar Reddy of the Consortium of Indian Farmers Association.
ADDICTION OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES SOURCE: HOW STUFF WORKS. AUTHOR: DEBRA RONCA
Today's kids spend a lot of time in front of digital screens. A 2007 study from the University of Southern California's Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future showed that almost half of all parents surveyed believed their kids spent too much time watching television, and 20.7 percent felt their kids spent too much time online. A 20 percent concern about online engagement is relatively low. But that doesn't mean there aren't problems. For example, in 2005, a young South Korean man actually collapsed and died after playing online for 50 hours with few breaks. Concerned authorities even founded
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"Internet Rescue Schools" to get children away from their computers and into fresh air, physical activity and socializing with other kids. Children aren't the only ones who can get hooked on the Internet. In 2008, the American Journal of Psychiatry published an editorial in support of naming "Internet addiction" as a bona fide mental condition. The majority of the medical community disagreed, though, and currently Internet addiction is not a formal disorder. However, excessive use of the Internet can certainly cause problems. Even though it's not formally classified, many treatment and rehab centers worldwide now offer services for Internet addiction. This includes treatment for cyberporn, online gambling, online affairs and eBay addiction. Of course, these are all behaviors with serious consequences. The hallmark of an addiction is determining whether your actions are affecting yourself or others in a negative way. However, if you're spending abnormally large amounts of time online, you could be damaging your relationships and even your health. Experts claim that a lack of face-to-face contact can affect you both socially and physically. Depending upon a computer screen for human interaction might undermine the ability to follow social cues or understand body language. In addition, some researchers believe that we're genetically predisposed to physically benefit from being face-to-face with another human. There's even an online test you can take to see if the time you spend online might be a problem (unless you're addicted to online tests, of course).
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OBJECTIVES
To highlight the services provided by the sites. To know the popularity of different social networking sites. To find out whether these sites are used for marketing tools or other carrier objectives other than socialising. To know the dependence of its users on these sites.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The study would be based on Primary research: This is a conclusive research conducted on the sample size of 109 respondents through an online survey. Secondary research: Articles collected online Journals
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CHAPTER 4 ANALYSIS
CHART NO.1
CHART NO.2
53 53 3
48% 48% 3%
CHART NO. 3
108 59 3 1 40 13 40 11
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CHART NO.4
Less than an hour 1-2 hours 2-3 hours More than 3 hours
TABLE NO.3
35 37 17 20
CHART NO.5 18
Make new friends Gaming Chatting Business dealings Scanning people's profile Searching for job prospects Publicizing yourself While away time Any other
TABLE NO.4
55 32 68 18 23 19 18 43 16
HAVE YOU EVER USED THESE SITES AS A PROMOTIONAL TOOL FOR COLLEGE EVENTS OR BUSINESS PURPOSES?
CHART NO.6
19
19
11
63
16
CHART NO.7
TABLE NO.5 20
CHART NO.8
33 35 10 31
CHART NO.9
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CHART NO. 10
HOW LONG DO YOU USE THESE SITES? * PROFESSION CROSSTABULATION Count Profession student How long do you use these sites? less than an hour 1-2hrs 2-3hrs more than 3hrs Total
TABLE NO.7 22
Total 35 37 17 20 109
18 22 8 13 61
CHART NO.11
HOW MANY TIMES IN A DAY DO YOU CHECK YOUR PAGE? * PROFESSION CROSSTABULATION Count Profession student How many times in a once day do you check your twice page? thrice more than thrice Total 17 18 6 19 60 TABLE NO.8 service 8 6 2 0 16 business Employed 2 6 0 3 11 4 6 2 9 21 Total 31 36 10 31 108
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HOW OFTEN DO YOU USE THESE SITES WHILE DOING OTHER WORK ON YOUR COMPUTER? * PROFESSION CROSSTABULATION Count Profession student How often do you use these sites while doing other work on your computer? Total Always sometimes Never 32 28 1 61 service 5 10 1 16 business 5 5 1 11 employed 12 9 0 21 Total 54 52 3 109
TABLE NO.9
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KEY FINDINGS
50 respondents are male and other are female. 81% of respondents are member of more than one site. Facebook is used by 99% of respondents whereas Biggada is just used by 1%. Chatting has the preference over all other activities and is done by 68% of respondents followed by Making of new friends. 32 students always open their profile when they are on computer, while only 5respondents who are running their business, and 12 respondents who are employed use these sites always. Respondents falling in the age bracket of Less than 21 are using these sites only to make new friends, gaming or chatting.
CONCLUSION
Facebook and linkedin are the most popular sites among all. People can improve their communication skills through these sites and can keep themselves updated through various groups. Students and internee are using these sites to post their resumes or give details about their career on sites like Linkedin. The sites have helped old friends unite again. The sites are widely used among all age groups, because they serve everyones purpose be it gaming or chatting for a teenager or news updates for 47years old. These sites are real time process where you can send or receive data within seconds that helps in saving costs.
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ANNEXURES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sciencedaily.com Computer.howstuffworks.com Graphicsms.com Pcworld.com Articles.economictimes.com