Social Networking Sites

Facebook: Launched on February 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Severin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. Facebook is the leading social networking site in the world with over 1.7 billion unique active monthly users. It is a platform to connect individuals worldwide. Facebook is the norm for generation z that is growing up today. If you don't have a Facebook means that you don't have an identity. Facebook is conceptualized as a worldwide directory. The idea of "friending" is essential to Facebook. With the acceptance of the person's friend request, one is able to post on the person's wall, look at the person's post, chat personally, create a group, etc. I have a Facebook account which I primarily use to connect with people back home, India.

Twitter: Created in March of 2006 and launched in July of 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass. Twitter has more than 310 million active monthly users. It is a platform for news powered by the people. I like to think of it as an internet democracy. Twitter's idea is different from Facebook because of the "follower" and "following" list. The post on twitter is known as a "tweet." The tweets are limited to 140 characters, which I find to be very limited for any opinion base because it doesn't give you space for an explanation. I have been away from the idea of tweeting. Twitter didn't really spark an interest in my social networking world. 

Instagram: Launched on October 6, 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. Facebook bought it out for $1 Billion in cash and stocks. Instagram has over 400 million active monthly users. It is platform for photo and video sharing with the similar concept of Twitter's "follower" and "following" list. The idea is to share the moments of life with the list of people who follow you for whatever the reason may be. Instagram gives you the platform to share a photograph and caption the details behind the picture. The caption can be left blank or consist of a quote special to the photograph, or a conversation in regards to the picture, or from a sarcastic point of view. I have an Instagram account that I use on a regular basis to keep up with people from my frequent past such as high school friends and college friends. I was very fond of Instagram before Snapchat came along.

Snapchat: Launched in September of 2011 by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown. Snapchat is an app used for image and video sharing. It is a platform for visual conversation that can be lasted for the maximum of 10 seconds. Those 10 seconds can consist of just one still picture or a video. The personal conversations are self destructed within the given time frame of 10 seconds; while on the other hand, if the image is shared to your story, then it lasts 24 hours. The story is shared to all friends rather than conversation to a particular person. I admire the concept of Snapchat. I find it much more easy to hold a conversation on Snapchat than any other social media ground because of its ability to visualize the emotion and setting. In comparison to Instagram, Snapchat is unfiltered and more realistic.