Developments in Internet Social Network Services
Social network and social media services appear to be taking over the Internet. The scene has become more complicated with the advent of Google Plus, but the basics remain much the same. Privacy concerns are the major issue related to social network services.
Introduction
Social networking has become popular; around 250 million people use Facebook alone. Whether social networking is being used for professional networking, to catch up with long lost friends or to play popular games, it is almost essential to be on at least one social network service. Social networking is always changing.
Most people think of Facebook when they hear the terms social network or social media. With millions of users, Facebook is an extremely valuable company that benefits from targeted advertising. It is, however, notorious for complicated and ever-changing privacy options that have been known to reveal more of people's information than it intended. With growing competition, Facebook is now playing a game of catch up to avoid obsolescence. Another problem concerned tracking people's web use even when they thought they were logged out. This has reduced the network's popularity.
Google Plus
Launched to much fanfare and fighting over the limited invitations to beta accounts, Google's answer to Facebook sports a clean interface and a good way to organize contacts. However, a real names policy has embroiled the company in controversy. Despite this, people are switching to Google Plus from Facebook at an increasing pace.
Other Developments
With growing privacy concerns, some users turn to small, nonprofit sites such as Diaspora. Other people opt out of social media altogether. The trend is for growing integration of the rest of the web with the social networks, with many websites now sporting both Facebook "like" and Google "+1" buttons.