by Jennifer Bucholtz
follow blog at http://navigatingthejourney.wordpress.com/
 
Remember when having an email address on juno.com was a big deal?  Memories of getting in trouble at my first job for  surfing the internet don’t seem so distant… back then, it was such a new concept that “logging on” was a rush.  What would be found in that vast world on the web? 
 
The web was created by Tim Berners-Lee around 20 years ago for the physics community.  In the last several years, it has evolved into a “social web” that connects individuals and communities, allowing them to engage in conversation any time of the day, and from any location in the world.  What we find on the web today is infinitely more developed than what we found then.  Today, we have more “cloud computing” tools at the click of a mouse than we can keep up with.  These tools are used by individuals and businesses both socially and functionally.
 
Here are three social networking tools sure to get you just as addicted to social media as I am.  You might be saying, ’Oh no, that’s not going to happen to me!’  Uh huh, right… it’s only a matter of time.  I’ll keep it simple in this article, but just wait until I introduce you to some of the “widgets,” applications, and online software that can be used through these networking sites… that’s when you’ll really get hooked! 
 
1. “Facebooking” – Facebook (www.facebook.com) allows you to create the “digital you.”  Users can share information about themselves (such as where they went to school, birthdays, and contact information), post pictures (and tag their friends’ photos), post and share links to videos, play games, and post comments on their and their friends’ walls.  Facebook can be used for personal purposes with a profile, and for business purposes with a fan page.  Profiles are automatically set to private, unless the user changes his or her page to public; to view a private profile, users are required to have a Facebook account and be added as a friend of the profile’s owner.  In contrast, fan pages are public, unless set to private; anyone can view the page, but to comment on the page, a user must have a Facebook account and become a fan of the page. 
 
Facebook was launched in 2004 by college student Mark Zuckerberg, with the premise of allowing college students to keep up with their friends.  Today, Facebook is one of the most popular websites in the U.S., and is used not only by college students, but by users as young as 16 and well beyond age 60.  Users no longer are required to have a college email address, as was the case when Facebook was first released.  Recent statistics suggest that the average age of Facebook users is greater than age 35.  More than 200 million users are active on Facebook. 
 
2.“Tweeting” - Twitter (www.twitter.com) can be thought of as a communication channel – just like text messaging, but your message goes to all of your followers at once.  The premise is to answer the question, “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less.  Twitter is used both personally and professionally.  Twitter accounts can be set as “public” or “private.”  If your account is public, anyone can read your posts, known as “tweets” in the Twitter community, and anyone with a Twitter account can follow your tweets.  However, if your account is private, in order for users to see your tweets, you will have to approve their request to follow you.  This concept is similar to adding someone as a friend on Facebook. 
 
Twitter was launched in 2006, and has more than 14 million accounts today.
 
3. Blogging – Weblogs, or ”blogs,” allow users to post remarks (that often include links, pictures, and/or video), and readers to post their responses.  Blogs are more than just a diary; many offer commentary and ideas for a larger audience (however, a blog can also be set as private, requiring readers to be invited to view the blog).  Blogs allow users to communicate and influence their readers, as well as learn from their constituents.  Aside from businesses and professionals using blogs to educate, blogs frequently are used by families as a means of communicating with distant relatives.  One benefit of using a blog is that all posts can be archived, and each post can accompany relevant pictures and video.  Unlike Facebook and Twitter, blogs are not used for running short commentaries.  Rather, blogs are used to communicate at length on a particular topic, and include supplementary information related to that topic, as well as to develop an archive of information presented in a reverse chronological order that can be searched by category and date.
 
More than 133 million blogs are tracked on the web by Technorati.  Some of the most popular blogging platforms include WordPress (http://www.wordpress.com/), Blogger (http://www.blogger.com/), BlogSpot (www.blogspot.com), and TypePad (http://www.typepad.com/).