Page 299 - Electronic Commerce

Chapter 6

a way to send short messages to other uses who sign up to follow their messages (called
tweets). Figure 6-1 shows the launch year for some of the more successful social
networking sites.

Flickr Kik Messenger
mixi CafeMom Foursquare
mixi
GREE Mobage-town WeChat
Mobage-town
Orkut Odnoklassniki Weibo Snapchat
274 Six Degrees Friendster Facebook Twitter QQ (relaunch) Google+ Learning
Cengage
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
QQ Tribe.net Renren VKontakte Storify
2015
MySpace Qzone Tumblr Pinterest
LinkedIn YouTube Instagram ©
FIGURE 6-1 Social networking Web sites
The general idea behind many of these sites is that people are invited to join by
existing members who think they would be valuable additions to the community. The site
provides a directory that lists members’ locations, interests, and qualities; however, the
directory does not disclose the name or contact information of members. A member can
offer to communicate with any other member, but the communication does not occur
until the intended recipient approves the contact (usually after reviewing the sender’s
directory information).
In addition to searching the directory of the community, members can make
connections with new contacts through friends they have established in the community
(perhaps starting with the person who invited them to join). By gradually building up a set
of connections, members can develop contacts within the community that might prove
valuable later.
Some of the social networks are focused around specific interests or capabilities. For
example, Flickr, Instagram, and Pinterest use photos and pictures as an organizing theme.
CafeMom attracts participants who have young children. Snapchat allows its users to send
text- and drawing-annotated photos and videos that expire after a short amount of time.
Tumbler and Twitter offer tools for short messaging (which you learn about later in this
chapter).
The expansion of social networking sites into all corners of the world continues as we
move into the third wave of electronic commerce. In addition to the Chinese and
Japanese sites mentioned earlier, successful social networking sites in local languages
have emerged in Germany (Xing), the Netherlands (Hyves), Russia (VKontakte and
Odnoklassniki), Spain (Tuenti), and Taiwan (Plurk). Figure 6-2 shows the leading social
networking sites in several areas of the world.

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