Social Networking Sites

Oooh I like these! Facebook - a totally fun but completely inane form of communicating with old mates. Second Life (also referred to interchangeably as Single Life or Social Life) - what a fantastically creative place. The world is your oyster (or maybe your avatar is?) Facebook Statistics (courtesy of Wikipedia, July 2007) (Approximate numbers as of June 2007). * Users: Over 28 million * Monthly new user average: 4 million * Daily new user average: 150,000 * Page views: Over 40 billion per month * Searches: Over 600 million per month * Largest network: London, UK 673,900+ On March 2, 2007, a poll conducted by eMarketer.com of American youths in the United States discovered Facebook was the most viewed site among all respondents with more females aged 17-25 (69%) visiting the site than males (56%). Source: Abram, Carolyn (2007-02-23). "Have a taste" - Facebook blog entry (blog). Personal Reflections 1. couldn't see the point of it - this is something students use to publish photos of drunken gatherings 2. assumed it related to the Millennial Generation's desire for celebrity 3. didn't want to publish details of my life - couldn't see that anyone would be interested 4. concerned as to misuse of the site - see newspaper reports of school students insulting their teachers Eventually joined due to ex-student pressure and, ultimately I am glad I did. Great platform for rekindling relationships with past friends. BCUC's alumni is in there - now all we have to do is to use the technology to benefit from it. Possibly a bit of data mining required. Possible Uses in HE Well as the students are clearly in there and love the technology this is a good place to meet up and to connect. Make up networks of class groups and use it for announcements. Make specific facebook pages to act as course pages. Use the networks to carry out market research for assignments. This is their favoured communication tool - for now at least!