Monday, April 10, 2006
hanging out online
We take a break from gadgetry and other resources to check why we go online
everyday. What is the Internet used for?
No it is not e-mailing and work alone.
Some 30% of Internet users go online on any given day for no
particular reason, just for fun or to pass the time, says the latest
Pew Internet and American Life Project study. The report which was
released last week, says that hanging out online is emerging as a
popular activity indicating that the online environment is
increasingly popular as a place for people to spend their free time.
Taking a cue from the Pew report, we take a look at the phenomenon
called social networking. Social networking sites like www.myspace.com
are such a craze that within two years of its launch, it was getting
more page views than Google (says the Businessweek), and growing at
the rate of two million members a month, it has emerged as one of the
net's most important portals.
So what do these sites do. They allow you to join for free, blog, rank
music, create your profiles, upload your pics and most important meet
people from similar or diverse interests.
The phenomenon began with Six Degrees, that lasted between 1997 and
2001, and achieved stardom with Friendster and Meetup.com.
So popular are these sites, that Google launched Orkut, and even the
just launched Google base, which allows uploading personal profiles is
fast becoming a place to hang out looking for like minded people.
Interestingly, Google named the social networking service as orkut,
named after Orkut Buyukkokten, a Google software engineer who
developed the project during personal time allowed to him by Google.
All employees at Google are allowed to spend twenty percent of their
time working on personal interests, a policy Google has to encourage
creativity.
Tapping on the success of MySpace, News Corp., which bought the site
last year for $580 million. And last week, Helio, a Korean company has
announced that it would launch mobile handsets that enable you to
connect directly to MySpace. So use your mobile to click pictures and
upload them online as well as keeping track of which of your friends
is online at MySpace,.
everyday. What is the Internet used for?
No it is not e-mailing and work alone.
Some 30% of Internet users go online on any given day for no
particular reason, just for fun or to pass the time, says the latest
Pew Internet and American Life Project study. The report which was
released last week, says that hanging out online is emerging as a
popular activity indicating that the online environment is
increasingly popular as a place for people to spend their free time.
Taking a cue from the Pew report, we take a look at the phenomenon
called social networking. Social networking sites like www.myspace.com
are such a craze that within two years of its launch, it was getting
more page views than Google (says the Businessweek), and growing at
the rate of two million members a month, it has emerged as one of the
net's most important portals.
So what do these sites do. They allow you to join for free, blog, rank
music, create your profiles, upload your pics and most important meet
people from similar or diverse interests.
The phenomenon began with Six Degrees, that lasted between 1997 and
2001, and achieved stardom with Friendster and Meetup.com.
So popular are these sites, that Google launched Orkut, and even the
just launched Google base, which allows uploading personal profiles is
fast becoming a place to hang out looking for like minded people.
Interestingly, Google named the social networking service as orkut,
named after Orkut Buyukkokten, a Google software engineer who
developed the project during personal time allowed to him by Google.
All employees at Google are allowed to spend twenty percent of their
time working on personal interests, a policy Google has to encourage
creativity.
Tapping on the success of MySpace, News Corp., which bought the site
last year for $580 million. And last week, Helio, a Korean company has
announced that it would launch mobile handsets that enable you to
connect directly to MySpace. So use your mobile to click pictures and
upload them online as well as keeping track of which of your friends
is online at MySpace,.
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