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Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Business of Social Networking


Social networking via the internet has exploded in popularity beginning around 2005.  There are various websites all competing to have the most users and innovate in the most appealing ways.  The top five are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, and last but not least Badoo.  These companies begin with large capital investments from venture capitalists but that is not a steady flow of income.  It is up to the owners of the site to discern a way to monetize their website traffic.  This is done through various ways; some websites have user fees or advertisements.  Furthermore, the most effective is through the sale of the vast amounts of data about people’s preferences and interests.  When people interact whether it is liking something on Facebook or tweeting they are expressing what they are interested in and large companies spend immense quantities of money addressing ever year.  This raises questions of privacy and how we want our data to be used.

The different types of personal data can be broken down into six categories.  The first, service data which contains what you submit about yourself in order to start an account.  Disclosed and entrusted data is everything you post on your own page as well and what you entrust to others personal pages.  Fourth, incidental data encompasses things people create about you that you have no control over.  Furthermore, behavioral data includes your preferences for who and what you do when you interact on the network, which articles you read or other linked sites you visit.  Finally, derived data consists of assumptions made upon all the other types of data about you.  Websites generally only sell service data and behavioral data because they can be used for marketing. 

Links and website trends:
1.        Facebook
2.       Twitter
3.       LinkedIn
4.       Google Plus
5.       Badoo

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