Nowadays, everyone wants to stay connected to work, friends, and family 24/7.  One of the best and newest ways to do this is with Internet social networks.  Many of these networks are becoming some of the top visited sites on the Internet.

Internet Social Networks Explained

These sites give people, who otherwise may not have met or seen one another in a very long time, a chance to reconnect.  Regardless of how the site works or who the target audience is, the creation of a profile is required.  At the vast majority of the sites, only very basic information is required, however, most people choose to go far beyond the mandatory fields.  Once the profile is complete, Internet social networks allow the users to communicate in a number of different ways.  Users can add applications, or apps, and join groups to enhance the overall experience at these different social networking websites.

History

Since the inception of the Internet, there has always been an interest in connecting with people.  The first types of Internet social networks were chat rooms, which became extremely popular during the 1990s.  Later in the 90s, Classmates.com and other sites that allowed people to reconnect with old friends were all the rage.  Soon after, three social networking websites arrived.  Friendster was the first followed by MySpace and Bebo.

Commonly Used Internet Social Networks

There are hundreds of social networking websites all over the Internet.  It seems there is a site for every niche, but there are only a handful of social networks that are extremely popular with the entire human population.  The largest is Facebook, which has over 200 million people from around the world listed.  Of those, over 100 million people log in everyday!  Facebook recently passed MySpace as the largest social networking website in the world.  Another very popular site, which aims to connect working professionals, is LinkedIn.  Finally, the most recent site to explode in popularity is Twitter, where people tell “followers” everything going on in their life in short 140 character tweets.

Personal Uses

Internet social networks are used by people of all ages to stay connected and communicate with friends.  It is extremely easy to find anyone that went to the same high school or college and reconnect with them, assuming they are a member of the site.  At the turn of the century, people began using email with a vengeance for personal correspondence.  Recently, people have been logging on and sending these messages via the social networking websites.  It is a progression that is escalating daily!

Marketing Uses

Many companies use Internet social networks to provide links to their sites.  Companies also have pages on the social sites for people to become fans, friends, or followers of the company, giving updates on new releases and useful information.  Companies are spending millions of dollars marketing through these new channels.  This marketing spend will only increase in the future as many believe this to be a key to the future of advertising.