Social Networking Sites

Here are my impressions of some social media sites that I use or have used.

Facebook

Facebook gives me an impression of an interactive contacts book. There is a messenger on the side in order for me to communicate with friends and also a news feed that allows for me to see whats going on with people. It gives me a feeling of staying in touch with people you may be friends with, come across in the past, or updating others about yourself. Its not very clustered and the information and functions are in easy to spot areas and allows for seamless navigation.

Twitter

I made a twitter account for the first time about a week or two ago and I thought that twitter was very overwhelming. Maybe because I was used to Facebook, but the sign up process took longer than expected because twitter almost seemed to forcefully make you sync your contacts or suggest what seemed like a never ending list of people to follow. The worst part was I couldn't find a way to skip this step of the sign up process. As I played around with it for an hour or so, twitter seemed to be a very simple application. I followed some classmates and also followed some public figures and companies. Twitter seems to be more of a news source. Twitter provides people updates with whats going on with the world outside of their world and allows for people to know whats going on in lives of people that they might not know in person but know as a fan.

Instagram

Instagram to me just seemed like Facebook, but strictly photographs. In this day and age where everyone uses phones with cameras, people are always sharing things that they come across through photos. Instead of text, people are using photos to update their "statuses" or what they're up to. People are allowed to comment or like the photos. Overall Instagram just seems like a film roll of photos taken by the people that you follow.

Meetup

I had a chance to use Meetup in the past and I think this social networking site is one of the better ones. This one allows people of common interests to meet each other through those interests. For instance, if I wanted to start a soccer game on Saturday, I would create an event and those who are interested in playing soccer would sign up for the event and then users can get together to form groups that continue to expand as these events start to expand. It sticks to its name of "Meetup" because it brings people together. I was fortunate enough to participate in a meet up in the past and I had a great time and met some really interesting people.

To really sum it all up Facebook is more of a keep in touch tool with the people you know and provide them with updates about your life as well as a way for people to interact. Twitter seems more of a news feed for just about anything, a simple hashtag and you can find news and updates on a subject you're looking for. Instagram, I would say is a Twitter and Facebook put together, it provides news and people can follow just about anyone as long as you know their usernames and most of the time profiles are public. Instagram allows you to see what people are doing visually rather than textually. I think Meetup is the odd one out in the fact that there is no following others and posting and updating people with how your life is going. It simply is a platform for people to get together and meet in person to enjoy activities that they have in common. You create groups, search for groups, set up events, and attend events. The only thing that it may have in common is that these groups or events have message boards that allow for people to organize their events or talk about their common interests.