Young Generation (Chapter One and

¶ … young generation (Chapter one and two) INRODUCTION Over the last five years, the phenomenon of social networking has emerged that the technology has not only become accepted as part of our normal lives, but also as important necessities which most people cannot do without (Boyd 2006, p. 78). Over that period, the growth of the social network has been unprecedented from the niche communities to the mass online activity where millions of users in the internet get engaged in both during leisure time but also at work time.

Some of the popular ones include Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Orkut among others which give the individual the capability to present themselves and develop connections with their friends and families (Ahn and Jeong 2007, p. 839). The orientation of these sites is varied and they can be towards romantic relationship e.g. original Friendster.com objective; context which is work related e.g. linkedIn.co; making connection with the people who share the same interests like politics and music e.g. MySpace; connect the population of college student e.g.

original Facebook incarnation. These sites may also be used to make connection with people that the participants already know or meet other new people. This study will mostly focus on the impacts of the social networks on the teens with the main focus being placed on Facebook. The users of Facebook are allowed to present themselves through an online profile that is usually created by filling in a form the important demographical and location information.

They then can accumulate friends by adding them or the friends adding them, and comments can thus be posted by these friends on the user's pages which is usually referred to as the wall. Depending on the common interests of the Facebook members, they can then join groups which are virtual see what is common among the classes and learn the hobbies, musical tastes, interests and status of romantic relationship of their friends through the profiles.

For researchers interested in the affordances and the impact of Facebook, its indeed a rich site with high influence due to the high usage patterns in the world and the technological capabilities which makes the online and offline connection to be bridged. Because Facebook originally served a community which was bound, i.e. The college students, it is believed that the offline to online trend is understudied and is represented by Facebook.

The usage of the Facebook is higher currently than other social media and its even termed as an addiction to the teens. Indeed its impact is multifaceted as it has the positive impacts like helping the members keep in touch with close friends some of whom are distant and also meet new people. Because of its time consuming nature, the social networks has been viewed to also have negative impacts like affecting the grades in the schools although this is also a controversial issue.

This study will analyze the impact of the social media and in particular that of Facebook to the teens. 1.2 Problem Statement The problem statement for this study is to find out the impact of Facebook on young generation. For the past few years, the popularity of the social networking sites has shot up especially among the teens that are considered more technology savvy than their older counterparts.

The influence of the social networking sites is far reaching with most people who aren't yet members being coerced to join by their friends who have joined. This has led to high membership especially for Facebook which has been growing steadily for the past few years. The influence of these sites is therefore remarkable and its spreads even to the offline social and economical realms.

Some parents and educationists have raised concern with regard to the use of the sites by the teens and in particular the effect the site has on the education of the teenagers. The other concerns also include the age-appropriate exposure of its use and access and the behaviours of the teenagers online that might influence their character offline. Internet safety and privacy issues always come into the discussions of the Facebook use by the teenagers.

Even so the sites are indeed a good tool which when utilized properly can help the teenagers make the best of what they have. They allow for sharing of special moments through photos, staying connected through messaging and staying updated through the news feeds. This study will try to analyze the impact that the social networking sites have on the teenagers. 1.3 Objective of the Study 1.3.1 General Objective To identify the social and academic impact of Facebook on young generation 1.3.2 Specific objectives The specific objectives of the study are to: I.

To establish how the usage of facebook varies with the age and sex among the young generation. II. To find out how the membership of facebook varies with age degree of usage of Facebook by the young generation. III. To find out the different ways of using social networking sites by the young generation IV. To find out the frequency of usage of Facebook by the young generation. V. To discover the usefulness of Facebook in friendship management. VI.

To find out the positive impacts of Facebook to the young generation. VII. To find out the impact of Facebook to the education of the young generation users. 1.4 Research Questions The research questions for this study are I. Does Facebook help its members stay connected or keeps them apart? II. What is the difference of frequency usage among the different age and sex of members? III. Is there significant relationship between the time consumed on facebook and the academic performance? IV.

Is the amount of information available on the profiles of the users put them in offline risks? V. Is the increase of Facebook membership of the young generation dependent on peer influence of the individuals who are already members to non-members? VI. What is the frequency of usage of the Facebook site by the young generation? VII.

Is there any positive impact of Facebook to the relationships with their friends in the offline environment? 1.5 Hypothesis of the study There is a significant impact of the social networking sites on the young generation. Use of Facebook has influenced the offline relationships by helping keeping them connected.

1.6 Importance of the study This study is of importance because its outcome will be useful in understanding the social and educational effects of the social networking sites to the young generations hence be able to address the different concerns that have been raised. Because recently the use of the Facebook by the young generation has increased greatly concerns regarding the age appropriateness, security and privacy and the effect of Facebook on the academic performance of the student users have come up.

Again the positive impacts of Facebook will also be understood from the findings of the study. The outcome will therefore be useful to the parents, educators and the policy makers in knowing how to handle the social networking sites engagements. The study will also educate and provide important information to future scholars who will study or research on similar issues. 1.7 Scope and justification of the study With the enormous growth of the social networking sites and in particular Facebook recently, its influence is far reaching beyond the online realm.

Its impact has been able to affect the normal relationships by acting as a tool which helps in the connection of the individuals and also helping people from disparate parts of the world with varying cultures, education and background to meet. Even so the impact hasn't just been positive but there are also some negative impacts as well. The understanding of these impacts is therefore important so as to know how to deal with them.

The study will involve a target population of the young generation of which the outcome will be expected to be reflective of the general population. The study will be limited to the young generation referred to this study as those aged 12-24.The study is conducted through online questionnaires which will provided by the online survey hosting company. The users will be directed to the web address where their responses will be recorded.

1.8 Limitations of the study 1.8.1 Accessibility of data Respondents may not be willing to provide information since they will not be sure where it will end to. These are due to privacy concern which the respondents might object to. The young respondents might also be not willing to provide the information because of the concern of the paedophiles that usually use the information to lure them in the social networks.

1.8.2 Time constraint Time will be major limitations to the study this study because the respondents might not be willing to respond to all the questions because they might consider it time consuming. 1.8.3 Financial constraint The number of the Facebook members is very high and the researcher would have preferred to carry out a study on all of them but this will not be possible. Large number of respondents will require large number of questionnaires to be given to the individuals and this would have high financial implications.

1.9 Delimitations Due to the problem of fear of the information that if the Facebook members disclose will be used against them in future, I intend to guarantee them anonymity on any information given and confidentiality by ensuring no names or sensitive information is required in the questionnaires. On the time constraint, the questionnaires will be designed so that it takes small amount of time with few open ended questions.

On the financial, the samples taken will be done randomly so that even if it's quite small compared to the whole Facebook membership, it will be representative. CHAPTER TWO BACKGROUND 2.1 Literature review 2.1.1 Introduction Social networking is considered the as the manner of communication in the 21st century. It refers to the individuals grouping into groups which are specific in nature similar to little neighbourhood division or rural communities. Social networking is most popular online although it is possible in person in particular at universities, workplace and high schools.

The reason for this is that unlike most colleges, high schools or work places there are millions of individuals in the internet who are after meeting other people, share and gather information which is first hand and golfing, aesthetic, gardening and cosmetic experiences (Albrechtslund 2008, p. 45). There are also interested in establishing professional alliances or friendship, marketing for business and other business, seek employment and even groups disseminating information about Great Shift or Mayan calendar end.

Also there are varied interests and topics and rich as the human beings history and society (Adamic 2003, p. 67). Websites are the ones commonly used in the online social networking and are referred to as social sites. They function like the internet users online community. Common interests are shared by most of the members of the online community but this depends on the type of social networking site and can be religion, hobbies or politics. The socialization aspect of the sites may consist of sharing of information with other members.

One of the important benefits of the online social networking is the number of friends which a person can make. Also due to the access of the sites to individuals all over the world, there is increased diversity making the idea of the world as a global village even truer. One can have friends from the disparate points of earth therefore enabling for the learning of novel languages and cultures (Athanasopoulos and Markatos 2008 p. 45).

Specific organization or individuals grouping is a characteristic of social networking sites with some concentrating on particular interests while others are general. Traditional social networking is the term used to refer to the sites without main focus and they have open memberships. The users of these sites typically start to create their own networks once inside the site by considering the friends who the person shares common goals and interests (Agarwal and Mital 2009).

2.2 Profile, Friends and Comments Profiles are the base of the social networking sites and this can be describe as the homepage of the individual and it offers information about the person. In addition to the images, text and video that the member has created, the profile of the social networking site also consist of comments which have been posted by other members and a list of persons that are identified as friends to that member within the network (Mackay1841).

The dating services are attributed for the sites popularized style, the materials contained in the sites typically reflect those of the dating sites like details on demography e.g. sex, age, location; tastes e.g. favorite band and interests, photography and description on the person that would be desired to be meet which is usually open ended. The filling of a form constitutes the construction of the profiles.

There is public availability of the default profile though privacy features in most social network sites allow for the restriction of persons who can access their profiles. In Facebook the default profile is available to those of the same school or college (Brake 2009, p. 89). After the profile creation, the friends of the participants are invited by email through the supply of their addresses.

The people can also be added to the friends list through looking at the profiles of other peoples and the approval of two people is usually required by most social networks for them to be linked as friends. A confirmation request message is usually sent to the person who has been indicated as friend by another person.

In the system the two become friends if the request is for friendship has been confirmed and this connection is publicly displayed in their profiles and typically consists of the names and photos which link to their profiles. Therefore the network can be traversed by the visitor through clicking of these links and thus moving from friend to friend.

Another typical feature in addition to the content provided by the members for their profile creation, there is a comment dedicated section whereby the friends can post and its referred to as "The Wall" in Facebook and "Testimonials" in Friendster. This feature can be attributed to the implementation by Friendster whose intention was to allow strangers to read the testimonials posted by the person's friends (Acquisti and Gross 2009, p. 10978).

2.3 YouTube Overview Founded in February 2005 by former PayPal employees, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, YouTube has become the leader of online video sharing through a Web experience. Through internet websites, mobile devices, blogs and email, people are able to upload and share video clips easily through the use of YouTube. It enables people watch videos easily. Through YouTube, people have been able to see firsthand accounts of current events, find videos on their favorite hobbies and interest while at the same time discover the rather unusual or quirky.

YouTube is empowering people to become the broadcasters of tomorrow as more and more begin capturing special moments on video. Since its inception in 2005, YouTube has managed to attract crowds, cross milestones, enable the creation of fads, and top lists among other things (Oiarzabal 2009). 2.3.1 YouTube: The Company YouTube was formed when the founders, on witnessing the boom of online grass root videos, noticed the need for reduce the hustle of uploading, watching and sharing videos.

The domain YouTube.com was registered on 15th February, 2005 and the process of developing the site took place in the months that followed at a garage in Menlo Park. It was the launched into a public beta in November, making its debut with a $3.5 million funding from Sequoia Capital.

For the site to attract the initial crowd they were looking for that is teenagers, college students, film makers and hobbyists, they developed a contest which gave away an iPod Nano each day to random members and running for duration of two months. The competition was point based where signing up; inviting others and posting videos earned one a point. One increased their chances of winning the more points they had. This contest advertised the site to the masses and gave it a large number of members.

It has become a fast growing website at present through hosting segments of SNL, Superbowl, TV goof-ups, and numerous videos among other popular music videos. 2.3.2 Business The company's business model is based on traditional banner advertising, sponsorship, partnerships and promotions and even contextual advertisements. This means that although free to users, firms have to pay for these services. YouTube has formed numerous partnerships with companies in the media like NBC and the Warner Music Group.

YouTube's business has brought up a number of debates with most claiming that it is based purely on copyrighted infringements (Degenne & Michel 1999, p.78). 2.3.3 Bandwidth Costs YouTube uses approximately 200 terabytes a day that adds up to approximately a million dollars worth of bandwidth bill. The company has had a stronger goal in building a community than in making money. It is believed that YouTube needs to look into its business plan in order to sustain its growth as it is a growing phenomenon (Oiarzabal 2009).

2.3.4 Registration Signing up for YouTube has been the same since its inception and has not changed much remaining fairly easy. Users can join as different accounts depending on how they plan to use the site. Those who plan to use it generally and that using it to watch videos, a traditional account is the way to go. For entertainers, there are specific and special types of accounts for them, for instance, there are accounts for musicians, directors and comedians.

But efforts have been made to accommodate all different types of users. Regardless the type of account a user has, the terms and conditions the up loader of a video grants YouTube non-exclusive access to the video and let it be watched on the internet and also warns against copyright infringement. 2.3.5 Uploading Uploading of a video is easy whereby, after giving a video's title, description, tags, category and language, one simply selects a video file.

YouTube accepts every type of video that there is, be it private or public and makes it accessible to millions of viewers. One of the factors that make YouTube a success is how easy it is to use for the users (Choi 2006, p. 179). 2.3.6 YouTube Homepage Since its first day, YouTube has used a tabbed navigation menu that is seen at top of each page. The homepage has 10 daily featured videos with one from their exclusive partners. 'Active Channels' and 'Active Groups' are also featured on the homepage.

Videos are monetized alone along with subsequent pages. 2.3.7 YouTube Directors Signing up for a Director's account makes one essentially a YouTube content partner. One gets to co-brand their logo, a link to a URL, provides their company's description with each of their videos along with the 'Director' tag. One is able to upload videos that are longer than 10 minutes and can also customize more fields and values. This is aimed at amateur film-makers and online content distributers and therefore nurturing talent.

2.3.8 YouTube Comedians A special type of account has been made to cater specifically to amateur comedians who post their videos on YouTube. It is a lighter version of the Directors account and comes with a 'Comedian' tag and the ability to customize ones channel and videos. This does not grant one the ability to surpass 10 minutes streaming time or post ones logo to the video (Scott 2000, P.87).

2.3.9 YouTube Musicians Musicians like the comedians get to post their own music videos on their accounts and also get to identify themselves as musicians. They can customize their channel with information like "Record Label" which is convenient for both amateur and independent musicians. 2.3.10 YouTube Channels These are flash names for user's profile but with a few exceptions. Channels, like user profiles in other online communities, can be decorated and filled with information describing the user.

Typically, it has the user's information, the videos they have uploaded, favorite things, how to get in contact them, subscribers to their channel, which channels they subscribe to, bulletins and comments. Users can also subscribe to other channels and get updates on any new videos from the user they have subscribed to, through the 'My Subscriptions' page.

They can also subscribe to tags like "snowboarding" or even "Base jumping." 2.3.11 YouTube Playlists This is a handy feature of the site whereby users are allowed to create their own playlists to help organize their collections and also give them a grouped collection of similar kinds of videos or even simply group a parted segment of videos together. This feature is determined by the user and has been inferred to good use.

2.3.12 YouTube Groups They are primarily the site's social section that allows users group together as people and as their videos and have discussions on the topic. The recent launch of Colleges has welcomed Facebook audience to meet up with their peers, although it is widely used for contests and competitions (Lack & Hoover 2009, p. 67).

2.3.13 YouTube Underground Contest This is the most popular section of the site which is held in aim of finding the best amateur, independent and unsigned musician out there who can write, play, and make a good music video. The community votes on the best one and four grand prize winners who get their start in the industry by being featured on ABC's Good Morning America and thousands of mobile phones through Cingular Videos, to a chance to perform live and with all the professional equipment they can obtain.

In conclusion, the greatest reason for its appeal is its users is uploading, viewing and sharing videos and also appeals to nearly each age, race and nationality. YouTube has made an exceptional name for itself in its new content distribution model and will go on to be one of the companies that change the way the world watches content (Macias & Hilyard 2009, p.21). 2.4 Facebook overview The largest social network with over 400 million users, Facebook's primary focus was high school to college students.

Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, a then student in Harvard University, Facebook was initially an exclusive network for interaction for the students of Harvard University. After only two weeks of release, half of schools in Boston started demanding a Facebook network. Dustin Moskowitz and Chris Hughes were recruited shortly afterwards in a bid to help build Facebook and 30 more college networks were added to Facebook after four months. After a few months, Zuckerberg and Moskovitz dropped out of Harvard and decided to run Facebook full time.

They were later joined by Napster co-founder, Sean Parker who helped them make Facebook even bigger. Zuckerberg's former high school was the basis of the idea of Facebook whereby each student had the Exeter Face Book passed to them in an attempt to help them know their classmates for the following year. This was a physical book which was brought to the internet (Livingstone 2007, p.64).

Facebook is a social networking site which allows users interact through a constantly evolving set of networks based on college, university, friendships, interest groups, and other different social groups. The site has gone through many changes since it was first created and launched. Now, anyone can join the site without a specific affiliation to an education institution. The site now focuses on everyone and not necessarily on colleges or university. It has networks based on locations, workplace, high school or university or college.

Facebook now has a variety of features and tools that tie the sites functions into other web-based applications. Added functionality enables users create and share their own online identities and use it to communicate with other users. It also has the strongest and most detailed privacy policies that enables users determine who sees their information and what they can do with it. By allowing high school students create profiles on Facebook, they are able to join their respective university or college network once they enroll as freshmen.

This is due to the amount of experience they gain from using it before and familiarizing themselves with the site. Facebook's functionality is based on relationships based on friends and network membership. On registration, users select their own network category, whether it is workplace or college and make a choice from a list of available networks in the category (Christofides & Desmarais 2009, p. 343). Users can belong to multiple networks and can change networks, albeit with a few restrictions.

On mutual agreement, users become friends and this dictates how certain functions work. Users are able to upload unlimited numbers of pictures and with a "gift" feature, users are able to send clip-art images with attached messages. There is a tool that enables users search contact lists of email accounts to look for other users with accounts and profiles on Facebook. Users are also able to decide who has access to information and who can be able to take certain actions.

Some elements of the profile page can be displayed to specific individuals, members of networks or just the user's friends. When one adds photos to their profiles, comments on a photo or a friend's status, depending on their privacy settings, the information is displayed as newsfeed on their home page. 2.4.1 Availability Facebook is available to everyone from any country and in a number of languages ranging from English to French and even Celtic and Swahili.

One needs a valid email address and a password so as to create an account profile. 2.4.2 Facebook profiles This is a webpage that shows the user's information, status of their relationship, their friends, friends from other networks, their pictures, notes, groups and their wall where one's friends can write messages for them to read. Friend sections also reveal friends that one might have in common with. A majority of the sections are self-explanatory while others are specific and unique to Facebook (Clarke 2009, p. 54.).

2.4.3 Facebook photos People upload photos daily on their profiles on Facebook. These photos can be uploaded from their cell phones or through Java-based web interface. It is the only social networking site with offering unlimited photo uploads. One uploads photos and can control who sees the photos in an album, like can be visible to friends only. Albums are posted on one's profile and users with permission can see and leave comments (Coenen & Matthys 2006, pp.193).

2.4.4 Survey and studies Facebook has enabled the conducting of a number of surveys and studies which have had some interesting results. It has enabled surveyors learn about the youths knowledge on certain social issues. The surveys can be used to inform companies and corporations about the popularity of their goods and products and also provide a way forward for improvement. An example of this is the iPod and iPhones. 2.4.5 Groups Like all social networks, Facebook has groups which the users create, join or participate in already existing ones.

These indicate ones interests and hobbies and are usually displayed on one's profile. These groups can be for common interests like sports, movies or a music group or they can be for a support of a common course for which there may be a need to educate the public for. Such issues include child pornography, debt relief for third world countries, against certain politicians among others (Backstrom and Xiangyang 2006, p. 48). 2.4.6 Events Facebook enables people advertise events which are coming up depending on their location.

The event feature enables one organize, become part of and also plan events. These events range from parties to political rallies and gatherings to religious functions and even weddings. It basically covers all events that may take place socially and may vary in size. For one to attend a certain event, they receive an invitation which they have an option of saying they will attend it, or they might attend the event or they will not attend the event.

2.4.7 Facebook Notes This serves as a user's blog and is displayed in the user's profile and enable other members add comments on them. They also enable one import and syndicate an external blog without allowing u claim it to you, for instance, one can claim the New York Times syndication feeds into their Notes'. It also allows the inclusion of HTML in one's posts but JavaScript and Flash are disabled. Photos can also be attached to posts and also posted using the cell phone.

Another feature is the use of tags which enables one tag a post or picture with a username and it will be sent to that user. 2.4.8 Facebook's future With its massive success, Facebook is set to grow more as a social networking site. It is hard to determine how big it will go and if there will be a new social networking site that will come and become more popular or even better.

With its instituted changes, Facebook has redefined "social networking." On a level, it has become a new portal that gives its users a broad control over what and how they see. Fundamentally being about relationships and networking, the relationships have become increasingly based on professional interests, political activities and other connections that are not necessarily social (Wasserman & Katherine 1994). Facebook has given its users a considerable amount of control of their private information.

The only problem with this is that it gives a certain amount of power to users who may not know what to do with the information or make correct judgment. One may be forced to create a completely new online persona if they decide to change to another social network. Some people are concerned about there being an increase of actions or activities that lack substance.

It is also feared that Facebook might encourage superficial, trite interaction with little educational value in course of keeping in touch with a circle of friends and colleagues. There is also fear that in the case of data mining to improve user experiences may bring about questions regarding appropriate use. 2.5 MySpace overview MySpace has about 125 million users and indeed one of the largest social networks in the word. Its origin is attributed from Friendster inspiration an earlier social network.

It then grew quickly to be the largest social network in the world but later on was overtaken by Facebook. The most distinctive feature of MySpace is the customization nature of the user page and the integration of support from widgets like You Tube and Slide. The connection that MySpace provides is based on culture and content. MySpace came into popularity by leveraging the freedom to allow the musicians to create their own personal profile which they could use to interact with their fans.

Previously Friendster had banned this practice and actually deleted the profiles of the bands of which the band members especially those based in San Franscisco had used for connecting with fans and gigs promotion. The bands were welcomed online by MySpace with its launch in the fall of 2003 and indie rock musicians were easily attracted from Los Angeles neighborhood, Silverlake (Baker & Susan 2008, p. 83). Among the youths, music is like cultural glue.

Most people especially those aged about 20-30 joined the site with the intent of accessing VIP passes or gaining cultural capital when the bands started advertising their presence in MySpace. Most young aficionado began checking out MySpace when they learned that their favorite bands had put up profiles on MySpace. This was particularly so because most young fans could not go to the bands performances because of the age restriction in United States of 21 although they are the most consumers of music and its surrounding culture.

A symbiotic relationship between the fans and the bands ensured because free music was available for listening and downloading for the music junkies while the musicians were being written to by the celebrity watchers and they responded happily. On the other hand the bands wanted to increase their fan base and who again desired to be connected to them. MySpace attracted many young fans based on the level of which participation in music subcultures by the youths is high (Carroll 2008 p.109).

Peers who were less engaged in music were then invited to join the site after its existence was learnt by the first wave of the young participants. The offered social voyeurism and chance of personal representation crafting in the online community which was increasingly popular made the most users to start participating. The visualization of the social world using profile collections which were networked was appealing to the teenagers just like their counterparts who were older.

However different participation strategies were adopted by the young participants who varied from the older and earlier participants. The focus of the teenagers was on socializing with people who were known to them personally and the adored celebrities which was different to the adults who found more value in the socialization with the strangers. Intermix Media an internet marketing company started MySpace as a side project in the August 2003.

The then CEO and founder of Intermix media (was then called eUniverse) Brad Greenspan oversaw the project with the aid of Chris DeWolfe and its launch was done officially in January 2004. One million users had been registered into MySpace by February 2004 and the number reached 5 million by November of the same year. eUniverse was later acquired by News Corporation in July 2005 for $580Million and MySpace was then valued at $327Million. Currently there are more than 20 million registered users in MySpace.

There was contemplation of selling of 25% of the stocks of MySpace to Yahoo in mid-2007 though this deal didn't go through but the site would have been valued at 12$ Billion. There was increased revenue growth after its acquisition because News Corporation pursued profitable advertising deals. A $900M agreement was made by Google to provide advertising and search on MySpace site directly and with its expiration set for June 2010.

There was major redesign of the site in mid-2008 because critics throughout the history of the site have cited the disorganized and chaotic interface as a grave hindrance to the site usability. The main page was made more clean and streamlined by the redesign. Universal Music Group in 2006 sued MySpace for copyright infringements amounting to several millions of dollars. With launch of MySpace Music in mid-2008 the suit was settled and this was a site where streaming songs from different artists could be listened to by the users (Hodge 2006, p.27).

This venture was then supplemented by iLike acquisition in mid-2009. A record label was launched by MySpace previously in 2005 and this led to the discovering of musicians like Sean Kingston and Lily Allen through this site. The user's growth of MySpace has stagnated since 2008 and there has been falling in page views among other metrics. A 30% of MySpace's workforce was laid off in 2009. The content layout is meant to be controlled by the forms filled out for the profiles.

The profiles of MySpace accept and render codes from HTML and CSS and this is a technological loophole that was left by MySpace. The appearance and feel of the user's MySpace profile can be modified by the participants through the capitalization of this loop hole.

The teens have been known to copy and paste codes obtained from other websites so as their backgrounds are changed through changing the text color, adding of images and video ultimately making their profiles to be animated chaos and is usually compared to the stereotypical bedroom of the teenagers. There is public availability of the default profile but these can be made friends only by the privacy features in MySpace and for the users in the age 14 or 15 this is their default.

2.6 Comparison of Facebook and YouTube The main difference between Facebook and YouTube is that Facebook is a social networking site while YouTube is a social media site. The main difference between social networking and social media is that a social media website serves as an outlet and strategy for broadcasting while social networking is a tool and utility for connecting with others. They are essentially put under the Web 2.0 category.

Their difference lies in the features and functions that the creators put in the site and these in turn dictate how they are used (Charnigo & Barnett-Ellis 2007, p.23). YouTube as a social media website is like a television on the internet with a bazillion channels. It also serves as a marketing tool for any business which wants to make an impact on the internet and also serves as a distribution tool. As a social media site, it is not convenient for networking as the social networking sites are.

The information one posts is not convenient for one seeking a job or where your friends or acquaintances are going to be meeting. Facebook enables one broadcast their pictures, their links, book lists, blog posts while at the same time connecting with people from your past, present and hopefully future. The pictures posted aim to serve as networking and media tools as one is able to tag their friends and other people can place their own tags on your photos.

Facebook for the most part is a networking site but it is also a media site too as it allows one put up own media material like pictures (Boyd & Jenkins 2006). 2.7 Facebook and MySpace comparison Once upon a time, Friendster was everyone's favorite social networking site, but it fell precipitously and people stopped going there. Them MySpace replaced it and provided a place for one to host their online identity and also included a set of tools where one met and interacted with others.

Facebook then came along with a similar description to MySpace but a bit different and slowly took over MySpace. This was due to a few reasons namely; a great number of people enjoy having an outpost of their own on the Web on which they can show who they are as individuals, as well as communicate with old friends and at the same time meet new people. As Social networking sites appear as transient businesses, comparable to social clubs in the real world, things do change quiet quickly.

Every so often, a different social network appears and becomes incredibly popular and people slowly leave their current social network and move to the new popular one. It is this human nature that dominates the virtual world as well. Buzz is important in bringing about the rise of a social networking site in comparison to other websites. People choose their favorite website based on how well the services or applications work. This makes the site's traffic numbers less important.

Some visitors judge social networking sites depending on how many popular people go there. If one desires to meet people online, they have to visit the site with the best chance of finding people one likes (Burke & Lento 2009). Facebook creates a more formal atmosphere in comparison to MySpace with Facebook having a cleaner and more adult-looking interface as compared to the rather chaotic, informal and popular culture inspired MySpace.

Facebook's "block" presentation, its clean lines and preservation of white space makes the browsing experience less chaotic than the one provided by MySpace. On the other hand, MySpace gives a great deal of creative control to the users on how they want their pages to look. With the ease of use of HTL codes, which can be dropped into page templates to add images or change the page color and move some elements around the page, it can sometimes create unappealing results.

Background images can sometimes compete with the pages text and functional boxes in the foreground which brings about cluttered and hard-to-look-at results which is equivalent to loud uncomplimentary stripes. Facebook helps new members build their network of friends through leveraging existing, offline social structures through running a search of current or former high school, college, grad school or company so as to find people in one's past and present.

On locating these people, one can invite them to their network and this serves to help them build friend networks faster and get immediate gratification. MySpace enables one build their network of friends by inviting people from different social circles in the world or inviting friends from the extended network, also known as friends of your existing friends on MySpace.

However, people and groups of all kinds use the site to market themselves and send messages or request that they be added to friends' list of people they may not know. Users may receive random requests from random bands, comedians and the like, but one should not feel obligated to "add" them to their friends' list. In terms of applications, Facebook puts a lot of emphasis on plug-and-play applications as compared to MySpace which people like.

One is able to plug in a new application on their profile page and try it out and discard if it is not for them or does not appear useful enough. These applications are provided by Facebook which has a list of applications that are written by its developers and users.

Facebook has released and application programming interface (APIs) to private developers in an attempt to make it an "operating system for social networking" Though both are social networking sites, there are still many differences and similarities that exist between Facebook and MySpace. People may think that the two are virtually similar but they are different. The first difference is that the two look and feel different.

While MySpace users are able to change their profile colors and can add flash applications on to their page, their Facebook counterparts cannot change their page color. In terms of users' age group, Facebook initially served college and university students and recent graduates and later opened up to the public. Facebook attracted both educated and younger audiences with the average user age being 23 while MySpace was popular amongst high school kids and people over the age of 40 and the average user age being 35 (Christopherson 2006, p. 78).

The other difference lies in the applications that are used on both sites. MySpace has three distinct functionalities like the bulletin board, blog posts and music applications. One writes their own post without necessarily hosting a blog using the blog post. One is also able to add music to their profile, and if one is a musician or loves to share music files, one can use this application to get people to hear, share and download their music. Facebook applications have undergone drastic changes since its launch.

There are many applications that its users have created which MySpace does not have (Lewis 2008, p.92). Applications that one wishes to add to their profile can be found on my favorites'. Facebook has other fun applications by creating 'Events', 'Fun wall' among others. A new user can take their time to familiarize you with the applications. When it comes to the users of these social networking sites, there are various classes who are seen to be found in them.

Facebook is seen to represent a very distinct and professional group of individuals. According to a study by Danah Boyd (2009), MySpace is described as having members who are "burnouts," punks or teenagers from the alternative scene with parents who didn't go beyond high school education. It is also said that the higher castes of high school moved to Facebook as they viewed it as more cultured and less cheesy while the lower caste were more content with remaining in MySpace.

Facebook and MySpace are competing against each other for the number of users but in time, they will ultimately be serving different sets of web users or there will be users who will be maintaining pages on both sites or even multiple pages on both sites. Some technological analysts view it as people seeing the whole issue as being the choice as either or question as maintaining accounts on two local social networks can take a long time.

Facebook seeks to retain its core membership group of 18 to 24-year-olds who are moving to college life, by adding new features like applications menus and modified the search for friends' option to include companies alongside schools (Ellison & Lampe 2006. p.95). 2.8 Competing addiction between Facebook and MySpace In the current society, the social networking sites Facebook, MySpace and YouTube have become an addiction to the people.

Just like the drug dependent addicts, the junkies of the social networking sites count the minutes to when they will next get their profile fix, going online several times during the day to see how many friends they have gotten, how many virtual drinks and the shout-outs they have received. Recently the data has indicated that the growth of MySpace has been declining while that of Facebook has incessantly been accelerating.

The question is usually raised as to whether Facebook will indeed be the king of the social networking space horizon. Or the two social networks which are also very different can be able to coexist (Cain 2009, p.63). Earlier on data from Hitwise indicated that the most visited domain in the U.S. was MySpace but this is changing considering the steady increase that has been exhibited by the site over the few couple of years.

For each service, there are some peculiar audience components as has been seen from the psychographic and demographic data. There are more women on the tune of 4% who visit MySpace than those who visit Facebook on the basis of per capita. There is tendency of the users of Facebook to be more affluent who are skewing towards earnings of more than $60,000 yearly while the users of MySpace are skewed in the direction of low levels of income with the earning of less than $60,000 being observed on 12% more of its users.

The two social network users have a class distinction which has been indicated by the tracking of internet users in U.S. using the psychographic system Mosaic. In the Mosaic, the predominant group of visitors for Facebook is affluent suburbia which are described by the Mosaic as the group of households of the wealthiest individuals who live in suburban neighborhoods which are exclusive and enjoy the best of life.

The struggling societies is on the other hand the predominant group for MySpace is the struggling societies which is consisting of households with principally single income, single parent, using lower income to raise the families and budgets which are tight (Raacke & Bonds-Raacke 2008, p.172). By observing where the different people go to after leaving the social networking site will also help in understanding the sites users. The most common sites for MySpace users are the photography and multimedia sites like YouTube, Photobucket and Flickr after leaving MySpace.

A similar pattern is seen in the Facebook users who then visit sites like YouTube, Slide and Flixter. The two sites exhibit one outstanding difference which is that 5% of the users who leave faceook proceed to sites which are categorized as educational and this can be attributed to the fact that Facebook is in its heritage was originally for college students. The two networking sites traffic pattern bring out a fascinating fact.

If we consider the visits done to Facebook in a week, 20% of the users leaving Facebook visit MySpace afterwards immediately and this is an increase from 10% from the previous years. More than 5% of all the visits from MySpace users who on leaving the site go immediately to Facebook. Therefore beyond the peculiar demographics of the two sites, most users decide to make use of both sites which makes them sort of complementary and there is a more than one threshold for each user (Miller & Jensen 2007, p.21).

2.9 Social networks transitions To be able to understand what lies ahead for Facebook and in particular the characteristic social network transitions which Facebook must also experience, then the concept of object centric and ego centric social networks must be considered. As a generalization, the social networks are considered to be of two types i.e. The object centric and the ego centric sites.

The individual is placed at the network experience core in ego-centric social network and Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Orkut are the examples while a non-ego element is placed at the network centre are by the object centric network. Examples of the object centric networks are YouTube with the object being videos, Flickr with the object being photography and Dopplr with the object being travel instance.

There is a similar characteristic between the object and ego centric networks and the social object is considered to be the human using these service with the significance based on experiential difference (Cassell & Cramer 2007). The value of the social networks which are object centric can be described in network effect multiplier exploration. The network value multiplies the core value offered by the object centric social networks.

A site like YouTube with its video service, makes it be independent of the network and can stand alone and this makes it less vulnerable to migration. There is limited core value in the ego-centric network because its value is mainly in the network and this increases its migration susceptibility.

It is thus evident by observing MySpace and Facebook whereby there is little that is lost by individuals in terms of affordances if the move from MySpace to Facebook which makes network reestablishment which is the principal chore of migration to be simplified due the incessant migration cascade (DiPernaN 2006). The fact that the main chore is the network re-establishment makes it the problem for the ego-centric networks. If the individuals joining Facebook currently are analyzed, it will be observed that they make use of inbox importers i.e.

obtain contacts from their inbox and again find friends and classmates by searching. For the moment it can be considered fun but a question is therefore raised on the next step will be when next moment occurs. The network does not necessarily become useless rather it is a useful rolodex and peripheral participation concepts will be introduced by the news feeds or social surveillance. However the game essence becomes over.

Something is placed at the core of object centric networks for sites like YouTube and Flickr in this case it's the photography and video aspects. Because nothing more than our identity is stored in the ego-centric sites like Facebook and MySpace, then migration from one ego-centric site to another compared to the object centric sites (Stutzman 2006, p. 16). It should not however be perceived that because these vulnerabilities are suffered by the ego-centric networks it doesn't necessarily reflect to all the networks.

By the fact that MySpace or Facebook are large doesn't mean they reflect the characteristics of the networks that are object-centric. The users do not for instance after uploading a video the leave YouTube to Vimeo (also a video sharing site) so the experience can be revived. Due to the perpetuation aspect of the object centric networks, the network components of these sites are only useful in the perpetuation of the site. These social softwares outliers are Facebook in various aspects like use behavior, size and lifespan.

Some of the Facebook competitors are start ups which are targeting the niche have been neglected by Facebook intentionally. These are Facebook clone sites. The core audience of Facebook have been sacrificed i.e. The college students as it pursues for a broader audience. It is not likely however that the college students are going to adapt the Facebook clone even if they are directly targeting them and in the light of the Facebook neglect.

This is because the social network transition does not occur this way as it is not a one for one switch. The cluster effect of MySpace is noted in the Friendster to MySpace transition. MySpace and Friendster both had their own cliques even though they were co-evolving; more.