Myspace, Friendster, Bebo, Facebookthese are taking the world by storm. But then again, do you know what a social networking website is?

Defining Social Network

In its simplest terms, social networking is a process of increasing its contact by creating connections or relationships among different individuals all over the world. The reason may not only be because of social relationships but also of gathering business contacts. Majority of the social networking services are based in the World Wide Web, although they are providing different ways in which users or members can interact with one another, such as through e-mails, instant messaging, voice chat, peer-to-peer file sharing, discussion groups, blogs, and forums, to name a few.

The Concept behind Social Networking

Six degrees of separation states that any two individuals in this world can create a contact in a link of 5 intermediaries. And that is the basis for social networking. So generally, this is how everything works out: a person signs up for a particular social networking website. He or she will then send an invitation to all of the people he know about who may be interested in the website. These individuals, in turn, invite all they know to join in to and the process goes on. Thus, this gives any person to make a connection with a person they actually know as well as people that may be connected to the individual they know about.

Early Days of Social Networking Websites

It was in 1995 when Classmates.com was such a huge hit. The idea was relatively new and very interesting. School mates all over the states of America can get connected and relieve their school days. It was then followed by SixDegrees.com in 1997. It allowed its users to list down all of their known contacts who were already members of the websites and those who were not. The latter were then invited to sign up. All members had a chance to post messages on bulletin boards, which will be sent to all individuals who belonged to their first-, second-, as well as third-degree affiliations. It ended, however, in 2001.

Then came the idea of Circle of Friends where connections become more personal. There was the emergence of social networking websites that permit users to have more control over the content as well as their connection to other persons. Moreover, they also integrate almost all forms of interconnectivity, including groups, e-mail messages, chat, and blogs. These include the likes of Friendster, Myspace, and Facebook.

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Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 1574 articles in print and 11 published ebooks.

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