Social Networking Sites Make Community Development Easy

Cities are funny things. The bigger they are and the more people in them, the less social people seem to be. 

Growing up in a small town often comes with the experience of being familiar with the vast majority of the population. In a town of 500 people, one has a high probability of knowing everyone on their block. Living in a downtown condo, one housing 200 or so people, one has a high probability of knowing not one of the people living in the same building.  

Humans are social creatures. Our instincts to settle in clusters and flock to causes with other like minded folk are simple and undisputable examples of this fact. Ironic how the closer we seem to live to each other the less likely we are to “know” our neighbours. How many times have we said or listened to someone we know say, “it’s so hard to meet people” or “it’s so hard to make friends”? We walk down streets, sit at coffee shops, go to movies, shop at malls, ride buses… all the while surrounded by hundreds of other people. The bigger the city, the more people seem to be afraid to say “hello”. 

Our hero? The internet. 

Enter: Social Networking sites. 

Facebook, Myspace, Nexopia, Bebo, LinkedIn and the list goes on and on. Wikipedia notes that at last count there were over 200 Social Networking sites providing frameworks for us to get to know each other “safely”. 

It all began in the early 90’s with BBS (Bulletin Board Services) and Usenet. Before Windows and before IPods when the internet was text based and the majority of users were still in secondary school and college. As we hurl through the Internet Revolution at light speed, Social Networking sites become more advanced and far more popular. 

On September 7^th, 2007, MySpace had OVER 200 million registrations from around the world. Receiving more hits than internet search deity, Google, MySpace is by far the most successful of all the Social Networking sites. It even comes complete with Groups (online clubs for like minded users), MySpace TV (for user generated content), Films (professional content), Music (both major labels and new breakthrough artists), Comedy (for new and popular comedians), Blogs, Email, Instant Messaging, and the list keeps growing. 

MySpace and similar sites provide users with a safe and entertaining platform to step outside of their condos via the internet and build a community on their own terms.  Staying in touch with friends is easy even as we go about our busy lives. Any user has the freedom to create groups, plan events for real world activities, upload photos, chat via email, make new friends and generally most other types of social activity. 

One of the most common benefits from free membership is finding all those old friends that have been lost through the years. Most users have tales to tell about how they found their first love, high school chum, forgotten coworker or long lost relative within days of joining on of these popular networks. The ease of building and maintaining our social relationships is definitely an attractive advantage in a time when one of our biggest complaints is that we have no time.  

And it is big business too. In July 2005, MySpace was purchased by News Corporation (Fox Broadcasting’s parent company) for $580 million dollars US. Facebook, MySpace’s biggest and fastest growing competitor, was rumored to have been offered $750 million in early 2006. It is also rumored that the asking price for Facebook was around 2 billion dollars during that same time frame. 

Shocking many in October, 2007, Microsoft purchased a 1.6% share in Facebook for a startling $240 million. More astonishing was that the 3 ½-year-old internet community was appraised by Microsoft at $15 billion dollars. 

$15 billion dollars. 

It seems that making friends is good business. Regardless of the obvious profitability of such an enterprise, the positive affect of making a sense of community popular and easy is definitely worth the price.  

Social Networking sites may just be a blip in pop culture, destined to fade into the night with pet rocks and Flock of Seagulls, but one thing is for certain, millions and millions of people around the world are herding to them today.