Social Networks have had a meteoric rise since its inception

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Evolution of social networks where only the most recent updates are displayed

Social network sites are a kind of community online that helps us keep in touch with people especially those people that are not possible to meet on a daily basis due to distance. The first instance of a recognizable social networking site was sixdegrees.com which was launched in 1997. This website would allow people to create a profile and then interact with their friends. An upgrade to sixdegrees.com was the site livejournal.com which was launched in 1999 and enabled people to create groups, share thoughts and also interact with one another. This was the evolution of social networking sites which is now dominated by Facebook, Twitter and most recently Google+.

All the three major networking sites give a lot of importance to the most recent updates of a person. Even though a previous update might have generated much more interest, only the latest comment will be displayed. The main attraction of these networking sites is that you tend to learn much more about your friends as well as their interests than if you were just hanging out with them. But after some time, we are so fascinated by the attention received that we tend to share broader information at the expense of insider details.

 

Is Friend Circles the solution?

 

Recently with the advent of Google plus has led to the birth of ‘Friend Circles.’ What exactly is a friend circle you might ask? As you might have noticed, all the three major networking sites encourage a large network of people. If you are a facebook user, you must be now used to the ‘Friend you might know’ part of your page. This part will give you suggestions on people you might know only based on the number of mutual friends between the two of you’ll. A friend circle is basically a group of people that you would like to share some information with. For example you would like to share some information with everyone on your friend’s list but at the same time do not want any of your family members to read it. So now you will make a separate circle for your family and friends and can specify to which of the two groups you can share the information with.

 

Focused Social Networks

 

Focused social networks such as Linkedln have a specific purpose. When you have just logged onto Linkedln, it feels as if you have just entered a job fair. It will help you share information only regarding your career and the type of recruitment that you are looking for. This also can be termed as a circle as it will make sure that you will remain connected with only other professionals. This is just one of the many focused social networks available on the internet in the present day. Another type of focused social network is called athlinks.com. It is a website that is meant only for updates regarding running. All the updates of the latest races and their timings are uploaded. You could even write about the new shoes that you have just purchased and what made you purchase them.