Facebook Web Site as a Communication Internet Web Site essay
Nowadays Internet plays a great role in people’s lives. Many of them get used to communication through different websites. It is possible to keep friendship with different people all over the world just sitting inside a room and spending minimum money. There are plenty of different so called “social sites”. They have many things in common. Nevertheless, they have plenty of differences. Let us talk about some features of the social site Facebook.
It is a website and a social networking service. It was launched in the year 2004 in February. Presently the site has more than 600 millions of active users. Facebook allows to create a personal profile, add other users as friends and exchange messages with that friends (it includes some automatic notifications as well, for example when friends update their profiles). There are some additional opportunities, like an opportunity to join common interest user groups. These groups are organized by different characteristics, for example, by college or school, by workplace and others. This site allows any person above 13 years old to register and become a user of Facebook.
That people who decide to use Facebook, may create a profile with different pictures and photos of a user, they can make a list of personal interests, post their personal and contact information. The website suggests two different types of messages: private messages and public messages. Users can use both of them to communicate with friends and share thoughts and different kind of information. Also users may communicate with friends through private chat. It is possible to create and join “like pages” (former “fan pages”) and interest groups. Some of such groups and “like pages” are commercial and they are maintained by different organizations.
We can see that personal profile of the Facebook user could contain some private information. Some people are using Internet to save their information, for example, photos and some details in case of their computers could be spoiled suddenly. There is some information and pictures that are meant for friends and close persons only.
Is everybody can have an access to the private information from the users’ profiles? What security settings Facebook suggests to the users of the website?
When a person decides to become a user of Facebook and create a profile he or she may choose their own privacy settings. It is possible to choose who will be able o see specific parts of a user’s profile. For example, a user wish to hide his or her profile from all users that are not in the list of the user’s friends; or the user want to hide just his details or date of birth, phone number, location, personal pictures. It is possible to choose any variant. Users are free to hide any information about them and they are free to share any details as well. Also users can control who could be able to find them through the program of the search.
The website Facebook is free for all users. Officially, any person above 13 years old is free to join the website. In deed nobody is checking the trustworthiness of the declared information. Name and profile picture are required for the creation of the profile. This information is accessible for everyone, but a user can choose any name. Nobody will know who the user is in real life. Nobody can even be sure about the gender of a user. As the website is free for people who want to join, it generates revenue from banner ads (advertisings).
There are some features of Facebook which different users can interact with. One of the features is Wall. Facebook allows users to share different thoughts and information with their friends and other users. It is possible to post different attachments on the user’s wall, different pictures, news, videos, links and texts. Users can comment their attachments with their own texts. One more feature is the opportunity to comment, “like” or “dislike” the information from the friend’s wall. Users can “poke” each other (those user who was “poked” receives a notification abut it). “Status” allows users to inform their friends of the different actions, activity and whereabouts.
Presently, Facebook suggests its users many different online games. They can play with other users or alone. The results of a game could be posted on a user’s wall. There is a wide choice of online games for men and women and for different age categories. Often a game allows choosing an avatar and a user can perform himself in the way he wishes to (or in a way he imagine himself to be). Lately many different attachments appeared on the website. There are number of tests, horoscopes and advices. Also it is possible to use some applications to send a card to a friend. If a user wishes to post the date of birth his friends could send the birthday card or presents and post it on his wall.
Summarizing the information above we can see that Facebook has many different attachments and applications to help people’s communication. Nowadays the communication and making friends is becoming easier due to internet and different social websites.
