Ramondo Robinson
Facebook I remember about 5-6 years ago I was really not into social media like MySpace, black planet etc. mainly because I felt it was a site to hook up with people. You would long on and the design interface was clogged with advertisement banners and spam pop-ups, which took away from the experience. The idea was cool to have these forms of communication out there but it soon that “great idea” was sold to make a profit. Then one of my friends turned me on to Facebook and immediately I was impressed. The design of the interface was simple and easy to use free from annoying banners and pop-ups, and most of all it was exclusive. So many of my friends had all these horror stories from MySpace where they had people trying to friend them that they hadn’t even met or they had “MySpace” stalkers. Facebook connected people through networks like school or work (initially just school) so you had to know the person or at least know someone who knows them. Today Facebook has users worldwide surpassing 500 million1 and has even been used as an important tool during presidential elections2
The Facebook site is seen as being at the forefront of the web 2.0 movement. Web 2.0 is 1 "Facebook." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web. 22 Feb. 2011. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1366111/Facebook>. 2
Dalsgaard, Steffen. “Facework on Facebook: The Presentation of Self in Virtual Life and Its Role in the US Elections”Anthropology Today, Vol. 24, No. 6 (Dec., 2008), pp. 8-12 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/20179963>
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a concept of collaborative participation by the general public in the generation of content Web 2.0 applications have features that enable communications in a flat structure which has been shown to facilitate user participation, interactivity, collaborative learning, and social networking. Web 2.0 applications also generate positive networking effects from harnessing collective intelligence, so that the quality of participation increases as the numbers participating increase, which in turn attracts more users to the Web sites. 3
Facebook programming wise uses in the front end their servers run a LAMP (Linux,
Apache, MySQL, and PHP) stack with Memcache4. They also encourage a lot of third party software development using an application programming interface (API), which enables its applications, as well as thirdparty applications, to communicate with the user and Facebook’s servers.5 The audience originally intended for Facebook were college students as stated earlier. The exact date was on Feb. 4, 2004, when Mark Zuckerberg launched thefacebook.com (renamed Facebook in 2005), a directory in which fellow Harvard students entered their own information and photos into a template that he had devised. Facebook quickly became popular as registered users could create profiles, upload photos and other media, and keep in touch with friends. It differed from other social networking sites, however, in its emphasis on real names (and e-mail addresses), or “trusted connections.” It also laid 3 "media convergence." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web. 22 Feb. 2011. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1425043/media-convergence>. 4 Campbell, Steven. “How does Facebook Work” Makeuseof.com. Feb27th 2010. Web Feb22 2011< http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/facebook-work-nuts-bolts-technologyexplained/ > 5 "middleware." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web. 22 Feb. 2011. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/381519/middleware>.
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particular emphasis on networking, with information disseminated not only to each individual’s network of friends but also to friends of friends and is what Zuckerberg called the “social graph.”6 Facebook uses has gone beyond just chatting with friends and has been used as a means to stay in touch with family members even during a crisis. In Haiti the infrastructure of the country’s computer network was largely unaffected so electronic media became a useful mode for connecting those separated by the quake and for organizing relief efforts. Survivors who were able to log on to the Internet, and friends and relatives abroad, used to social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook in search of information on those missing in the wake of the catastrophe. They even used feeds from these sites in order to assist aid organizations in constructing maps of the areas affected and in determining where to channel resources7. Another example of Facebook going beyond it’s conventional use is the recent political campaigns where politicians use Facebook or MySpace profiles to mobilize support in terms of both votes and funding8. I still see post on my Facebook account from the Obama and his wife urging for support on political issues. At first I was little uncomfortable with it because I had never saw anything like that before now. As Facebook becomes more and more relevant to our day-to-day 6 "Mark Zuckerberg." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web. 22 Feb. 2011. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1371433/Mark-Zuckerberg>. 7
"Haiti earthquake of 2010." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web. 22 Feb. 2011. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1659695/Haiti-earthquake-of-2010>.
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Dalsgaard, Steffen. “Facework on Facebook: The Presentation of Self in Virtual Life and Its Role in the US Elections”Anthropology Today, Vol. 24, No. 6 (Dec., 2008), pp. 8-12 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/20179963>
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activities the more it will seem like a necessity for our lives. It has been integrated into mobile phones, and even cars so that we can stay connected 24 hours a day to our friends. Â
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