How Business is Using Social Networking
From Baruchnewmedia
Contents |
How Businesses are Benefiting from Social Networking Sites
Businesses, both large and small, are undoubtedly benefiting significantly from consumers shift to new media outlets such as social networking sites as a way to obtain information. Initially, businesses emerged on the internet with traditional individual company websites. However, as new media has evolved, so has the way companies market via new media. Today, many companies, both large and small, have begun focusing their efforts on collaborative websites including but not limited to social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace, blogs, forums, and even YouTube. (Source: Lawrence, R., Melville, P., Perlich, C., Sindhwani, V., Meliksetian, S., Hsueh, P., & Liu, Y.. (2010). SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYTICS. Simply put, it was best stated in the article “Social Media: Investing in What Works” by Lin Grensing-Pophal: “Today, it seems that if your company is not using social media, you're at risk of falling woefully behind the competition and missing out on significant opportunities to engage thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of rabid consumers who are just waiting to hear what you have to say” (Source: Grensing-Pophal, L.. (2009, November). Social Media: Investing in What Works. Information Today, 26(10), 1,42. Retrieved April 9, 2010, from ABI/INFORM Global.
For example, Chrysler, the major US car company, recently signed a deal with “New Media Strategies (NMS), the pioneer in the online intelligence and social media engagement industries for over ten years,” making NMS Chrysler’s “social media marketing agency of record.” More than ever, companies are turning to new media marketing efforts and benefitting from the popularity of new media among consumers by saving money on advertising and marketing while still being able to reach a large audience. As such, with the current recession and our economic slump—it is no surprise that new media marketing has come as the savior for many businesses’ marketing efforts. At stated in an article entitled “Tweet Deals” by Rachel M Zahorsky from ABA journal, “Companies are realizing they don't have $2 million to spend on an advertising campaign…but they do have $50,000 to spend on an Internet sweepstakes, which they can highly promote through various channels and advertising networks.” Moreover, there are other social media platforms and methods of marketing which can be just as effective and cheaper or even free. For example, many smaller and local businesses are beginning to create Facebook pages and groups, making events about their grand opening or a special sale or promotion and allowing it to spread freely and virally—essentially tapping into the highly effective “word of mouth” marketing method via the internet. All in all, from a business’ perspective, new media advertising and marketing is a win-win situation. Businesses get to access and reach out to numerous individuals they may not have access to otherwise while simultaneously saving tremendous amounts of money on advertising campaigns.
As businesses have shifted from their individual company websites to collaborative sites, society at large has benefited as well. As consumers, we are spending more time on the internet and as a result, “to understand various aspects of consumer behavior in a contemporary society, marketing researchers have to focus on web as a social forum.” With more market researchers focusing on Webnography or web-ethnography, a term coined to express “attempt[s] to utilize information generated in natural context on the internet,” 7 companies have put more control in the hands of the masses or consumers and society at large. (source: Tyagi, P.. (2010). Webnography: A New Tool to Conduct Marketing Research. Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge, 15(2), 262-267. Retrieved April 9, 2010, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 1917207331) As such, it’s a win-win situation for both consumers and businesses. While consumers get their voices heard through blogs, forums, and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter—businesses get to tap into the wants and needs of consumers. Essentially, bridging the gap between consumers and businesses and allowing businesses to offer a better product / service for the consumer. At the same time, since many businesses are saving money on their marketing campaigns, they are often able to offer freebies and giveaways as part of or in addition to their marketing efforts. The “Big Prize Giveaway” application on Facebook is a prime example of how consumers may benefit. Basically, the application allows individuals to enter in a drawing for free prizes such as iphones, laptops, and gift cards that companies have paid for or provided in exchange for product placement, custom promotion (such as users having to become their fan to enter the giveaway drawing), and traditional sponsorships and advertisements.
In a business perspective, more and more companies are now using social networking websites for job recruiting. This allows hunting for job candidates to be easier. “Social networking technology is the absolutely the best thing to happen to recruiting – ever” (Langfitt). A popular website like LinkedIn, has a network of eight million professionals across the world that one is able to reach and email each other. In addition Facebook is also used by employers while recruiting the new Employees. Facebook has been a new weapon for hiring employees. They check for the inappropriate contents and pictures in Facebook.In a sense, social networking is a community that brings together everyone involved. [1]
While providing a low cost way for businesses to advertise to millions of people in a short period of time, social networks also allows businesses to utilize these functions for their human resources and job recruiting needs. Many human resources personnel have conflicting views on the advantages of such mediums in the workplace, but it is beginning to gain more and more approval. Social network sites allow recruiters to screen their candidates through information found on Facebook and LinkedIn. The extent to which recruiters rely on such information should be limited as the information posted on such sites are not always factual. It was noted on a 2006 survey by Careerbuilder.com of more than 1000 managers shows that 12% had used social networks to verify information about candidates. This number might not sound big but as a service that was still in the growth stage, it was a huge number. Another site Cosemindspring.com observes that many managers consider the sites useful for validating hiring decisions, as 63% claim that based on their findings they did not offer a candidate a position.[2]
Besides the business perspective there is also a sense of community it can bring to people around the world. Social networking can locate old friends and family while establish new relationships. It takes a lot of time or people to keep up to date in all of our friend’s lives when there is so much going on in our society and social networking allows us to do that without having to meet face to face. The new relationships built can be from millions of individuals who have the same common interest and hobbies and want to gather and share first-hand information and experiences. The social networking sites like Facebook has been a great platform for building a new relationship among friends. Facebook can make a new friends by adding them up. It also helps people to be more socially active. By: Gurpreet Singh
Social Networking is great for businesses because you can create your profile on these social networking sites and include images and information about your business. It is very efficient and less costly to market your business, for example western union, advertises their services through Facebook. There are also many opportunities to find jobs on these social networking sites. Now many big companies have their human resources specialists that search for profiles in these kinds of sites to recruit new employees. One of the sites that I mentioned previous is LinkedIn. If you’re looking for job, you can create a profile on LinkedIn and gain exposure to the company. You can describe your capabilities, publish some of your works and update your resume at any time and you can find a job. Even twitter is helpful tool to your career.
Social networking is also great for businesses since they can market the product on a single page on Facebook without the hassle of paying someone to go out and market the product on a one to one scale. On Facebook there are many “pages” that market themselves such as “Goldman Sachs” and “Morgan Stanley” which increases their appeal for free and also gathers more fans day by day. In sites such as LinkedIn, a person can write about one’s work history and what they are doing at that particular work. This is working very well since almost every business professional is getting connected through LinkedIn and other great sites that support employers and potential employees, According to the article “20 Social Networking Sites for Business Professionals” by Alyssa Gregory, the author tells us the URL of the site, description of the site and the site’s target audience.
Social Networking also can be hurtful to the business if the employee is spending too much time on these sites. Employers have began screening of social networking sites such as Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn. Many employers chose to screen potential candidates to see for any mishaps or inappropriate behavior and language. Mainly business firms and marketing firms will do online checks to see how many of the potential candidates would be a good fit for the company. Also, the check will tell them how many of the candidates go on the social networking site and how often they go on these social networking sites and write comments, tweets and statuses. I would advise candidates to do an engine search themselves before posting their resume on an employer’s site and delete their accounts and blogs which are not so appropriate so the check can be done. According to the article “Employers Using Social Networks to Screen Employees” by Mike Sachoff, the author tells us that “Among employers who conduct online background checks of job candidates, 43 percent use search engines, 12 percent use Facebook and 12 percent use LinkedIn. Three percent search blogs and 4 percent follow candidates on Twitter.” This is an increasing number day by day since its practically free for the firm to do online background checks and it will tell the employer a whole lot on the potential candidate. The article also talks about how 38% of candidates lied about their qualifications after the online background check. So due to social networking sites, 38% of candidates got rejected. Another shocking statistic was that 31% of the candidates were rejected based on their poor communication skills that they displayed online.
By Jesus Guilbe Jr.
Today, Social Networking Sites (SNS) are a good way for people to stay connected with other people. However, SNS are not only for the people using it but also utilized by businesses for their benefits. A business can use a SNS in order to recruit or lure new employees into their own companies. A simple email or notification is enough to contact the potential recruit, and set an appointment with them. Simultaneously, the recruits are conveniently given the opportunity to look for a job without strenuous days of job-hunting on the streets. With a simple click of a button, their resumes are posted on a social networking site that helps market the individual. Examples of sites that companies utilize are LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter among many others. Companies look for a potential employee by searching on the key skills that are required for the available positions. Everyone with the required skill set will then appear in a list form. From there, employers are able to choose and contact the most appropriate candidate. This helps businesses hire the right people more efficiently than they usually would in the traditional way as discussed in an article written by Frank Langfitt Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting. One example of a company that uses social networking is IBM. IBM uses it to connect other groups together and put their ideas via collaboration on the web in order to make advertisements more effective. This is explained in another article What's Next? Your Future in Social Networking. Businesses today are using social networking for many different reasons than we would normally use it as individuals.
By Sangita Tamang
Social networking is also useful in a business setting. Through SNS businesses can create global collaboration, which help them to discuss any problem or concern virtually and make the best business decision. This is a much better, efficient and effective way for business to make business decisions rather than physically call everyone in a conference room on a specific day at a specific time. A business can keep their employees up to date through social network. For example when a company wants to introduce new products, they can first demo the product in a virtual world and ask for feedback from people through social networks sites. The most success come, when business are able to communicate and get feedback from its customers in each and every step of its product development for the new experiencing products. This can help businesses reduce cost in product development as opposed to experiencing the actual new products market in the real world.
By Nichel Bethea
Businesses today are competing in the internet social networking circuit for a chance to make money with sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Billions of dollars are being spent by online companies such as Yahoo and Google to make money from these SNS. With all this commotion, it’s no wonder that with the passing of each day, more and more businesses are looking to make money online. Just take a look that this recent WSJ article by Emily Steel, Marketers Watch as Friends Interact Online. Doing business on the web is inexpensive, easy, and accessible to billions of potential customers. Businesses are paying these social network sites to advertise and search for new clients for their products through customized search engines, browsing history, conversation history, viral marketing and other means.
There are many social networking sites: LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, and YouTube. And so there are several ways we can utilize these social networking sites, especially in the professional businesses environment. Some of the ways to use social networking is to connect management personnel to ordinary members in an organization for better and clear communication. For example, if customer satisfaction is low, perhaps it is the result of reduced business focus on relationships with customer. Perhaps, customer satisfaction is low due to high demands by company from it's employee to increase dollar amount business from a customer rather than establish professional business connections with these customers. In these situations a company can use online social networks to allow a prospective customer or prospective member to easily facilitate a real, human-level connection with individuals within an organization. Social networking can be used to provide support to the customers, gain feedback and make additional sales. For example, online networks allow customers to connect with experts in an organization who have deep knowledge in a particular area. Clearly, this will help an organization greatly reduce the time required for problem solving by allowing faster connection between a questioner (a customer or employee) and the answerer (an expert) who has solved similar problems in the past or is knowledgeable in the particular matter.
Just a few years ago, it was rare to see a single organization providing all the pieces needed to meet a customer's need. For example, even though a real estate agent aids in the process of buying a home, an entire network of other service providers, such as title company, bank, insurance agents, contractors, and others, is required in order to fully meet the needs of completing a transaction. By creating a strong network of complementary providers with similar philosophies and business practices, a single service provider can provide a much greater proposition to a prospective customer. In other words, the connections in an online social network facilitate creating the actual flow of information for an organization. Explicitly creating a social network within the organization can help all members better understand how information gets shared and highlights the areas within the organization that are truly responsible for effecting change, turning the company directory into a living, breathing knowledge network, and meeting customer’s entire needs. By connecting a social network with basic technologies such as RSS, or "Really Simple Syndication" an individual can easily get information from customers and colleagues on a regular basis. This enables a straightforward way to stay connected with the projects of interest, as well as a way to share knowledge within an organization without additional efforts. Although online social networks are relatively new to business, the MySpace and Facebook generation has grown up with them. By the time these individuals enter the workforce, online social networking will simply be a part of the foundation of business. The organizations that have determined how to best integrate them into their operations, will be the ones most successful.
However, online social networking has some negative implications also. For example, employees can end up spending time updating their profiles and adding new friends during office hours. A study showed that employees spend at least 30 minutes a day visiting their social networking sites. In some cases, employees admitted spending up to three hours of their working day taking care of their online profile. More seriously, the threat of social networking is that risk of data or identity theft, and the risk of malicious material finding its way into the corporate network.
While the present generation of young people are growing up with Myspace, Facebook, and all other SNS, the future of maintaining the sanctity of social networking will be one of the greatest assets for many companies presently utilizing these online networking sites. As younger generation joins the workforce, they will utilize social networking to perform work easily by providing quality service for their employers. As time passes, social networking demand are increasing drastically in, not just all sectors of the economy but also our lives. For example, current tech-savvy President Obama uses SNS to keep in touch with ordinary citizens. He even utilized SNS actively during his campaign. This is one clear indication that the popularity of social networking will go nowhere but up and up.
[Ways Business Can Use Social Networking]
By: Raquel Ghadamian
Social networking is also very important in the business sector because business is about making connections with people. If a business doesn't connect to each and every one of their customers, they are bound to lose their clientele. People are looking for personal attention; they want to feel valued, taken care of, and most importantly, heard. They don't want their needs and concerns to fall to the sidelines. In order to do this, a company must understand the needs of its customers and provide their customers with what they are looking for. Social networking is an amazing tool for this difficult feat. For starters, you can use social networking to listen to your customers. Who comes to your site, what do they search for, what is being posted on their blogs and other social networks, about your company. These are all examples of ways that you can learn what your customer wants. You can use these tools to properly connect with your customers and further assist them. Creating a high traffic site where you can communicate with your customers is a perfect way; easy, time efficient, and cost effective. More specifically, joining sites such as Facebook and Twitter is another way to connect. People are already on these sites, communicating with you would be fairly easy and convenient for them. If you follow your customers to where they are already at, you are bound to intrigue them into supporting you and communicating with you. For more information please visit the original article [Social Tools, Technology and Social Media]
Many companies and organizations have been blocking their employees from social networking sites; their main concern being a lack of productivity. However, Interestingly enough, social networking exceeded the amount of email usage - social networking "is email only faster." Companies are blocking their employees from social networking, without realizing that there are many ways to use social networking to their advantage in the business world. There are even ways for them to block out certain aspects of the sites that they are particularly bothered by. Social networking is here to stay, and corporations need to accept that and figure out ways to work with it and not against it. Organizations can use social networking for many different things including: exploring new business opportunities, finding new groups of people interested in their industry, and even knowledge, advise and expertise. Another useful aspect of social networking is employee recruitment. Many companies find new employees via social networking sites. Networking themselves through their current employees friends. More importantly, social networking can now be used for market research. Something that used to be time consuming and expensive is now easy and free. There are special applications, such as Tweetscan for Twitter, that allow you to access social networking databases for loads of useful information. All these useful tools present managers with many reasons NOT to restrict social networking sites. For more information please follow the link to the original article [Social Networking: The Business Case]
Another way that SNS can be useful in business is in the marketing field. Marketing is all about reaching out to the people that would be interested in your product or service, and then making them interested in your product. There are many different ways to market something; billboards, TV commercials, fliers, etc. The options are endless. New and improved forms of marketing are always emerging; it is important to keep up with the times and constantly reinvent your marketing strategies. It only makes sense that with the expansion of the Internet to use the Internet as a marketing tool. Most companies, whether selling a product or service, have a website. However, in order to have a successful website you need to have visitors. If no one visits your website then your website is for naught. There are many different ways to draw people onto your website. Social networking sites come in handy over here. On a social networking site a user can become a "fan" of a company or product. You can get your customer to follow you to your page, then to your website. What eventually ends up happening is that your followers end up communicating with you, bouncing ideas off one and other, and giving you this window of opportunity to see how your clientele is responding to your product. People like to feel like they are being heard. Social networking sites feel real to people, sort of like instant gratification. When using social networking sites people feel like they are being heard and someone is listening to them, making social networking an easy and useful tool for marketers to use in order to reach their clientele and communicate with their clientele all over the world. For additional information on this topic please follow the link to the original article [Connect and Promote]
By Derek Preston
SNS hold great potential and are becoming targets of many businesses. The value of social networking sites is sometimes underestimated by some businesses, even though the power of viral marketing has proved to be substantial. As the popularity of SNS grows, we can see a trend emerging. Many businesses today are trying to influence the members of networking communities by offering unique services or products. The use of online social networking sites is becoming one of the most valuable tools that the internet provides for many businesses.
For one, it is much easier to influence groups of social networking members while being a “part” of that particular group. Companies are currently hiring “community managers”. These employees have multiple responsibilities which include being a liaison between the business and the members of the community, promoting and spreading the word about their products through many community based sites. Not only do businesses tap into the broad resources that social networking provides through these means, but also many social networking sites are sponsored by certain businesses. When it comes to the interaction between businesses, we are able to distinguish between two major types of influences that businesses have on social networking communities, namely: Push and Pull
Many businesses will look to social media in order to reach a new public or maintain that public awareness. Many food vendors have even used Twitter to keep customers updated and aware of their food. Big companies looking to gain a popular awareness for a new site they are planning to launch will also turn to social media, mainly Facebook, as a means to attracting a large amount of viewers. Social networks are inexpensive and are a great access to reach a variety of people. Many businesses have analysis system that go over millions of user profiles on Facebook to find theri potential customers. If a company is unable to reach the type of audience it wants through starting a Facebook page, they can always promote it through Facebook ads, which can be targeted towards a specific population of Facebook users. Facebook is a popular place for this because companies are given that ability to select and choose who they specifically want to advertise to. Talk about selective advertising!!!
By Wen Ting Zeng
Not just individuals, there are also many companies and organizations participate in social networking sites and try to take the advantages from those sites. In addition to the examples of Facebook and Twitter, Facebook is a great media tool for companies to market themselves to a large population and it has become a great platform for business to interact with a wide range of people. It is also an efficient and effective way for companies to collect people’s information, conduct market research, and provide the best products or services to meet their customers' needs. Facebook allows users to leave comments, which companies can use to improve their customer relationships. Customers can comment or discuss products or services, give recommendations, and ask questions on companies’ pages. Companies can then receive customer input in less time, and respond to their inquiries and problems more quickly and directly. By using Facebook, companies can help their reputation and customer base to grow.
Companies can also use a new feature developed by Facebook called “Beacon” as an advertising and marketing tool. “Beacon” will send out an automatic notification to Facebook members when a Facebook user makes an online purchase. Therefore, every time a user purchases some things online, his or her “friends” would be made aware of the purchase. In this way, companies can advertise their products that are bought by Facebook users, for free, and introduce them to other members of Facebook.
Twitter is one of the most popular social networking sites used by individuals and companies. Twitter is a global website which has millions of members. Companies can use Twitter to “increase the size of their social network, and therefore their access to more information and diverse perspectives” (Gewirtz 2009). Twitter allows companies to directly get in touch with a wide range of people. It also provides a platform for companies to communicate with their customers easily, helping to improve customer relations. Customers can ask questions or give out opinions about companies’ products or services through Twitter. In turn, those companies can respond to the questions more quickly, as well as know what the customers wants/needs are, helping to provide the best products or service to them. For example, AT&T uses Twitter throughout their daily operation, and updates the company’s information in real time. In the case of the service outage that happened in California, AT&T used Twitter to “keep their customers and anyone interested in the company, informed in teal time about a crisis” (Reardon 2009). Twitter allows companies to interact with large populations, letting customers and people know what's happening in the company, in real time.
Types of Social Networking Used in Business
APSense by Vincent Yiu | APSense is a big forum where people can go to find help and support for their business. APSense isn't so much about promoting one's business or creating business opportunities (you can definitely still do this, too) but is largely based on users helping each other through problems and issues that arise in one's business. Sharing experiences about one's own business issues to someone who is going through a similar issue is common in the community.
APSense is an all-encompassing network where blogs, discussions boards, product and service listings, private social networks, in addition to many other things can be created. One of its most highly-touted features is that members get paid for their contributions which generates an enticing incentive for users to contribute content. APSense is a great place to start a business, to get advice, and make money all at the same time. |
Biznik by Lidan Cao | Biznik is an online community for entrepreneurs and small businesses. Biznik can help businesses solve common problems, such as helping them get support from other businesses, increasing their customer base, increasing their rate of growth, using social networking sites as marketing tools, among others. Businesses can become Biznik members to increase collaboration,and should provide real names and real data to help make full use of the website. The members represent various business types, including; entrepreneurs, business consultants, marketers, health professionals, graphic designers, artists, photographers, real estate agents, sales professionals, and writers, to name a few. Members can provide helpful tips of successes with each other. They can further support each other by posting what they need on the “need” section, so that others can provide needed services, products or information. |
cmypitch.com by Wen Ting Zeng | Cmypitch.com, a social network geared towards small businesses, is “an online community for entrepreneurs. Using video, it connects businesses to sources of funding, information, advice and opportunities” (Glazowski 2008). Business owners, investors and service providers are the three main groups of users in cmypitch.com. Businesses use videos to market their companies, share their ideas and experiences, and provide advice. Cmypitch.com helps people to better understand various aspects of business, as well as learn from other people’s success. This in turn also helps them to become more successful in their business fields. |
Ecademy by Amy Chen | Ecademy is a social network for business people that were founded in 1998. It is unique in that business people can connect online on the website and also offline at networking events and 1-2-1 meetings. They provide the networking tools for business people to find alliances, advice, mentors, new contacts, and find jobs. One important function is that the blogs, articles and profiles that are posted on the site appear high up on the search engines like on Google, which gives a boost to people and businesses that want to move up their profile on the internet. Ecademy was one of the first business social networks to have online clubs for people to join so that they have support from people that share similar things like them and to have blogs back in 2002. They have a marketplace where businesses can advertise/sell their services. They have many features like clubs, meetings, blogs, marketplace, and videos to watch. |
| Additional information on Ecademy by Lidan Cao  | Ecademy helps businesses to grow with digital mindset. By using Ecademy, businesses can advertise their services worldwide by posting their advertisements on the site. The ads can be viewed by members and visitors of Ecademy. People can also use other search engines to find ads on Ecademy. Ecademy gives businesses a chance to attract more customers. It also can help businesses get support and advice. Businesses can post their questions, debate topics, and give advice on Ecademy. They can gather similar businesses together to solve a common problem. Businesses which have better skills can aid those who seeking help. Many companies have joined Ecademy; this includes Sage, Avanta, YBCtv, Eurosom Technology, Blackhawk Partners Inc, FunkHopStarzOnly, among others. These companies have varying expertise from all over the world. |
E Factor by Lidan Cao | E Factoris not only a social network; it also provides experts and tools to help businesses succeed. In the site, businesses can find partners and customers. E Factor has more than 810,000 members, providing businesses with a large network of potential partners. Members can also support businesses on many operational or management activities. Additionally, E Factor has a Finance Request Network which can help businesses obtain capital and find investment opportunities, with 25,000 investor members. E Factor also provides opportunities for real world face-to-face meetings for entrepreneurs. The meeting can be worldwide, and the cost of meeting itself is only 10 dollars. E Factor provides VIP travel and business services, where business entrepreneurs can get discounts on flights and hotels. Those real world benefits can be accessed by joining the online network of E Factor. |
Entrepreneur by Lidan Cao | Entrepreneur.com provides people with useful information on how to start a business. It help entrepreneurs shape their business idea, structure a basic business plan, name the business, find a suitable location/space, locate good vendors and suppliers, and network with other entrepreneurs online. For the initial phase of refining their business idea, the site provides tips for different kind of businesses, such as food truck, military veterans, fashion, and ect. Entrepreneur can help businesses find customers by providing helpful tips from various sources. It also provides businesses with information on useful and proper accounting methods; such as the need to track important financial data for financial statements, and how to separate personal and business finances. There are also tips for taxes, raising start-up capital, using credit cards responsibly to fund a business, money management, personal finance, payment and collections. Entrepreneur also teaches businesses to setup their websites, to sell and expand their businesses online. |
Facebook by Damon Tian | Business in nature is personal and social, therefore it is easy for employees of a firm to utilize the social atmosphere of Facebook. The ability to comment on each others' pages and share pictures is the personal part. The social part of it is networking with co-workers and their affiliates. Networking is essential in business and Facebook is one of the most effective and convenient ways to do this. With approximately 750 million active users on Facebook as of October 2011, it is easy to find co-workers and affiliates. Other ways users can utilize Facebook is sharing business information, links, interests and events with business friends. Business users can also find a use to Facebook's Business Solutions. Here they are free to use a large variety of different business applications. Newer and better business applications are being developed as Facebook grows, to help unite the growing business users of the site. |
Friendster by Wen Ting Zeng | Friendster was founded by Jonathan Abrams, Peter Chin, and Dave Lee in 2002. It is a free social networking website that allows users to contact each other through this website by sending/receiving messages, along with sharing photos and videos. Friendster is available in many different languages including English, Tagalog, Malay, Vietnamese, Thai, Bahasa, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Spanish. Friendster helps companies to reach broad range of people, with over 115 million members worldwide. Friendster is extremely popular in Asia, accounting for 90% of its members. In 2009, Friendster was acquired by MOL Global, one of the biggest Internet companies in Asia. Since Friendster is used by a large amount of people in Asia, it is a good platform for companies seeking to grow their market in Asia. |
StartUp Biz by XiaoXiao Dong | StartUp Bizis a small business social network, it is also one of the fastest growing sites in recent years. It is a great website for those people who want to start up their business.People would be able to chat, to list an event, to create a group, to post a blog, or to promote their businesses. Therefore, StartUp Biz is a very wide range social network site. It is the site that succeeding without pure business founders, everyone within that network is a business founder. |
LinkedIn by Diana Dover | LinkedIn is a social networking site that represents professionals in over 170 industries and 200 countries. The company started out in the living room of co-founder Reid Hoffman in the fall of 2002. The five original founders were Reid Hoffman, Allen Blue, Jean-Luc Vaillant, Eric Ly, and Konstantin Guericke.
There are currently over 40 million users worldwide. Members can use their profiles to add others to their networks for the purposes of collaborating on projects, sharing data or seeking professional advice. LinkedIn also serves the purpose as a employment finder. Members can find and be introduced to potential employees and/or employers by doing a search. Profiles vary in distance by degrees. A lower degree level (1st degree) indicates a closer professional relationship in relation to that of another professional that is on the 4th degree. Business today also use LinkedIn to arrange in-person meeting. Members of the meeting are introduced to each other before the meeting by the LinkedIn profiles. This is extremely helpful when you know a brief history of the representative from other company that you will be negotiate with. So, you can strategized the negotiation that is designed for the particular representative. LinkedIn is free to join and there are premium accounts offered that provide more options to maximize professional networking. |
| Merchant Circle: B2B Networking by Diana Dover  | MerchantCircle.com is a site that offers free advertising to businesses as well as an opportunity to link with other businesses. As a business owner, you have control of how you represent your company in terms of content, pictures, slogans, etc. Meta tags usage is offered at no charge so that individuals surfing the web can identify with your product or service instantly. There is also room to purchase options that will enhance your visibility to the user by utilizing search marketing. It is a great tool to connect with other business owners since it is no longer a cold call when you contact the business. |
| Model Mayhem by Julia Lomtevas  | Model Mayhem is a free site where professional models can meet professional photographers. Members create online portfolios, connect within the model/photographer community and are able to develop their portfolios together, since the two professionals are dependent upon one another. Friends and users are able to make comments, referrals, and bookings. It is a great way to meet professionals in the field and have influential, and potentially helpful feedback from other users. There are also many forums on the site with extremely helpful information. |
MySpace by Damon Tian  | With MySpace's member base reaching 100 million as of August 2006, it is hard not to find someone you don't already know or someone you want to know. Whatever you think of MySpace, few can argue it is a site full of opportunities to meet new people and network with possible business associates. One can also utilize the different business tools on the site such as MySpace Classified, which offers full service classified listings. Because MySpace generates millions of page views per day, even music artists (popular and upcoming) find a way to utilize the site from a business standpoint. On MySpace Music, these music artists have exclusive profile pages with new music content available to stream for free. They get a great amount of visitors each day and at the same time generate a lot of buzz while spending very little to do it. Aspiring music artists have long been using MySpace to get name recognition. Names like Colbie Caillat and Sean Kingston are some examples of artists that were discovered on MySpace. |
Networking For Professionals by Lidan Cao | Networking For Professionals is a website where businesses or entrepreneurs become members and can post their profile, allowing members to view each other’s profiles. From the profiles, businesses and entrepreneurs can know each other‘s names, pictures, occupation, company, city, university, and e-mail. The members can be searched by browsing professional profiles, and also allows for messages between members. The contacts list of members can be bookmarked. Business and entrepreneur can also search for member directory, articles, and videos. Business and entrepreneurs can also network for professional events. |
Ning by Wen Ting Zeng | Ning is a large, global social website. It allows users to create their own social websites. Its famous slogan is “create your own social network for anything.” Many businesses can take advantage of Ning to create their own websites that best fit their company's needs, in order to reach to their customers. Through customization, companies can create unique sites, specific to their needs. There are various types of websites that can be created in Ning; including group websites, photo sharing websites and video websites. Ning makes it convenient for companies to share their information, events, activities, as well as product/service advertising with customers and the general public. In 2009, Ning launched iPhone capability, allowing users to access it via mobile phone. |
Perfect Business by Lidan Cao | Perfect Business is the path to entrepreneurship, where businesses can network with entrepreneurs. They can ask questions to peers or experts, and can use the member directory to find members they want to network with. In the members’ profiles, the member’s name, purpose, interests, type of business, events, articles, pitch center, and marketplace are shown. From the Marketplace section, various business advertising can be found, such as businesses for sale, franchises for sale, home-based businesses; as well as wanted business and investment opportunities. There are also many business services available, such as accounting, advice and consulting, finance and investment, graphics and design, legal, web design, hosting and domain, etc. Perfect Business also teaches businesses how to succeed. There are entrepreneur videos, along with articles, tips, and a library. Perfect Business also helps entrepreneurs to launch their business by providing a business plan and legal services. |
Ryze by Vincent Yiu  | Ryze is a social networking site that is focused around business networking which has similar goals and features as LinkedIn. It's creator, Adrian Scott, found that it was difficult to remember all of the information that he gathered while networking with others in person. Because of this, he came up with an idea where people could come together and easily share information with others to create business opportunities. He found that web-based community was the best way to create a network across geographic boundaries and thus, Ryze was born.
Ryze is free to join. Upon becoming a member you are able to meet new people, establish new business opportunities, find jobs, and even makes sales. The site also emphasizes that everything isn't always about business. Ryze promotes a casual atmosphere where friends can just be friends and it enables members to keep in touch as such. Members can also create their own homepages, join and create communities, and message other members as they please. Ryze also has a paid subscription that enables advanced features. Ryze currently has over 500,000 members in more than 200 countries. |
SNS for Business Candidates by Chihiro Takano
It is now becoming more and more popular to use SNS (Social Networking Sites) such as Facebook and Twitter for job candidates to research companies. Even before they take a look at a company's website, they go to SNS to gather information. Until people actually work at the company, it is difficult to get a perfect picture of how working at the company will be like. However, SNS gives opportunities to prospective employees to get opinions from current employees. Employers can also take advantage of SNS, and use them to get to know who candidates are, including their background, hobbies, etc., before they actually have an interview. This new aspect of the job search and employment process makes it much easier, quicker, and convenient than before. However, the biggest thing both candidates and employers have to be careful about is that not everything found on SNS is the accurate, relying too much on information on SNS can cause serious damage to one's career.
Twitter by Khalifa Campbell
Twitter is a relatively new tool. It is a mini blog. It has a lot of great features that can be used in business. The greatest thing about twitter is it connects people in real time. Twitter allows users to communicate messages up to 140 characters. The messages users send out are public, users can also use twitter via a computer or the cellular phones. Twitter is a quick and convenient way to communicate. It allows tons of people to follow you. This is useful in communication because you can keep thousands of people up to date with your business.
Twitter helps businesses connect to the public. It is a great way to start relationships and keep public informed. Twitter allows users to send; share and receive a tremendous amount of information in real time. It’s a great way to keep in touch with what is going on in your industry. Twitter is a way to enhance business relationships. Communication is critical to building strong relationships and twitter provides a great way to do so.
Twitter has several great features that are ideal when communicating with customers. Replies let you see what followers are saying in response to what you have tweeted. Which allows businesses to engage in conversation with customers. Retweet allows followers to retweet what an organization has tweeted. Which shares the information with other who may not be following an organization. Hashtag is a way to categorize an organization tweets and allow people to see all tweets related to a certain topic. Twitter allows business to engage with customers like never before and it is a free and efficient service.
YouTube by Lidan Cao | YouTube is a wonderful media for worldwide business marketing. It is a provider of web-based videos, where website visitors can access and upload video for free. It is also free for commercial use, allowing companies to market their business. For a company wishing to post a video, all they need is a video camera to record their message/advertisement, and then post it on YouTube. It can be the mission statement of the business, a commercial, and news related to the business. Any type of business can promote themselves and target customers on YouTube. For example, Coca-Cola, Home Depot, PWC, and Con Edison all have their web videos on YouTube. Companies of all sizes can post videos on YouTube. According to Gabriel Shaoolian, the founder of Blue Fountain Media, YouTube can be used as a hiring and training tool. He pointed out that the companies can “give real insights into the company culture; give a feel for how client and staff meeting[s] are handled; give a feel for the quality and competence of your potential co-workers; get a feel for the overall working atmosphere and leadership style.”(Shaoolian, 2010). In short, YouTube is a free, widely distributed, easily accessible, useful marketing and hiring tool for businesses. |
Social Networking on Mobile Devices
by Derek Preston
The social networking influence is so majestic that it also influenced the mobile market. But when it comes to the mobile industry, the mobile social net workers are in search of information regarding their own, as well their friends location. One of the businesses that provides social networking positioning services is GYPSii which is the provider of the “SpaceMe” services, which provide the users with the information regarding the location of an individual’s friends in real time.[1] Other companies that do plan to enter the cellular social networking scene , one of which is MyGamma a social network run by BuzzCity, based in Singapore, and it does offer its services to 2.5 million users mainly from the developing regions, such as : Asia, and Africa. The main reason why the mobile social networking scene is much more intense in those regions is because those regions do have a very low number of internet users, and a greater number of cell phone users. Whereas the cell phones did become an extension of online networking in the U.S. and not the primary means of such communication, cell phone social networking is one of the most prevalent means of networking in Asia. Another instance of a social networking attempt is ItsMy run by GoFresh (Munich based), and it has more than a million of registered users.
The invention of cell phone and internet or the combination of the two brought a significant change in human social networking and the business world. With the daily advancing internet integrated smart phone, we are now living in an era that the physical positions of human bodies don’t matter. People can be reach anywhere anytime in seconds within the network coverage. And we are now able to work remotely; corporate on projects without considering the geographical location. Today, many smart phones are preinstall with varies of business applications that allow users work on their jobs on their commute; every second is effective use. For example, there are apps for banking on smart phone. This enable business managers and individuals to manage bank accounts and transfer funds without travel to the bank or at the office and at home with a computer. Instead, this can be done right away when need. So what does time efficiency contribute the economic? As we all know, in the business world, seconds of delay may cause huge loss. When the flow of money are active and fast enough, no doubt, our economy will growth at the same rate. For sure, advance social networking technologies increase the efficiency of work and communication. According to the research, there is a strong positive correlation between mobile phone user, employment opportunities, and economic growth.
By Kshitiz Maharjan
Today in this modern world, social networking has played a vital role in means of communication. In this new world, social networking sites have been more popular than email, newspapers and like. Moreover, now most of the cellphone users have a social networking apps on their cell phones. People now don't need a computer to use a social networking sites. All the social networking sites like Facebook,Twitter and LinkedIn have their own applications. It is been more convenient to use those sites in cell phone than the computers. The major advantage would be easy to use in any locations. For instance, you can use Facebook while walking on the street. It helps people to get more socially active in this modern world.
Development of Mobile Devices Increases SNS Popularity
By Chihiro Takano
In Japan, where many people seem to be "addicted" to cell phone use, individuals have numerous virtual social networking channels. They upload their blogs through cell phones several times a day, leave comments on SNS whenever they have a minute. As long as you have a cell phone, you feel little need for a computer. Cell phones can also function as wallets in a convenience store. Through a mobile app, a person can have vending machines communicate with their bank account, allowing them to buy items from vending machines that run the app. The convenience of cell phones leads people more and more to SNS use. Should you ever have a chance to go to Japan, you will be extremely surprised how much people are actually addicted to cell phone use. In other words, people in Japan feel more at ease when they have a device that makes it possible for them to connect with rest of the world more easily. Without cell phone improvements, SNS sites would not be as popular.
Disadvantages of the Social Networking Era
We all know that social networking can benefit businesses and marketing efforts in countless ways. However, what we often overlook are the the negative consequences of social network platforms. Social networking sites' uncensored, unedited, and unrestricted platform on the internet basically opens pandora's box to all that may go awry.
One major downfall of the internet’s unrestricted platform is the excess of information that is inaccurate, biased, or even extremist propaganda. For example, recently, there has been controversy over a woman who is known as “JihadJane,” better known as Colleen LaRose, a 46 year old suburban Caucasian woman from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who was recently charged with plotting to kill a Swedish cartoonist who offended Muslims with his drawings. However, LaRose is not the only one of her kind and how she and many other American citizens came to associate with and aid in terrorist acts and plots can be attributed to the new marketing efforts by al-Qaida: social networks and the internet. In an article entitled “’JihadJane’ isn’t the only one logging in” by Brian James Kirk from the Metro newspaper on March 17, 2010, Kirk stated that “Social networks have been a larger focus of al-Qaida, according to Jarret Brachman, who consults with US Law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies about al-Qaida’s online media strategy.” As Brachman states: “There’s a large, teeming mass of Internet jihadists to pass on al-Qaida videos and radicalize people and fan the flames of jihadism on YouTube” when “You get dumber people who are getting more empowered,” referring to these individuals such as LaRose as “jihobbyists.” 8 Basically, the internet has allowed al-Qaida to promote and market their ideology to countless individuals through propaganda dispersed through grassroots efforts on public social media platforms such as YouTube and hi5 which would not be possible through the censored and filtered means of traditional media. (Source: Kirk, Brian James. "'JihadJane' isn't the only one logging in." Metro 03 Mar 2010: 9. Print.)
By Jennifer Chan
The fact that potential employers are looking at social networking sites, beside professional ones (where you actually want the employer to look at) like LinkedIn may be quite disconcerting. Employers are looking at various social networking sites which individuals use for personal and leisure use like Facebook. They do this to get a better understanding of a potential employee's personality, to see if it fits into the model they have in their company Link. Employers can even discriminate and retract a job offer with SNS like Facebook, for instance, "if your applicant announced on Facebook that she was pregnant", they can move on to another candidate that is more fit.
At times people do not realize that what they post to such sites like Facebook and MySpace can work against them when applying for jobs. Many people display extremely personal and compromising information on their social networking profiles, not realizing that a potential employer is scoping them out. This can be disadvantageous because people do not have the freedom to post what they want without having to worry about which influential person will be there to look at it. For example, its very common that employess complaint about their employers with friends. It will be just fine in the real life. But, if the same act happened on social networking site like Facebook's status update, it is very likely that the employers will see it one day, it might lead to a lost of job. This is extremely common today, and people need to be more aware and conscious of these little details that can impact their careers.
By Dipen Patel
A lot of employees uses social networking for personal use while they are at work. They use company's computer and time to access their personal social networking sites. It is reported that many Britain employees used Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites during working hours.The survey showed that employees who keen on Internet caused an annual loss of 1.38 billion pounds.
Morse which is the consultancy firm surveyed 1460 office workers and found that more than half of the respondents use Twitter and Facebook during working hours.It is a waste of average 40 minutes per week on working time.
Morse consultant Philip Wicks said that if the proper use of social networking sites, you can play a positive effect on the professional, but companies must understand that it is not really what happened. 1 / 3 of respondents said that they have seen sensitive information of the corporate on social networking sites; 3 / 4 of respondents said that employers didn’t require them how to use social networking sites; 84% of people believe that whether they use social networking sites appropriately should be considered for the content of the post. Human resources experts said that with the younger generation entering the labor market, British companies must inevitably let employees use social networking sites.
By Lidan Cao
The social networking of a company may affect customers' privacy rights. Consumer privacy is a hot topic nowadays, because we are all consumers. The seller/company usually owns our information for legal business purposes, such as mailing products, billing, and other customer services. However, sellers may use our private information for illegal purposes. Goodwin argued that consumer privacy includes “information disclose” and “consumer transaction” (p.150). This information includes consumers’ addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers and so forth. If there is no protection of privacy of information by a company, consumers may receive junk mail, disruptive phone calls, theft of identity, among others. Consumer transactions are simply purchasing activities; consumers have the right to expect information on rented videos, books, personal items, and so forth to remain undisclosed (p.153). The disclosure of such information may be embarrassing to consumers, affecting their dignity and reputation. Consumers are encouraged to get more education in order to protect themselves from invasion of privacy.
By Wen Ting Zeng
As above point out that loss of privacy from social networking sites become one of big issues nowadays. Social networking sites should be the places where users can participate freely. However, this is no longer the case. Social networking sites have become tools for employers to monitor their employees’ daily activities. Many users access their profiles frequently, post their thoughts or feelings, and upload their photos and videos. Employers use social networking sites to check their employees’ background, to see if there are any inappropriate photos or postings by their employees, in order to protect the company's reputation. Employees can get fired, and employee candidates cannot get hired due to the improper actions on social networking sites. In this way, users might feel constant surveillance of their online actions and activities. This can result in loss of their freedom and general purpose of social networking sites.
However, according to Mark Zuckerberg – Facebook Founder, he claim that “the rise of social networking online means that people no longer have an expectation of privacy” (Jonson 2010). What he means here is that people know they there is risk for them to loss their privacy from participate in social networking sites, and they would allow it to happen. That is why there is more and more new social networking sites coming out and more and more people join in. They believe the benefit that they gain from social networking sites is outweighs the cost. As Zoe Margolis point out “there are moral and ethical issues concerning online privacy. But while we may be sharing more, we’re gaining more too” (Margolis 2010). People agree to satisfy their privacy in order to exchange for the benefit that gain from social networking sites, such as they can communicate not just to their friends, family members, also to business and companies since many of organizations are using social networking sites too. They can also know the update evens or news about the business through social networking sites. On the other hand, when businesses know more about them, they can provide better service to them.
Companies view people’s profiles in order to collect information. There is an argument that “personal information-gathering participates can be beneficial to information-gathering organizations and to their customers and subjects” (Johnson 2010). This means that when companies have more information about their customers, they can understand their customers’ needs better and can improve their products or services for their customers. This benefits both the company and the customer. However, “There is some question as to whether organizations use the information they collect and manipulate to serve their customer, clients, and citizens. Indeed, there is considerable evidence that organizations use the information to shape their customers” (Johnson 2010). In terms of information that is collected by companies, many time people don’t know what kind of information they collect, and how the companies use and distribute their information. Also in many case when people share their information to limit of people or companies, it means they share to whole society. Companies can use it in inappropriate ways or sell it to other companies. People can totally lose control of their information.
Social networking sites can also be disadvantageous to companies. All online systems are at risk of being attacked by viruses, including social networking sites. Social networking is an online service, not just for individuals, but also includes many companies and organizations. According to the report provide by Gewirtz, “a quarter of businesses have been the victim of spam, phishing or malware attacks via sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace” (Gewirtz 2009). Hackers can send messages, videos that contain virus to the users of social networking sites. Therefore, the users might open them with out conscious. This can cause harm to the companies and their computer system, such as loss of communication between the companies and customers.
By Chihiro Takano
Social networking sites make it possible for users to share their thoughts. This could have serious repercussions for a company or industry. Before SNS became as popular as it is today, consumer's word of mouth spread very slowly within his own social network. During that time, a company had some time to realize and fix the problem. However, society today has changed the way consumers spread opinions and thoughts. They can spread it to both real and virtual social networking members in a split second. Cell phones and smart phones dramatically shorten the period of time. Even before the company can try to fix the problem, they can end up losing numerous consumers, which leads to declining sales. This can be a serious issue for not only one company, but also for an entire industry.
By Kshitiz Maharjan
Social networking site may be time consuming. It is fun for the people who really love to make connections with new people but the people who are not excited to meet new people would be a disadvantage. Social networking is most popular among students who have lot of time to spare. They go to school, college make up new friends and add them to Facebook or twitter and make social connections. But these connections also can be disadvantages in certain way. For instance, if a college student make a lot of friends through the social networking site then they have to spare time to those friends outside the network too. So they have to spare time to college friends and also the friends that they make through social networking site. Here, they loss the time for their college activity like assignments and projects. So I think time consuming is another disadvantage of Social networking.
Access to information:
Many social networking services, such as Facebook, provide the user with a choice of who can view their profile. This prevents unauthorized user(s) from accessing their information. Parents who want to access their child's MySpace or Facebook account have become a big problem for teenagers who do not want their profile seen by their parents. By making their profile private, teens can select who may see their page, allowing only people added as "friends" to view their profile and preventing unwanted viewing of the profile by parents. Most teens are constantly trying to create a structural barrier between their private life and their parents.To edit information on a certain social networking service account, the social networking sites require you to login or provide a password. This prevents unauthorized user from adding, changing, or removing personal information, pictures, and other data. Not only are teens the only users to give access to information, in the business world, there are things called social media fraud. These are sometimes linked on your account that you are not sure about posted by other people. For example, you could just be responding to someone who sent you a cool link. You click to check it out. You may have just got hacked. Now your Twitter account suddenly starts posting inappropriate tweets to all of your followers, asking them for money, promoting inappropriate products or worse. [3]
Privacy:
Privacy is a concern that every one has when joining a social networking website. Sometimes users don’t understand the importance of the information being put onto the social networking websites because people are easily able to obtain home addresses, phone numbers, and even pictures. Privacy should allow for the right of people to control what details about their lives that they want to other people to see. There are many issues of concerns for parents such as teenagers revealing too much information about themselves online. Children being exposed to pedophiles, teenagers being raped by people they meet on social networking sites, and companies using the sites to collect marketing information. To relate this to business, giving out too much information is an dangerous idea as well. You may know not to use your business Twitter account to give too much information about your daily activities, but you also want to be careful not to give out too much information about others either. For example, do not Tweet something like “This person from New York just won our contest and will be gone next week on a trip" because you just told everyone online that they will not be home next week. By giving out information about employees or customers...you could be putting them at risk as well.[4]
Social networking has been so powerful and popular now. It helps us to keep in touch with our friends, family and relatives. We can be closer with them by social networking websites than a telephone. Apart form advantages these social networking sites have disadvantages too. The website like Facebook is used by companies to monitor the employee for unsuitable pictures and content. Many people don’t get a job because of their Facebook profile. In addition people are so careless that they don’t even use their privacy settings in order to prevent the identity theft. It has been a dangerous platform for identity theft.
Decreased Productivity:
One of the biggest concerns when it comes to social networking and the working environment is the decreased productivity of employees. It is natural for all of us to use social network sites at work and get lost in the many different functions that they supply, but that does not make it proper to use in the workplace. Imagine the surprise of a manager when they go to the desk of one of their employees and see them on a social network site instead of doing the proposal that is due at the end of the day. Managers at Coastal Contacts often saw their employees talking on the phone with customers while also navigating Facebook.com or some other social networking site instead of looking at company or customer data. The use of social networking sites is increasing at an enormous rate and while they are helpful to businesses they also have their faults. This brings the dilemma of how much access should businesses give to their employees in order for them to efficiently utilize the functions of social networking pages while keeping their productivity at high levels. [5]
External Links
http://www.networkingforprofessionals.com/
http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites
http://www.perfectbusiness.com/
References
- ↑ ""Social Networking Moves to the Cellphone" article by Victoria Shannon" http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03E1DE143BF935A35750C0A96E9C8B63&scp=4&sq=%22myspace%22+%2B+%22contract%22&st=nyt
Baruch Wiki How the New Media are Used in Business
Social Networking Moves To The CellPhone by Victoria Shannon
Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting by Frank Langfitt
Ways Businesses Can Use Social Networking by Christopher Carfi
Employees Obsession With Social Networking Sites Lead To Business Losses
Goodwin,C.(1991). Privacy: Recognition of a Consumer Right, Journal of Public Policy&Marketing , Vol.10,N0.1,pp.149-166. Retrieved Feb.22, from JSTOR
Shaoolian,G. (2010). How to use YouTube as a Sales, Marketing and Training Tool. Blue Fountain Media. Retrieved on 10/26/2010 from Google. Johnson, Bobbie (Jan 5, 2009), Computer Ethics, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall
Gewirtz, David (Spring 2009), The Dark Side of Social Networking, FrontLine Security
Reardon, Marguerite (April 9, 2009), AT&T uses Twitter during service outage, cnet News.
Johnson, Deborah G. (Jan 5, 2009), Computer Ethics. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Glazowski, Paul (Aug 21, 2008), Cmypitch.com is a One Stop Shop for Entrepreneurs (The Startup Review)
Margolis, Zoe (Jan 12, 2010), Is loss of privacy a price worth paying? guardian.co.uk
Johnson, Bobbie (Jan 11, 2010), Privacy no longer a social norm, says Facebook founder, guardian.co.uk
