Come Together: The Era of Social Networking

They've taken over the media. They've put us back in contact with lost relatives. They're the phenomenon that has revolutionized communication as we know it. From MySpace to Twitter, social networking sites have essentially re-invented the internet.

Question is, who reigns supreme? It used to be that Tom and his MySpace friends dominated the web. Millions of users created profile pages designed to reflect themselves and meet new people, as well as stay in touch, but over the last three to four years, Tom and his "friends" have taken the back seat to the two heavy-weights Facebook and Twitter.

With Facebook came simplicity. What started out as a networking site exclusive to college students has now become a hub home to millions of users, young and old. According to the company's statistics Facebook currently has 350 million users. Users update photos, links, and statuses 'round the clock. 55 million status updates are posted each day.

Where Facebook grew with different applications in a simplistic design, Twitter slowly emerged from seemingly no where. Twitter was a site built based one one question, "What are you doing?" Users "tweet" their statuses and messages to others in 140 characters or less, and as of right now, making it the most popular social networking site on the web right now.

Of course, with popularity comes corporate exploitation. Media companies like CNN and Fox News have their own Facebook and Twitter pages, only their pages highlight up to date news topics and opinion polls. i guess their thing was to go where the people are, and since Facebook and Twitter share over a 100 million users between them, why not start there?

I personally am against Twitter. Why? Well it just rubs me the wrong way. I guess I just don't want to be a sheep and follow the crowd from point to point. Like many others, I too made the transition from MySpace to Facebook; just going where everyone was. Once i realized the dangers of putting your information on the internet; however, I became hesitant of my involvement on social networking sites. Now I primarily use my Facebook account to store my song lyrics, and my status updates to promote my music group BFO ( official single 'Gone' available for download on iTunes for only $.99) and sometimes share my feelings after a crappy day.

So the only question is, where do they go from here? What application is missing from the equation that will spring off the next big thing in social networking? It's been argued by many that in a year or two MySpace will finally pull the plug and die off, Facebook will take its place, Twitter will rule as king until the next site blooms and shoves its face in a locker somewhere with the rest of them. Until then, expect a lot more tweets and status updates of some of the most mundane topics, photos that will either remove us from the job pool or get us fired, and smack talk back and forth about the latest in politics, movies and almost anything else you can think of.