Revised Evaluation Paper

Why everyone is shifting to Facebook?

College students tend to rely on the internet today. Assignments, researches and especially social networking are all done through the internet. Online social networking has become a trend for most students today. Sites like Facebook and Orkut have seen a large increase in its number of members in the recent years. Online networking has become common for all people and communities today. The wide number of sites available might make it difficult to choose which ones would be the best to join. I have been part of several social networking sites over the years like; Flixter, Hi5, Orkut and Facebook, but am still involved with the only ones discussed in this article. I have been using both these since a couple of years now and can see the differences and why many people have shifted to Facebook today in comparison to Orkut. Facebook is much better than the other sites because of the amount of the information and the security each individual gets through it.

Since this is such a popular concept today and being used by most youth, it is important to know which network would be the best one to join. After being part of each system, I came up with some important things that would help me decide the best criteria to select the network worth staying in touch with. My criterion to select a network are; privacy, photo sharing capability and popularity.

One of the first sites I joined was Orkut. This is a social site for friends to meet each other and to socialize. This is a public site that allows its members to be able to view all the other members’ pages. Privacy, however, becomes an issue with this concept because a person’s profile is not protected on this site. Everyone can view everything posted on a complete stranger’s profile, from personal information to pictures, etc… I myself have been able to access anyone’s web page as I wish without them having any idea about it. Doing this made me realize how others may also be able to view my page and I would not know about it, despite the fact that I have so much information about myself on these sites as well as several pictures which I may not want to share with everyone.

Facebook, on the other hand, is exactly like Orkut, a public site open for everyone to join. Though it started as a college site for students, the widespread of it on the World Wide Web has brought it to become open to children of ages thirteen and up. It has also been able to gain members quicker mainly because of the privacy it provides. Members can see who else is on the site, but they have no access to anyone else’s profile or their personal information until they send them a friend request and it is accepted by the other person. Until the acceptance is received the only thing accessible to the inviter is the profile picture of the invitee and his/her name. This helps people keep their profile protected from those they don’t wish their profile to be viewed by. This site also gives the option to make certain parts of the profile private to some people. For example, if I had someone on my profile and didn’t wish that person to view a particular album on my profile, I could limit that person so that he/she would now be able to view my profile as everyone else accept that album which I have limited to that person. This can be done with any information posted on the file. This concept makes it easier to protect an individual’s privacy so that he/she can share their information openly on the internet without having to worry about the many other strangers who might view their profiles.

Talking about pictures gets me to another great advantage about online social networking programs. Members share all their memories with their family and friends through some simple steps, or at least simple in Facebook.

Though it provides the facility, the problem with Orkut is that in order to post pictures you have to do it one by one. Each picture uploads separately and has to therefore be selected individually when uploading. This causes quite a hassle especially since a majority of people today spend more than half of their time on the internet and like to share a large number of pictures online, but they don’t want to spent half that time uploading each picture. This kind of a system gets time consuming, tiring and inconvenient.

In contrast, Facebook provides the option of uploading a whole album with up to sixty pictures in it at a time. So now members can upload whole albums in one time instead of selecting each picture and waiting for it to upload. This makes the process much faster and easier letting people share these memories even if they are in a rush. Uploading in Facebook takes only about five minutes while this process may take a couple of hours when using Orkut.

The last, but not the least criteria is popularity. Since these are sites in order to get to know other people and meet old friends, it is important to know which sites are most popular as they would have the highest possibility of increased socializing. Another thing important in popularity is the number of organizations joining these sites today. Companies, universities, etc… are all trying to join sites like Facebook to advertise their products, to inform people about the company or to even get to know people interested in job opportunities. Recently it has also been found that companies have joined Facebook so that they could monitor the behavior of their employees when not at work. Though this may be a controversial topic, but it shows how famous the concept of networking in this way has become.

This is another thing that Orkut lacks in comparison to Facebook which is the number of groups and organizations joining Facebook every day. Orkut has a number of communities on it (i.e. student clubs, groups, teams, etc…), but the problems with these are that the communities are owned and controlled by members on Orkut and not a professional or a reliable source. For example, it has a community for members interested in getting to know other hospitality professionals, but the site only has other hospitality students, not professionals and many people just join the site for fun.

In contrast, Facebook is a more widely recognized website and a lot of the communities in it are originally owned by the clubs, organizations, etc… For example, it has a community for events in Charlotte where organizations such as Forum, Bar Charlotte, Sports Arena, etc…, post advertisements to make the community members aware of any upcoming events that they may be interested in being part of. Therefore, it is a much more trustworthy site compared to others and users can use it for work purposes as well as for fun or getting to know people.

Both these sites are well developed and have a large demand among its users. Over the past few months Orkut has been trying to improve its services to win its customers back. It has started providing its members with activities like, quizzes and games, but while the improvements are being made, Facebook is not backing out either. It is also constantly upgrading its facilities. Facebook also started providing a lot more activities for its users like; games, polls, quizzes, etc… to keep things more interesting. It has also been trying to keep up to date with its home pages depending on current user trends and demands. These changes are being done in order to attract more customers and though some people may complain about it, both sites have been able to attract more customers through their changes. I personally enjoyed using Orkut a lot, but with time I realized the disadvantages of using it and wanted to look for more sites that would help me get what I want from this kind of social networking. As soon as I started using Facebook, I could see the many advantages it gave me and that was the major reason that helped me in deciding which network to use.

I think Facebook is an excellent site and with the increasing demand of internet, it is absolutely a site that is keeping people connected in this fast paced world.

 

Works cited:

Timm, Dianne M., and Carolyn J. Duven. “Privacy and social networking sites.” New Directions for Student Services (Winter2008 2008): 89-101. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 25 Mar. 2009 http://0-search.ebscohost.com.helin.uri.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=35868226&site=ehost-live

 

“Facebook.” 24th March 2009. 25 Mar 2009 <http://www.facebook.com&gt;

 

“Orkut.” 24th March 2009. Google. 25 Mar 2009 http://www.orkut.com