Social Networking Sites

      So we know the "big three,"right? Well, it always use to be Myspace, Facebook, Twitter. But as Seth Myers said, Myspace is more like the "abandoned amusement park" of social networking sites. Have you actually logged into your Myspace account in the last, oh lets say, five years? If you did, you would probably be mortified at where your life was back then. Go ahead and try it, I dare you.
Myspace was the go-to website in the early 2000's, and really was the birth of social-networking sites. Then one day, id say it was probably around 2007/2008, my friends started to join this website called Facebook. The thing was, at the time, very bare-bones and only available to people enrolled in college. I seriously thought to myself "theres no way this thing is going to last, and it definitely wont put a dent in the myspace juggernaut." Myspace was cleaner, nicer, easier to look at. Most of all, EVERYONE could use it. It was easy to upload photos, all you had to have was a digital camera, usb cable, and patience while the files converted onto your computer. Well, as you probably know, I was wrong, and nowadays myspace looks old and tired. Facebook, on the other hand, is super easy to use, accessible to everyone (even parents), and people can post comments or pictures from the phone in their pocket. I have noticed more and more artists still turn to myspace to promote their albums, and advertisers still use it, but myspace really is on life support.

     About two years ago I started to notice the same thing happening with Twitter. I had really just gotten the hang of this Facebook thing, and now more and more buzz was starting to form about Twitter. At first, it seemed like a very "Hollywood" thing to do. Mostly celebrities and  other media talking heads were commenting about their "Tweets" and "Twitter accounts." After all, who else other than celebrities could post a small blurb about a moment in their life and have it be interesting? Then the craze started to catch on, and now everyone seems to be on twitter, tweeting about events and uploading pictures. It's even more instantaneous than Facebook, but unlike Facebook, the characters are limited so you had better make every word count. Twitter also gives people the ability to re-tweet something someone else said, allowing other people to "follow" that additional person. Its almost like a virus that just keeps spreading. Just recently, advertisers have caught on to the Twitter craze, and I'm beginning to see more and more "sponsored links" popping up on my feed. The biggest advantage of Twitter is the accessibility to people you would otherwise have absolutely no access to. For instance, the other day The Rock ate a stack of twenty pancakes. How else would I have known that other than through Twitter?

     The most recent social networking site to emerge is Instagram. Instagram is dedicated to really just getting to the core of a post: the picture. It self-expression in its most visual form, with just enough room for a small blurb. Once again, its hard to believe something like Instagram will ever be as popular as Facebook or Twitter, but hey, I've been pretty wrong in my assumptions in the past, so it will be interesting to see where this will go as well.