Defining Social Networking

Social Networking is a term which entails developing and maintaining relationships, and expanding your social contacts with people who generally share similar interests. In the Web 2.0 setting, social networking sites allow people to collaborate online by creating profiles and publishing content in order to exchange information between other users. This can be done using a variety of methods such as chat, instant messaging (IM), video, file sharing, etc.

The social networking technologies and sites I have used are Facebook and Google Docs for work and personal purposes, Blogger for study purposes, and Wikipedia for personal research.

In INF206 I expect to learn more about social networking and social media sites, and how as an information professional they can be used to effectively reach users and meet their information needs, whilst also considering the social networking experience from the user's perspective. I hope to gain a basic understanding of how to use these technologies and also the benefits of adopting them within the library environment.