What started as an endeavor to bring people together to interact with each other through chat rooms and share personal information in the form of generalized online communities, has today, almost a couple of decades later, become one of the world's most favored means of interaction. This article throws light on one of the popular Internet tools that has become extremely popular over the recent years- Social Networking Websites (SNWs). It answers some of the most important questions, such as what are the features of SNWs, which are the popular ones, their key statistics, their impact and the various advantages and disadvantages therein. It also deals with other means of social networking which, arguably, do not fully fall in the realm of SNWs - blogs, forums, chat rooms and Twitter.

Social networking has helped in creating a novel and exciting way to correspond and exchange information. Lakhs of people, all over the globe, make use of such websites, on a regular basis as a means to connect with their friends. Online communities present a plethora of prospects for traders/dealers as it helps them get in touch with their potential customers and also serve employees in finding suitable employers. The social networking space has seen an explosive growth from websites, such as MySpace and Friendster, where youngsters used to pour their anguish over various issues to websites like Yelp! and LinkedIn that help promote one's business or profession. A social network service aims at creating online communities of individuals who have common concerns and/or activities, or who want to discover the likes/dislikes and activities of other individuals. Before we get in to the details of social networking Websites (SNWs), let us see the subtle differences among blogs, forums and chat rooms.

A blog can be thought of as an individual distribution system. It is suited for individuals who simply desire to express their thoughts. The blog creator decides the matter to be entered on the blog and has the ability to allow or disallow people who can read and/or remark on these entries. The blog creators can make entries that are not visible to any other person other than themselves. While readers have the ability to leave their opinion on entries, this is not what a blog is intended for. The contents on the blog is in the absolute command of the blog owner, the blog becomes a mirror of the personality of an individual. Blogs seems to be well-liked and have become trendy since these first came to the picture in the year 2006.

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