Survey results

Our group is comprised by Juan, Marc and Ariadna.

We have chosen "Social networks" for the name of our blog because we are a generation that has grown with technologies and Internet too, so social networks are for us the way to communicate one to each other. They are part of our daily routine and are also important in our society.

Social networks have affected the way in which people behave. It allows us to meet people we haven’t contact for a long time ago, upload our photos, comment our friends, and be in contact with everybody.

For this reason we thought that this topic should be very interesting for us to talk about because is an issue that is very familiar to us and very easy to explain something.

We have made a survey asking people about their using of this kind of networks: how often do they use it, why, when was the first time they started using them …

We conducted the survey to 26 people by an important social network nowadays which is Facebook.

We did it on this way because communicating by a social network is easier and faster than asking one person to another. This option is slowly and requires time to do it. The conclusions of the results of our survey are the following:

After we have realized a survey about the social networks to 26 people we have observed and analyze which are there opinions about social networks and how are they used to use them.

On the first place we can say is that most of the young people have in common nowadays is that most of them use social networks. At the same time we have to add that most of the people we have interviewed only have a profile account on social networks, and only a minority has more than one social network. Also it’s remarkable the fact that almost everyone connect to their accounts more than once a day and the others at least once a day. That shows to us that everyone who has an account on social networks connects on their profile.

The majority of people who use social networks, they use it to disconnect from the reality or as an activity of entertainment. And the other half of people use them for work, and a minor of people use it for other things that we unknown.

When we asked people if social networks are safe, more than 60% said that more or less. The rest of it a 21% said that yes they are and only the 12% rest said that social networks are not safe. So in general we can see that people trust in the privacy of social networks and they think that they don’t have to worry about it. 

The people, who answered our survey, said that Facebook was the coolest social network. To contrast that the popularity of social networks isn’t only between young people we asked about if any of their family members use them. 50% said that some of them use it, 32% said yes and only 18% said no. The answers of this question are kind of interesting because only a significant 18% of the people asked have nobody of his family members on any social networks.

Almost, everyone asked, said they would not pay for use their social network, except of two freaks. With reference to the average of the age of people start using social networks, 50% affirm that they began to use it between 16 and 20 years old, a 38% said that they began with an age between 12 and 15 years old and only a 12% said that they began to use social networks with more than 20 years old.

To conclude with the analysis of our survey, we can say that most of people who we have passed our survey think that social networks are useful. What impressed us is that some of them answered social networks are not useful but they also have one. Why someone creates an account on any social network if he/she thinks is not useful?????????????

The questions and the answers of our survey

http://es.surveymonkey.com/MySurvey_Responses.aspx?sm=rwD5NyAUQFoPG78Q8k46MwvpmMtZ6zjUiqucV1OcIUM%3d

Other social networks

Apart of Facebook, that is the page on the net that I have most commented on, exists other social networks with similarities to Facebook and with a lot of members too.

My Space, for example, is a type of social network that as the other pages you first need to register by e-mail address, then you are already registered and after that, you have to create your own profile with your musical tastes, hobbies, favourite books, ... to let people know your preferences so that you can meet them because of your same tastes.
You can also add photos or videos that you find interesting and your friends can commented them or give their opinion deppending of the theme and the dislikes.

Actually, social networks have a similar estructure and clear objectives between them because their order is to meet people, share fles, photos and videos besides knowing what are your friends doing at the moment.

There's an option that you don't allowed people to see your profile or even your friends.

Twitter is free to join and has the same structure as the other ones.
What is particularly of it is that your messages are limited just to 140 characters, that's why people call it a "microblogging" tool. So that your messages have to be concise and brief.

If you want to use any of this social networks you must use a name, that don't have to be real, which reflects you.
There are many different ways about using Twitter or other pages, here are five of them:

-For building your experience and your authorty.
- For giving more sense to your ideas.
- For promoting yourself.
-For being more social with your readers and people you want to meet.
-For making all you update the objective to create a big cultural community.

Posted by: Ariadna Lliveria (5th article)

'The social network'

Some people is concerned about the 'boom' that social networks have produced but there's a particular case that has recently shown us the importance of that.

    


I'm talking about the film The Social Network , it is a 2010 drama film about the founding of the social networking website Facebook and the resulting lawsuits. It i directed by Mark Zuckerberg.
He i the youngest millionaire on the planet with 26 years old. He is a genious that has changed Internet and also our lives.

This film has already reached 500 million users. This important figure means a radical transformation in the way of sharing our stuff, form pictures to news. The media and how has affect to the sociologist mixtue the envy with the fear.

Even more amazing is the fact that each Facebook members spend  an average of 55 minutes per day being at the net.

The way which we share what we think and feel makes us more dependent. But on the other hand we have to be conscious that Facebook has changed our lives and the next future is still more promising. One of the most interesting irony is that the most player in social networking  is  who proved to be someone so socially retarded who borders on sociopathic at times.

And this is what the film want to show: how has a social network changed lives of people one day to another and the relations and problems that it has caused.

We have to use it with caution.


Posted by: Ariadna Lliveria (4th article)

Social Media Revolution

   [  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8  ]

This is a video that I have found on Youtube page which explains all the social networking efffect that is very popular in our country because of the revolution that has made.
It explains different issues that are important in all the economical and social influence because this revolution has also affect the way of life and the political and culture of the cities.

This type of documentaries make us realise if we are for or against the evolution of media because of the change it is promoting.

First of all, we can think that the revolution of media is an economical strategy of companies to earn money making people see things with other kind of view. Social networking started with little companies and different groups that only pretend to share information or ideologies, but now almost all companies have their own blog page, or an account in any social network as Facebook, Twitter,...
There are other cases in which social networks and social media hasn't a positive result. That's the case of young people, the new society of the future. They are growing in a technological/virtual world because now things don't seem the same as few years ago. In conclusion, people don't meet the others face to face, people don't keep their life in privacy unless they share information with everybody. There's no personal life and relationships because everybody knows others routine. Furthermore, it is impossible to have more than 100 friends and we have to be aware of it because a lot of pedophiles and bad people are hidden behind and Internet page.

Another fact is that traditional mediums are losing audience because people have less free time and when they are working or having a break, one of the common activities to do is to be connected to the network.

We have to pretend not to be completely obsesive with social networks because if we lose consciousness we will finally lose ourselves.

Posted by: Ariadna Lliveria (3rd article)

Marc Serrano - 5th comment

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/mar/21/social-networks-activists-achieve-change

Taking advantage of the actuality news about the revolutions of the society from North Africa to Middle East I look for this in an article that I have found, again, in “The Guardian”, which talks about the lasts social revolutions that have occurred in Egypt and Tunisia, and how the social networks have influenced, and in what way, in these revolutions.

The article says that the old models of organization no longer work and especially in the new contexts. Who thinks that the social networks only serve for social objectives and entertainment, is in the wrong way, because actually these revolutions that we mentioned were proposed by the social networks, so it can makes us an idea to the social impact that this media has in our society. This way to protest against a government or a law, which consists in people getting together at a point in one city is what “The New York Times” calls “the rise of the second superpower”.

Experiences like this revolutions have led us to explore new types of institutions, the called network movements. One of this network movements is which the text exposes, “Avaaz.org” that is nowadays the best example of this kind of movements. Through “Avaaz”, millions of citizens all over the world have met to change government policies and for the social reconstruction of some countries.

This kind of networks work with the solidarity combining old and new tactics to make changes through movements for civil rights and independence.

We are in front of the biggest revolution in our history, the media revolution. The social networks can get together millions of people all over the world to change anything even overturn governments.

Are they controlling us?

The social network in which I'm going to focus particularly is Facebook. Here there's a graphic I have found on the Internet, that shows which is the group of population that most use Facebook a day. 

As we can see, the population between 25 and 34 years are who most use this social network, followed by adults between 34 and 44. However, people who less use Facebook to communicate with them friends and relatives are the major ones of 65 years followed by the group of people between 55 and 64 years old.

There is a big difference between these groups of population and it can be caused by the technological advances because in the past people in the past people didn’t use the computer and there weren’t any websites, social networks or special computer programs.

Therefore, people didn’t know how to use a computer.

Unlike nowadays in our society, population is teach since they are little children.

Young people is increasingly growing up faster, and since they starts at school teachers make them know and be aware of how important is technology for us, and how does it works.

Society is evolving at the same time new technologies are growing with us.

Right now we connect our lives with Internet, and of course with social networks, as it has produced a new revolution and a big repercussion for the society.

We can say that it has created a new way of life.

People don’t need to talk face to face because they can chat as long as they want by any of these sites so that it is available 24h a day. This is a problem for our society due to people is losing them values and communication is not the same as some years ago.

Posted by: Ariadna Lliveria (2nd article)

Marc Serrano - 4th comment

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/25/suicidal-online-research-internet-suicide

I have founded this article at the web page of the British newspaper “The Guardian” and it talks about the new challenges for internet, in order to prevent the suicide, as well as for the new opportunities that exist for reaching vulnerable people. The reality is that there are people that feel really alone and distressed who go to really dark and sinister social media or forums where people promotes the suicide and try to capture vulnerable people who are in a difficult moment of their lives, and the only thing they want is to express their feelings of distress.

Samaritans, who have been providing emotional support for nearly 60 years, would take advantage of the social networks trying to reach more people in a safe and supportive way.

The danger of social networks is that a distressed people can contact, in an immediately way, with another people in the same situation reinforcing each other's suicidal feelings, what is really dangerous because someone can think that suicide is a normalized way out for a distressed person.

Another interesting reflection in the article is that in our society, suicide is considered as a taboo subject and this people go to this forums to feel comfortable and looking for the anonymity.

Fortunately, some forums have strict rules that prohibit their users from encouraging or normalizing the idea of suicide, blocking anyone who gives advice about how to do it.

In my opinion the suicide is a recourse very extremely to scape from a difficult situation which perturbs really hard your feelings and your desire of being alive. I think that it is a mistake because in the life there are always reasons to continue and be happy, but I can't really give an opinion because I have never lived a situation which removed me the will to live.

To conclude, I would like to say that I have read at this article a really good way to control some of bad situations for vulnerable people at internet. The thing is that the Samaritans, together with Google have created “Google OneBox” that publicizes their helpline number when anyone searches for the word suicide. I think that is a really good idea to control what people do at the media, but not enough because internet is a very complex world and it is very difficult to control everything.

Social Networks RANKING

First of all, what I want you to show  is the ranking of the different types of social networks that exist right nowadays. As you can see, there is a diversity of names which most of you will know because they are present in our society and all of us have ever used it.

This is the ranking:

1 Messenger

2 Tuenti

3 Facebook

4 Youtube

5Yahoo

6 Twitter

7 Fotolog

8 Badoo

9 Meeting

10 Myspace

11 Yahoo Message

All this social networks are the ones that most people visit and participate in  Spain.

As a result, we see that the most succeed pages are Messenger, Tuenti and Facebook. They have more than 3 million subscriptions a day.

This number includes people who access to these social networks by paging the link on the Internet or through their mobile phones.

Is important to put emphasis on this ranking, because the reason why these social networks are very popular is overcoming the visits that Google is receiving through the day right now. This case few years before didn’t exist.

We must give importance to Facebook  social effect. it has an average of twenty minutes of time in the site with a total estimated of 200 million monthly visits. Messenger continues being the way of communication, chatting, more used especially in young people.

Posted by: Ariadna Llivería (1rst post)

Juan 5th comment

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/super-bowl-ads-live-on-at-youtube-and-facebook/?ref=facebookinc

Some of the biggest advertising companies prepare some commercials to put on TV during the half time of the Super Bowl. They keep asking every year why people remember the Ads from the Super Bowl and no who won it. This is because, how I explained before the companies work hard to be the best Ad on this year Super Bowl.

Here is where the social networks take advantage and upload all the Ads on their website such as Facebook or Youtube. This is how people comment on those Ads and everyone can see them besides those who did not see the game. You can vote if you like it or other ways you can leave it in blank. Jim Lecinski says that the idea of this is that if you are someplace where you do not have a computer or laptop you can check those Ads on you mobile phone.

All the Ads that have been showed on the halftime Super Bowl are uploaded on the social networks. For example the Volkswagen's Super Bowl Ad is one of the most viewed video on YouTube. Facebook have a similar way of contest, they have the site called Facebook replay, where you can see all the Ads again and hit (I like it) if you do.

Another way of watching the Ads or the comments of them, is Twitter. If you are a follower of a NFL player you can read his comments about the Ads.

Marc Serrano - 3rd comment

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/business/media/24adco.html

This is an article from “The New York Times” which analyzes the relevance of the social networks like Facebook to promote the success of “American Idol”, the equivalent of “Operación Triunfo” in Spain, which has more than 5 million of followers at Facebook, and like a brand and like a business. The TV program “American Idol” encourages the followers of this to invest $1 to send a customized videos to their friends, recorded by the ten finalists of the show through an application called “Cameo Stars”. The contestants of the TV program greets the birthday by Facebook. This gives the impression of something customized because it seems that the contestant devotes personally to you.

When it was introduced on Facebook in August 2010, the producer, “Cameo Stars”, wanted to take advantage of the devotion that people have by the celebrities and the producer wanted to exploit the market for the virtual products.

It seems to be a really good idea because it is entrepreneurial but it doesn't stop being impersonal. It plays with the devotion that people have for this kind of celebrities but, in my opinion, it can't substitute a birthday greeting made by a friend or somebody closer to you like someone of your family, because it is made from the hearth.

Marc Serrano - 2nd comment

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/pda/2011/mar/12/sxsw-2011-facebook-photos

This is an article from “The Guardian” an important British newspaper. It talks about the reality that a lot of images that people share or posts at their Facebook can be used by other people to do advertisements or another things. Sam Odio, the Facebook's photos product manager, talked about it saying that the photos that are uploaded in Facebook are more focus on storytelling than in the quality. Odio thinks that they are trying to prevent business having free rein over users but adding that business are users, so they wouldn't use photos of people to do advertisements because it doesn't really benefice them. But I personally thinks that in case that would be true that Facebook would be using photos of people to do advertisements at other parts of the world they wouldn't say anything.

Otherwise, I really understand what Odio says when he explains that when they created facebook they didn't realize the importance of facial recognition for anybody who doesn't belong to your friend's list and and also about privacy.

At the beginning of Facebook it was a really simply application but with the years have became more complicated because of the inclusion of more functions and characteristics, so it is more complex and people don't really care about the privacy configuration because they don't really know how it works.

It is a reality that have been people who discovered that in another part of the world there is a photo of him/her in an advertisement without him/her permission but facebook really have some privacy function to avoid it so people have to be more attentive to this because if you personalize the privacy of your profile anybody will can use you photos.

Marc Serrano - 1st comment

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/the-most-influential-people-on-twitter/

This is an article from the web of “The New York Times” and wroten by David Leonhardt, a columnist of this newspaper. This article is a study which highlight that the persons who have more followers at Twitter are Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Britney Spears, all of them are singers. However the author of this column makes a reflection about the difference between the number of followers that somebody can have and the influence that can has over this followers or other people.

In fact, being famous and so known doesn't mean that your opinion is gonna has more importance or influence than another people that are experts in something, for example in communication, like TV host/hostess, sacrificed athletes or even writers.

A singer can be so amazing famous but he/she doesn't have to be a very good communicator neither has good and amazing ideas or thoughts with a very big social impact. For example, the famous Spanish singer, David Bisbal, was so criticized because of the post that shared about the problems of Egypt in the last weeks because he trivialized so much about this theme that is really sensitive nowadays.

Coming back to the article of “The New York Times”, the author makes this reflexion in base of the point that to measure the influence of Twitter, “The Times Magazine” collaborated with an independent research group “Twitalyzer” which did a study of that.

All of this means that it doesn't mind who are you or from where you come if you have brilliant ideas with which you can cause an important impact to the twitters. In my opinion Twitter is a very good tool with a big social impact nowadays and it is perfect to share any kind of idea or thought which arrives quickly and easy to a big number of persons.

Juan 4rd comment

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/new-phones-that-put-facebook-front-and-center/?ref=facebookinc

This article from the New York Times talks about the evolution of facebook. Marc Zuckerberg explains that he does not have any intention of bringing to the market an official Facebook-branded phone. Facebook is no longer just a social network website, is a company that is investing in all the technology they can. At the Mobile World Congress all the mobile companies present their newest products. An example of this will be HTC have presented two new cell phones that have incorporated Facebook applications. Other such as INQ Mobile has their own Facebook-devices.

As I said before and Frank Meehan remarks "Facebook is really more than a social network " because is making companies create products with the name of Facebook. The prize of the phones depends if you want them with a contract with the company or free. The "problem" of this kind of cell phones are, that you have to pay an extra bill to have wireless. If you have wireless on your phone, you can access to the internet and with that connect to Facebook. This is not the latest technology on cell phones, it is also an excuse to create a new type of market. This phones keeps you updated all the time. It means that when someone talks you on your social network, appears on the top of the screen with an alert.

Facebook said on his own website which in addition to the phones showed cased in Barcelona, more companies will create Facebook phones.

Juan 3rd comment

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/for-nba-fans-a-way-to-play-along-on-facebook/?ref=facebookinc

The National Basketball Asociation (NBA) has created a game to play along on facebook. This game called NBA legend, is about to create a player and get in a team simulating a career. The fun part of the game is that you will play against the people in your network. In that case it will be a fun game because in that case it won't be just a game, it will be a theme of discussion. This game was released during the All-Star week wich had a nice response by the media. As many people use the Twitter and Facebook many professionals players use them to promote their lives and to be follow by the crowd. They know they are famous and they use the social network as they live the day a day.

If we compare Facebook and Twitter right now, twitter is having a great response. The NBA has a very large number of people following there website. Facebook is not just a social network as you can see, it is also a website where you can follow people, get entertainment and have fun with it. Facebook not only has the NBA game has a ton more. The NBA legend is a way of trying to keep the people close to the NBA even when there are not any games on. It is also a way of trying to catch their attention on those things that they arre showing on the website.

It seems this kind of games have a promising future.

Juan 2nd comment

http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/2011/03/28/2011-03-28_teens_who_use_facebook_social_media_may_suffer_from_new_condition_called_faceboo.html

This article from the DAILY NEWS, a newspaper from USA, talks us about the risk of social network such as facebook, twitter, myspace, etc. The article says that facebook not only takes you time of study or work, it also can be worse. There is a new problem dubbed "Facebook depression" that obviously only the teenagers who use facebook can be affect by can suffer. This is a problem that can suffer the teenagers that spend more time worried on their facebook profile than worried about the real life. It may sound crazy, but there are this kind of people. It is truem that Facebook can create a false reality of you, but that is a risk you gotta deal with. Everybody wants to be "perfect" in some way, and Facebook helps you to do that. You just have to think a little bit. As the article says, you can do the comments you want, be tagged on the pictures you want and erase the ones you do not like, so you can be pretty or handsome in all of them. Spend time texting, using the email or facebook can cause demage on the teenagers life's and in consequence their moods. What I understand with this article, is that teenagers if they do not control their lifes might be expossed to that problem called "Facebook depression"

Juan 1st comment

http://mashable.com/2010/10/07/cnn-news-study/

This new talks about how people are getting used to share the "information" they´ve got from the news via social network. I think that is a positive comment, because it does not matter how you get the information while you get it. You twice more news through social network than you do on a news website. It also says that a recent study from the Pew Research Center revealed that social network has made increase the consumption of news readers. An interest point is that it depends on what country you live, you will share with those people you have on your social network account the content of the new varies. It says that the European and the Americans used to share thos thing that might be useful for their friends. I had to add that this comment is obvious, because when you share something with the other people is because you wanna share it with them. But on the other hand, the Asians are more likely to share things that are related with the religion.

In conclusion, what this text is talking about, is that believe it or not, the social network are into our lives right now. And nowadays everyone knows how to handdle it, people are sharign news, information, photos, videos, links... and we hope it stays like this and nobody gets damaged.

INTRODUCTION

Hello everybody! The name of this blog is "social networkings". We have chosen this theme because it is a real hot subject that nowadays everybody uses for multiple activities, but specially for leisure and personal life. With the social networks you can share information, your thoughts, pictures, videos, and comment other pictures or videos from another person. All of this you can do it instantly, whenever and wherever you want because actually you can use any social network in the mobile phone, pads or laptops.

Also this social networks are useful because if you know somebody you can search her/him at facebook directory and you have 90% of possibilities to find her/him because nowadays everybody have a profile at facebook, specially young people. This is like a chain because your contacts bring you another contacts and this is endless. It's so useful too because you can be in contact with people who you haven't seen for years and lives in the other part of the world.

Social networks are useful too because you can create events to send to all of your friends and they can put if they will assist or not, so lots of discos use it to calculate approximately how much people is going to go somewhere to a party. It means that by social networks you can be informed of all the parties and events of the month. Also some business and companies use social networks to announce themselves and for people recognize them.

At this blog we will try to comment and analyze some articles and videos that talk about the social networks to improve what we know about them. We hope that you like it! Hugs!

My profile

My name is Ariadna Lliveria Montoya and I’m eighteen years old. I’m from Barcelona and right now I ‘m studying the first curse of Advertising and Public Relations in the International University of Catalonia. Before that, I was studying the high school in Escola Pia de Nostra Senyora.
In addition of these studies I combine it with dramatic art, professional studies too.
Since I was six years old I started practising theatre and appearing in different plays. Later, when I was twelve I started dancing and singing in an artistic academy and after that I studied in another academy improving that way.
Finally, last year I did the entrance exams in Nancy Tuñón school. It is a professional academy that does the career studies to be a professional actor like the Theatre Institute of Barcelona.
Right now I am coursing the 2nd course, next year I will finish it.
I’m very enthusiastic with that because interpretation for me is amazing. I like it since I was a young girl and for me is all I want to do in my life.
I am a very active person who likes being busy all the time. For this reason I always do a lot of activities during the day.
Besides the studies and as all teenagers do nowadays I love meeting my friends and spending time with them talking or drinking something in a bar.
Music is also very important for me because I always listen to it regardless how I’m feeling in a specific moment.