Everyone seems to be logging on, from the old to the young, the rich to the poor.  Sit in any public library and you'll see that a lot of the internet users are feverishly typing away on Facebook, Bebo, Myspace, OKCupid or Hi5.  And that's just a few of the big names.

Scientists have coined a new term for the distress caused by being deprived internet access - discomgoogolation. 

So what is it about these sites that are so addictive? 

Anyone can log on and feel instantly connected to a group of people, no matter what time of day it is or where they are in the world.  It leads to a feeling of being part of a community.  There are message boards for fan clubs, common interests and favourite TV shows or books. 

It is also easy to stay in touch with old friends who do not live in the immediate area.  But why is it better than simple old email?  Well, the key is this - user profiles for most of the social networking sites contain a wealth of information about any given individual.  Their status can be updated as and when, so you know exactly when somebody is having a bad day, has passed their driving test or has found a new partner.  Humans are inherently curious.  So much easier to simply read this information rather than having to email and ask them how they are, isn't it?

You don't have to make the effort to look good for a messaging marathon or real-time conversation either.  After all, the recipient of your posted messages has no idea whether you're having a bad hair day, have no makeup on, or are even sitting there in your pyjamas!

In short, you can make less of an effort to maintain friends.  This holds particularly true if you meet somebody new and want to stay in touch, but aren't yet at the "Come over for coffee!" stage.  It's less stressful, less humiliating and there are less awkward silences than in a face-to-face meeting.

But social networking sites are not just about old friends.  It's easy to find new ones with similar interests.    There are dating applications too, so you can widen your pool of potential admirers.  And if somebody doesn't post back to you? Well, so what?  Plenty more fish in the sea.

Lastly, these sites contain an abundance of different online games to be played, quizzes to be taken and photos of friends past and present, to be viewed.  Can you think of a better excuse to procrastinate for a while, when you should be working in your boring, mundane job?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to check my facebook...

People want to get connected all the time, every time! Then again, they may not want to talk about things on a face to face basis. They may not want to get into regular and routine relationships. They may not want to get into commitments, but still they want to share their day, discuss their issues and go to sleep with a lightened hearts by the end of the day!

The social networking sites are an easy tool for such sharing without commitment, such comments without commitments, such smiles and laughs without serious involvements and such happiness without hurts!

The social networking sites are a means of relaxation after a hard day of work, after a hard fight with some one and after a prolonged boring conversation with a friend or with a neighbor!

The social networking sites come in all sizes and shapes and by all ways and means! There are sites that want you to “digg” deep into the matters and there are sites that allow you to “stumble upon” anything of your liking, a video, a picture, a website etc.

You may “clipmarks” your interests and share it with the rest of the world! You may even tag your “delicious” stuff or simply “fave” your likings and share it with the virtual community!

You may just “Flicker” about your pictures and you may even have a “face book” on your own in some of these sites!

You may meet your “classmates” in one of these sites and you may even maintain a “Live Journal” in one of these other sites!

There are hundreds of such social networking sites which are frequently by millions of members and guests!

Generally, you can navigate into or away from any of these websites! As long as you are decent, keep your comments out of the vulgarity framework and behave with responsibility by not hurting the other people in the site, you are always welcome to these social networking sites!

It really feels great to meet people, to share our knowledge and thoughts with them, to feel relaxed and relieved of the tensions and anxieties of the day to day life and living, to feel welcomed by a group of people whom we had never ever seen in our lives, but somehow got connected into a network of familiarity and happiness!

The faces and the icons provide us with the warmth which only comes with the sharing of happiness, the comments and the follow up comments and then the follow up of the follow up comments…it's interesting, energetic, amazing and absolutely wonderful!

There is something magic in becoming a part of the social networking sites!

MySpace effectively replaces the malls as the latest hangout place for teens. An estimated 19% of the total users are 17 years old below. That is why, parents should make it a point to understand the way this social networking site works. The internet is a good place to meet like-minded people from all walks of life. It also enables one to establish contact with people from other countries. It could be a way to build business relationships or help promote products and services. The drawbacks for networking sites though could be equally multiple. One, it could be dangerous especially if the teen meets child predators online. Another is it could be used to bully other teens. Parents then should be vigilant and exercise control on their kids' internet surfing habits.

Some people may find social networking sites as a way to fill up time or evade boredom but MySpace does serve a purpose. For one, some hiring managers used MySpace as a creative way to find prospective employees through social networking. Lisa Graham, Client Relationship Manager for FurstPerson / Sprint, admitted that she hired four personnel using the popular networking site. Since Sprint chooses tech-savvy employees, those using MySpace would most likely fall under such category. She posts information of job fairs through her MySpace site. She received numerous job inquiries in the process and was able to hire at least four candidates.

Today, that decision not to sell to Google is considered as one of the biggest financial mistakes to many individuals. The amount of 53 million was funded to Friendster by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Benchmark Capital in the year of 2003. Friendster was awarded the prestigious patent in the year of 2006 for their method of calculating and displaying relationships in a social network. It was dubbed with the name of Web of Friends due to the circles displayed of individual friends profile pictures. Each circle has a line drawn similar to a web connecting them to another contact on your friend list. It was very creative and crafty of them. Friendster is available in many different languages. Friendster has a language link that can change the text displayed on the site to Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Spanish for other users.

What can friendster do? Friendster can connect you with other like-minded people to share information and network. Friendster has a rich source of connections you can gain by it being one of the oldest social networking sites around. Friendster is perfect for someone looking to build up their social network and business contacts. You can find old friends, classmates, co-workers, and new aquaintances through there vast array of features. You can build up an incredible social network through Friendster. The site has been putting extra money into updating and it has loads of networking potential. Unlike other sites Friendster is not buried with spam and lurking pedophiles. It is a great online social networking site to relax and connect on a deeper level with others.

The purpose of social networking is solid in the Friendster online service. You can post blogs, message, disucss, email, and interact with other individuals with the same interests and hobbies as you. You can also conduct searches for new friends and add friends of your friends current circle. Friendster allows you to always be connected and informed. It is important to remember that Friendster is an excellent social networking site to make meaningful connections. Friendster can do what most social networking sites can but on a more experienced level.

Social networking sites have become the place for the conglomeration of tons and thousands of icons: the overwhelming mass of icons representing the people from various parts of the world!

Some of the icons have human faces, but most of the icons are just icons, without any human face! There are baby icons, smiling icons, raging icons, flowery icons, frowning icons and fantastic icons…in the sea of such multitude of icons; you try to find your own special space for your own special icon!

SNS (social networking site) is where you comment on someone"s photo/video/text or blog and your comment gets commented on by someonelse and the chances are that a chain of comments follow right after these two comments in a colorful blend of iconic beauties!

The beauty of SNS is that we enter into a virtual world of comfort and happiness and of knowing so much about the members by going through their profile and other cool stuff, and then again, we know nothing much about anyone in anyway, not even their original names, except their icons!

May be, that's what makes everything so special and so interesting about these websites! It becomes such a beautiful paradox that we think we know a lot about way too many people from far away places, but then again, we don't know any of them or anything worthwhile about any one of them: that makes the networking experience so unique and wonderful!

You can talk when you want to talk, you can write what you want to write and you can merely navigate away from the site, when you are not in a mood to communicate with any one at any point of time! It's that simple!

In the real world, such simplicity is not possible! You are forced to smile broadly, even when you don't want to say hello to someone! You are forced to make a small talk even when your heart cries out against talking to some one you just can't tolerate! But, then in the physical world, social networking is much more than typing out the words or forwarding the smiley! You just have to talk and be polite and say hello to people, despite of your likes and dislikes!

The comfort factor of "Hi! I am here on my own terms” is what makes the SNS sites more distinctive than any other aspect of our browsing experience!

We know and we don"t know. We know their icons but we don't know them.

We can answer their queries, make some funny comments or just ignore them and get on with our lives!

We know people from Canada, Japan, Poland, Russia, USA (of course!), India, Singapore and Austria…and then we don't know anyone from anywhere at all!

It's a pure world of icons, icons and icons some more!

Despite being anonymous on the net, there is a comfort factor of getting in touch with another person from some where around the world and sharing with him/her a minuscule part of our lives!

Sometimes, things get really serious on the virtual world, forcing us to make a decision or commitment to the icon (person) in question, but blissfully, most of the time and for most of us, the communication stays firmly around knowledge, fun and frolics!

The entire day's tension and burdens just flow away, when you switch on your system, visit your favorite site and look at the icons of our favorite people, communicating with and sharing with them your thought process with a smiley popping out of your eyes!

Happy social networking and be happier icons!

My name is... well my name isn't that important now is it? It's not like we're going to go out for tea and crumpets after you read this. Well if you want to, my number is 21... Oh right... Back to the letter. I have to say that I am grateful for your brainchild AKA MySpace. However, I do have a few suggestions in order to make the site that much better.

I will say that you have helped me realize that not only are my friends very loyal, but they're also stalkers; who look at my page every time I change my picture. Do you think you can implement a way of having users know who looks at their profile? Or maybe since you have the option of having a preferred list for blogs that maybe you can employ a preferred list for pictures. Not a bad idea if I do say so myself.

Also Tom, may I ask why it is that you have a block feature implemented, but the people blocked are still able to view your profile? Shouldn't they be blocked from seeing anything about you? I suggest that blocked users be blocked entirely and when they attempt to click on your page, they are automatically bounced back to the MySpace main page; just some food for thought.

Who doesn't love to read a good bulletin? Ahem, let me stress good bulletin. Tom, why is that you allow people to post bulletins every few minutes? Why not put a cap on the amount of bulletins a person can post in a day? Wouldn't that fight spammers and people who try to hack users' accounts? Some of my "friends" use the bulletin system to pimp their page incessantly and because I'm not mean enough to remove them from my list, whenever I log on, I sadly have to look at the river of posts by the same person. Maybe changing it so that people are only allowed to post up to 4 bulletins a day? I think that this is a feasible suggestion.

Also, why are bands, comedians and filmmakers exempt from having their age on their page? Pedophiles come in all shapes, sizes and do various different jobs outside of their perverted ways. I know the well-known bands and singers " ages are already known to their fans/groupies, but the underground bands -whom nobody really knows- are free to roam around and say whatever they please to whomever they please. Just because someone is in the industry, doesn"t mean they are exempt from being a pervert or horn dog; just something to look into.

Tom, may I also ask why it is that when someone deletes their page a red X appears where their comment was? If they didn't care enough to say goodbye when they decided to delete their page, then I don't care enough to know that they deleted their page. Why not just have the comments automatically disappear when they disappear?

Now I know you guys are in competition with Facebook, but trust me with all the new additions over there that make the site look like something out of a kindergarten classroom, I truly believe that you guys have the leg up. But Tom, why? Why did you add these crappy moods/smilies? It would be nice if you could actually get rid of them, but once you click on it, it's like a VD; it's there for life. Why not give us an option to remove it and put it back if we so choose? And what's worse is that if your profile is on private and you add a mood, your stalkers can see it.

Why is it that, the moods are still visible-when your profile is private- but your status message is still: “This profile is set to private. This user must add you as a friend to see his/her profile”? Technically everything isn't private now is it?

I do thank you and anyone else who took the time out to read this. Please don't take this as me bashing your site. All in all, I think it's one of the best networking sites. But not everything is perfect... Hope you're having a lovely day! I'll send you some more white t-shirts in the mail.

Regards, Rosebud