Social Networking

The most important way, in my opinion, that social networking can be used for in the corporate world is for marketing. Creating a social media page allows a business to interact with its customers on a more personal level and on a larger scale. For example in the article "How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks' Power" , they used social networking for the Obama campaign and this allowed people to be updated on all things Obama. They were able to reach individuals all across the country without having to spend numerous amounts of money on paper materials because they had email. 

The benefits of social networking to society is the fact that it allows you to do things in real time. For example if you have family that live miles away, you are able to connect with them in an instant through a social networking site. 

There is definitely a dark side to social networking. To even sign up for a site so much of your personal info is being asked of you. Even for Facebook you are forced to use your real name in order to sign up, and if it is a made up name they will eventually make you switch it. In the article "Who Cares About Facebook Privacy? Students Do" it speaks how young adults most likely have their privacy settings up to date and do not have their profile public. This is probably due to the fact that you are able to google someone and if they are public you would be able to find out everything about them. 

I would hope that in the future privacy settings for all social networking sites would be greater. But I think the user interaction is the best thing and it is only getting better.