Social Networking Looking to Take Over as the Most Popular Online Activity
Before the days of Friendster and MySpace, people mainly used the Internet to check their favorite news sites, see what is in their inboxes, chat with others, and search online for any information that they need. The popularly of online shopping has only begun as people started to feel more confident about submitting sensitive information online, thanks to the greater security software and services.
Internet usage wasn’t very frequent back then because Internet connections were slow and only dial-up subscriptions were the most affordable. But now with high-speed Internet access being more affordable and wireless Internet being more available, Internet habits have changed.
Early social networking sites including Friendster and MySpace made huge splashes in the web because of how easy it was to share information with others and keep in touch. People loved the thrills of finding new friends or searching for old friends. But the innovation didn’t stop there once the concept of web applications turned into a reality.
Now we have big social networking giants like Facebook along with other popular sites like YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn and many others with social networking functions. People can get a lot more productive online, thanks to these applications and that caused a huge surge in social media usage. It is even possible to play games socially with others without installing any major client software.
As a result, the number of adult Internet users grow from a measly 8% to 65% in just a 5 year period. The numbers never went down either so it is expected for this number to grow as more popular services start incorporating social networking elements.
The evolution of smartphones and the widespread buzz of tablet computers also played a major role for increased social media activity. Many of the smartphones that you buy today have Wi-Fi and 3G features enabled so you can see some updated social media activity the moment you turn on your phone. People find it more convenient to check their messages or send updates to all of their friends through their favorite mobile device because it is easier and mobile gadgets in general have better battery life than laptops.
Hardware evolution isn’t stopping either as top companies like Intel and AMD are focusing on making their chips smaller so they are more energy efficient and provide better performance so it can handle web applications for a longer period of time. Companies in the software end like Microsoft and RIM are also trying to get out of their enterprise-focused visions and taking consumers as an equal priority to compete with Apple.
People love to socialize online these days and as long as the information is easily accessible from their fingertips, social networking activity will be the norm. At the same time, these different social networking services are competing so you can be certain that improvements will be made in all ends.
