Spotlight: Hi5

Hi5.com

This network was pretty average, allowing users to create a profile, post pictures, comments, etc., etc.  you know the drill.

The layout was also pretty plain; white background, black and blue text, but spiced up a bit with all the game and quiz taking options.

Aside from all this boring, usual stuff though, I did find some unique features.

This network felt more childish to me than the other networks I came across, mostly because of the features.  For example, for some features you needed to have a certain number of coins, and I found that was one of the main things on your profile; How many coins you have. 

Well I had 0, being new to the site, which was no fun.  I learned that you can buy coins, or play games, or 'download' certain applications to gain more coins. 

The other thing that made the site feel immature was the huge game features on it.  It almost felt like more of a gaming network than social network (but maybe that's because I had no friends to be social with). 

Making an 'Avatar' for yourself was a main option as soon as you created your profile, but I didn't find that many people actually created an Avatar when I was browsing for friends. 

After requesting a few random people to be friends, I logged on an hour later and got really excited because it said I had 11 Friend Suggestions.   Thinking this was like friend requests, I thought these people wanted to be my friend, so I selected add friend for all of them.  However, I found out it was actually just a suggestion.  Hi5 was saying since you want to be Hanna's friend then do you want to add Mark as a friend too? Needless to say, I was very disappointed after figuring this out.

One thing I noticed, this site had the most diverse users, with the exception of Skyrock, that I have seen yet.  It seemed like people from a number of countries were on this network rather than focused in one part of the world.

This could be a result of the Google Translation feature on every page.  This was awesome for me because if I stumbled across a profile or page that was in another language, I hit the google translation button it reloaded the page in English for me!

 Before the translation

Give this button a push

And Voila (no pun intended)

So it doesn't translate exact, but not everyone is perfect!  It works well enough to get an idea of what they're saying.

 Giving 'fives' to friends was something I could related to with the Facebook 'poke' feature, but other than that, this site had an overwhelming amount of games and restrictions because of my zero coins, broke, balance and lack of friends once again. 

Spotlight: Tuenti

Tuenti in Spain

The name comes from "tu enti[dad]," meaning "your entity."

I tried to create an account on the social network Tuenti, the most popular network in Spain.  However, this exclusive network is invitation only to join. 

After researching reviews about the site, since I was unable to actually see it, I found it is fairly basic, allowing users to create profile and do what most social networks allow users to do. 

One unique feature I have not seen yet is that it has no advertisements. 

The Social Network: Mark Zuckerberg

I found it only appropriate not only to see the movie, The Social Network, but also write about it here, on my blog that highlights social networks. 

The movie was fantastic and hilarious. I recommend it to everyone.  It tells the story of the creation of Facebook, the revolutionary social media.  Despite the seriousness of the two law suits Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, finds himself involved in his hilarious character alone keeps the audience rolling with laughter.

This approach seems only appropriate seeing that the primary audience is most likely young adults who use Facebook.

The process of how each piece of Facebook was added and put together, whether accurate or not, was interesting in that it was personally connected to something in Zuckerbergs own life.  For example, the relationship status was created because of an annoying friend who kept bugging Mark about whether a girl in his class was single or not.  Now on Facebook, people can check a relationship status to see if someone is single or not.

As Facebook continues to grow and change we will see what changes Mark Zuckerberg brings to the table, keeping Facebook as the number one social network in the US, and many other countries around the world.