Social web

For the sociology concept, see Social network.

The social web is a set of social relations that link people through the World Wide Web.[1] The social web encompasses how websites and software are designed and developed in order to support and foster social interaction.[2]: 5  These online social interactions form the basis of much online activity including online shopping,[3] education, gaming and social networking services. The social aspect of Web 2.0 communication has been to facilitate interaction between people with similar tastes.[4] These tastes vary depending on who the target audience is, and what they are looking for. For individuals working in the public relation department, the job is consistently changing and the impact is coming from the social web.[5] The influence held by the social network is large and ever changing.

As people's activities on the Web and communication increase, information about their social relationships become more available.[6] Social networking services such as Facebook enable people and organizations to contact each other with persistent human-friendly names.[citation needed] Today hundreds of millions of Internet users are using thousands of social websites to stay connected with their friends, discover new "friends", and to share user-created content, such as photos, videos, social bookmarks, and blogs, even through mobile platform support for cell phones. By the second quarter in 2017, Facebook reported 1.86 billion members,[7] and, in 2008, MySpace occupied 100 million users and YouTube had more than 100 million videos and 2.9 million user channels,[8] and these numbers are consistently growing. The social Web is quickly reinventing itself, moving beyond simple web applications that connect individuals to live an entirely new way of life.[2]: 18 

  1. ^ Halpin, Harry; Tuffield, Mischa. "A Standards-based, Open and Privacy-aware Social Web". W3C Social Web Incubator Group Report 6th December 2010 Report. W3C Incubator Group Report. Retrieved 2016-01-28.
  2. ^ a b Porter, Joshua (2008). Designing for the Social Web. Berkeley, CA: New Riders. pp. 1–32. ISBN 978-0-321-53492-7.
  3. ^ Lauren Indvik (2011-06-19). "How Social Shopping Is Changing Fashion Production". Mashable.com. Retrieved 2011-10-20.
  4. ^ Weber, Larry (2009). Marketing to the social web: how digital customer communities build your business. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 978-0-470-41097-4.
  5. ^ Brown, Rob (2009). Public Relations and the Social Web. Philadelphia: Kogan Page Limited. ISBN 978-0-7494-5507-1.
  6. ^ Hoon Lee, Sang; Pan-Jun Kim; Yong-Yeol Ahn; Hawoong Jeong (July 2010). "Googling Social Interactions: Web Search Engine Based Social Network Construction". PLOS ONE. 5 (7): e11233. Bibcode:2010PLoSO...511233L. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0011233. PMC 2908113. PMID 20657762.
  7. ^ Fiegerman, Seth (February 2017). "Facebook is closing in on 2 billion users". cnn.com. Retrieved 21 April 2018.
  8. ^ Watson, Tom (2009). CauseWired: plugging in, getting involved, changing the world. New Jersey: Tom Wiley and Sons Inc. ISBN 9780470425466. social web impact.