With the advent of the internet, the whole world has shrunk to the size of your laptop. People can connect to other people with similar interests across thousands of miles. While critics of the internet find many disadvantages in the whole situation, there are a lot of advantages in being able to find friends and clients across the world for both individuals and businesses. And the web sites facilitating these fruitful connections are the vast majority of highly popular social networking sites on the internet. Some of the main advantages of social networking for both individuals and for businesses are discussed below:

Social Networking for Individuals: In a world where people are getting busier with their lives day by day, social networking sites are doing a great job of bringing friends, families and even strangers closer. Just imagine the joy of finding your long lost child- hood best friend on a social networking site like orkut.com or classmates.com. Most of us have gone through this experience and we all know that it is something that cannot be described easily in words.

Apart from connecting with old friends, you get to meet a whole lot of new people on these social networking web sites, and contrary to popular belief, not all of them are fakes. There are a wide number of good people like you who are out in the wide wide cyber world who are just as lonely as you are and are looking for like minded friends or companions. And a number of them have also succeeded at it. In fact it is so common that we all know people who met on line and are happily married today.

Social Networking for Businesses: While almost everyone is aware of the advantages of social networking for individuals, not many businesses are aware of the huge potential that this has in store for them. Joining a social networking site is one of the best and easiest ways of advertising about your business. What is more is that it is absolutely free. And on top of this, most such web sites will give you ample space to talk about your products and services It is a great method of increasing your client base and you are not even restricted by geographical boundaries. So while you can make a community of local businesses in order to garner your local target customer, you can also join communities of other similar businesses in order to be conspicuous to the overseas buyer who is sitting in another country or continent. It is an absolute win-win situation for you, so if haven’t joined a site till now, it is time that you did it right away!

Social Networking Related News

1. Facebook lets users share profiles with other sites - USA Today
   SAN FRANCISCO ? Facebook is loosening its grip on millions of personal profiles to allow inhabitants of its popular Internet hangout to transplant the information and applications to other websites. With the changes announced Friday, Facebook joins ...
2. Google Steps Into Data Portability Dance With Friend Connect - PC World
   Google is releasing a preview version of Friend Connect, a service designed to let Web publishers add social networking features to their sites. Friend Connect, which was due to be available on the Web sometime Monday, lets publishers add social ...
3. Google?s Friend Connect aims to make entire web social - Silicon Republic
   13.05.2008 - A new service from Google, with one line of code, will now allow websites to easily add a social networking element to their site rather than linking to a large networking portal like Facebook or MySpace to connect to their audience ...
4. Google Eyes Social Networking - Washington Post
   To socialize these days, hundreds of millions of people every month turn to social networking sites such as MySpace or Facebook. But what if the Web itself worked as a social network? Google announced today another step in what its engineers see as ...
5. GLG invests $30m in Christian version of YouTube - Daily Telegraph
   GLG, which is headquartered in London but listed on the New York Stock Exchange, injected the money in to GodTube, which claims to be one of the fastest growing Christian online video sharing and social networking sites.
6. New Sites Make It Easier To Spy on Your Friends - Wall Street Journal
   If you are still relying on Google to snoop on your friends, you are behind the curve. Armed with new and established Web sites, people are uncovering surprising details about colleagues, lovers and strangers that often don't turn up in a simple ...
7. Google offers to imbue all websites with social networking - MSN Indonesia News
   Google has set out to enable all websites, free of charge, to be imbued with common social networking features as the Internet evolves toward becoming a giant community along the lines of MySpace or Facebook. Google Friend Connect was previewed at a ...
8. Google helps the web to go social - BBC News
   Google has joined the drive to make the web more social by introducing tools to enable people to interact with their friends. Friend Connect follows plans announced last week by the world's two biggest social networking sites, MySpace and Facebook.
9. New Google Friend Connect tool helps sites be more friendly - Australian PC World
   Zones provide focussed content from PC World and leading technology partners. Google is introducing a Web site tool called Friend Connect today that promises to extend the reach of social networks such as Facebook to any site that wants to use the ...
10. SIU-Edwardsville creates social-networking Web site - FreeportJournal Standard
    EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. - Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville is wading into the online social-networking craze. The school has launched its own online gathering place for alumni to talk to current students, faculty and staff. The school's alumni ...