Blog: Social networking sites

Facebook is one of the most commonly used social networking sites used by professionals and regular people alike. Mom's use it to post pictures about their children, college students use it to communicate with each other via messenger. Signing up isn't too hard, they ask the basic things like name, age, email and password. The user interface is also fairly simple to navigate, on the left are the icons that lead to different parts of the site (i.e. profile, messenger, groups), your news feed is in the center of the page, and on the right are your online contacts, and trending topics. 

Twitter asks for the same things at registration, with the additional username (handle) that you will be known as. Your handle is not permanent, it can be changed at any time, if that is what you decide to do. Like facebook, the user interface is pretty similar. The difference being that instead of only adding your friends, on twitter you "follow" different accounts that are run by celebrities, businesses, strangers. For the most part, people's profiles are public, so you don't need to send an approval to view their updates and tweets. It's more for the influencer's to keep their fans updated and for fans to interact with each other and stay up to date on their celebrities lives. 

Tumblr is a site that is also well known, but isn't exactly used the same as the previous two. Tumblr classifies as a social networking micro-blogging site. Registration process is the same as twitters, however the formatting of the interface is slightly different. your feed on your dashboard is shown from newest to oldest and is in the center, the very right is where all the icons are and the recommended blogs. While some posts are original, the majority of the site consists of people "reblogging" the content. You have followers and you follow other blogs, can you send direct messages, or submit questions that they can answer publicly. This site is used mainly to interact with people within your fandoms" or for "aesthetiic" purposes.

Pinterest's format was the most different. Your feed isn't linear vertically like the other sites, it seems as though all the posts are just placed in order all over the page, to fill the space, you can have anywhere from 3-5 posts aligned almost beside each other. In pinterest you create "boards" (categorize your posts) and when someone goes to your profile, they can view which board they want to see and only see the things that are filed in that board. It is a bit more intricate than the previous three, and all three are used for different purposes while all remaining a way for strangers to communicate and interact with each other.  

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