Tue Feb 09 2010
By JARED ORZOLEK
Networking websites like Facebook and Twitter have become an important avenue for friends and family members to communicate with each other and for businesses and organizations to reach out to customers.
People communicate through the computer, or with a cell phone, with these websites.
Twitter, which can be found at www.twitter.com, is a real-time short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices. The website asks users to answer the simple question: "What are you doing?" Posting the answer to this question on a Twitter account is known as a "tweeting."
The site allows users to obtain as much or as little information as they want from friends, relatives or companies they select.
Facebook, available at www.facebook.com, is a social networking website with more than 250 million active users. The site was founded in 2004 and is designed to allow people to communicate with friends, family and others by sharing photos and other information on the Internet. The average Facebook user has more than 120 friends who are capable of networking on the site. People spend more than five billion minuets on the site each day worldwide, according to Facebook.
One of those 250 million users is Ada Rodriguez, 21, Defiance, a criminal justice/social work major at Defiance College.
"I use Facebook for social networking with friends. I also use it for meeting new people and finding out what is going on with my friends from the past," she said. "I like it because it is easy to use and I can check-out what others are doing from any computer."
Also enjoying Facebook is Pam Shook, 54, Defiance, who uses the service to communicate with friends from overseas in countries like England, New Zealand and Australia.
"I have a lot of friends in other countries, and it's a great way to communicate with them," Shook said. "It's like a pen-pal thing, but it's a lot quicker."
Shook also said she is able to communicate with her daughter and other local friends through Facebook and even found a webpage for the 1973 class of Defiance High School, of which she is a member.
The Crescent-News has developed both Twitter and Facebook accounts to allow its readers to connect with the publication through these services.
"Unfortunately, many people not familiar with Facebook and Twitter believe that social networks are used exclusively to allow friends to let others know what they are doing. While these websites do allow people to connect, they can also be used so businesses can communicate with the people they serve," said Mark Froelich, web editor at The Crescent-News.
The newspaper's Twitter account is found at twitter.com/crescentnews and its Facebook page can be found by searching for The Crescent-News at www.facebook.com.
"On the Twitter page, readers can find breaking news items from The Crescent-News. Our top headlines of the day are also included," said Froelich. "The Facebook Fan page includes daily headlines from our website. More importantly, those who become our Facebook fans can also watch for special announcements (or notes) from the newspaper."
Froelich also has both a Facebook Fan page and Twitter account and encourages readers to check out his pages. His Twitter page is at Twitter.com/markfroelich and his Facebook Fan page is available at www.facebook.com/pages/Mark-Froelich/117282179926
"On both services, I post links to my three blogs. I also include other news updates," Froelich said. "I use these services to communicate with readers about any Crescent-News projects, and they are encouraged to communicate with me as well. As most people know, I love to talk with people."
Froelich said that people of all ages should not be intimidated by social networks like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.
"I would encourage anyone who is old enough to create an account on any of these social networks just to simply learn more about them," he said. "People tend to only hear the negative news about social networking and then pass that negativity to everyone else without educating themselves about social networking."
He also encourages parents to be attentive to what their children are posting on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace social networks.
"You'd be surprised with some of the postings I read and I can only wonder if their parents know what is being written," Froelich said. "One way to know more about these social networks is to open up an account yourself and learn. Who knows, in the process you may be able to connect on Facebook with a long lost friend or classmate."
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