Why Social Networking Sites gaining Popularity?

The popularity of social networking sites and blogs is gaining very rapidly. This is very evident from Nielsen Online research which says social networking sites along with blogs are forth most popular internet activity. Now two out of third internet users, uses social networking sites. The research tells that the social networking site surpasses the email in popularity. Once of the major reason is social networking sites are replacing the email. Now people prefer to use these networking sites to send short messages.

It is not only the number of users but also the time spent by an individual, on these social networking sites, is increasing. I always wonder why people are not get bored by these networking sites. Some of the reasons which I can think are:

Easy to use: This main reason for the popularity of social networking site is their easiness of use. Even a novice internet user can easily access most part of the social networking sites. On these sites finding a friend is very easy. Most of the sites like ‘Facebook’ searches the friends and prompt the uses to add them.  

Free to use: Most of the social networking sites are free to use.  The user just needs to register. The information entered while registering is used to build the profile of the user. Based on the profile these sites help to find friend already existing on the network. I found many of my old childhood friends, with whom I lost contact, thanks to these networking sites.

Easy to find people of similar interest: Social networkings sites are not just about old friends but it help to find new friend of same interest. These sites facilities to make group based on location /interest/language/religion, thus making it easy for users to find people of similar interest.

Different focus: Currently there is a variety of networking sites are available. Although most of popular sites focus there are some which focuses on a particular topic. For the example Linked-in focused on building professional network, while some networking sites focus on music video file sharing

Many applications to hang with: These sites provide many online games and applications for dating, photo sharing etc. These applications not only hang users on these sites but also attract frequent visit. . A comparison between products of famous networking sites can be found here.

Though the popularity of these sites is increasing, the securities concern is also increase. Please beware before disclosing you personal data on the social networking sites. Some security tips can be found here. 

Login Sequence in yahoo 9

In yahoo 9, there is change in the login sequence. In new version yahoo introduced a two stage login process. This means, instead of directly connecting to yahoo server to validate username and password, in first stage, yahoo 9 client sends a HTTP GET request to yahoo login servers 68.180.216.31 (vcs1.msg.vip.sp1.yahoo.com or vcs1.msg.yahoo.com) and 76.13.14.40 (vcs2.msg.vip.ac4.yahoo.com or vcs2.msg.yahoo.com). The yahoo login server responds with a HTTP 200 OK response. This HTTP 200 OK packet contains a yahoo server IP address with key CS_IP_ADDRESS. This CS_IP_ADDRESS can be any yahoo server from its long list.

 In stage 2 yahoo 9 clients connects to any of the yahoo server on port 5050, to complete its login process and for further communication. The stage 2 is same as the login sequence what yahoo was having in previous versions.  The only difference is in yahoo 9 the client can connect to yahoo server which it got in previous stage at runtime. With the new version yahoo increase the number of its servers. The complete list of new yahoo servers can be found here.  

Security and Privacy in Instant Messaging

In the recent time there is huge gain in popularity of Instant Messenger services. In fact there is over 1 billions of messages transfer each day using instant messaging (IM). With increase in popularity, the instant messenger networks are moving towards encrypted communication from plain communication.

Many of IM software send the conservation as the plain text over the internet. This allows anybody to monitor your conservation. There are many tools available on the internet by which anybody can see your instant messages. Many of the user, unknowing all these security concern, communicate private/confidential information through instant messages. This gives the hacker a chance of misuse the private information which can cause the disasters.

Now the use of instant messengers is well accepted and encouraged in the corporate world as the formal communication as it provides a synchronize communication mechanism which is faster than email and cheaper than phones. With the use of instant messaging in an organization, the security has become a concern. This security concern is motivating the IM service provider to provide a secure communication.

There are many add-on tools/utilities available in the market which helps in achieving the secure instant messaging. These utilities not only encrypt and authenticate messages but also the file transfers.

Even though the increase in use and popularity of IM indicates the need of secure IM communication, there are only few IM networks like Skype, Google talk, AOL etc. which provides the security by encrypting the communication. May be in recent future we will see all networks going for secure communication.