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.