TekFest- Social Networking

For my social networking site, I chose Facebook. I was a member of Facebook for almost 5 years, and I finally kicked the boot to it about 2 months ago. However, I chose the site because I know it quite well and I feel as though it is the safest and easiest to use. Personally, I started using facebook in my undergraduate and I was a member to it the day it became available to Georgia College and everyone was talking about it! (This was before anyone could just "join" and your school had to be on the list.) Facebook has changed a lot over the years and it's features keep growing.

Some of it's Features Include:

• Individual Profile Page
• Photographs and album sharing
  
• Online Groups
• Wall posting or public messaging
  
• Events
• Private messaging
• Marketplace
• Chat
• Posting multimedia
• Minifeeds
• Status updates
• Search feature
• Notes
  

Some of it's good features include:

• social networking between students
• allows students to connect through asynchronous communication
• allows student to connect through synchronous communication
• privacy settings
• help and support

Some of its limitations include:

• Can become Too personal
• Multimedia can't be posted on homepage
• Profile page can't change font, text, or colors to background
• Spam Email notifications

How it can be used in the distance environment:

• Students can search for classmates for course information
• Students can participate through chat feature
• Students can participate in private mail feature
• Students can create online groups

Some of these features can be used through other types of tools, but lets face it, students check their facebook more times a day than their personal email!