In the past, I was not a big fan of social networks. I thought it was just another medium to meet people over the Internet. And we all hear those good, bad, and ugly stories of what happens when the two strangers actually meet in person. However, I now have a different perspective on social networks. Indeed, I think it is a very powerful tool to quickly find and spread information. We’ve seen what happened with YouTube, FaceBook, and MySpace . Social networks can rapidly build a large community base that span globally. Social network is not only becoming a favorite for the young generation, but is starting to scratch the surface in other group orientations such as businesses and alumni associations.
As Social Networks continue to grow and become viral, it will change the transparency of society. The term “six degrees of separation” might actually become five or four instead. Furthermore, social network will create more Small World Networks. One’s reputation will become very important as people become closer with one another. Hiring investigators or using credit history provides a synthetic identity of the person. Rather, social networks can be a powerful tool to decipher the real person behind the face, who we really are, how we behave, and what we do. More than ever before, we need to be responsible for our behaviors because every second of our lives might actually be captured using social networks. It’s not far from the future when this happens…
