"Why Facebook Is the Future"
by Lev Grossman, TIME Magazine
Why is Facebook appealing? This article starts out by referring to the hacker Virgil Griffith, who unleashed the WikiScanner. This program scans Wikipedia entries and finds who is making changes to the entry. Author Lev Grossman goes into explaining the anonymity throughout the web and concludes that this is the reason why Facebook is appealing. Facebook's history was then given, mentioning how the network began in Harvard as a tool for meeting. Being formed from an Ivy league school could be why Facebook has such a classy or upmarket feel to it. Also, people usually use their own identity and do not misbehave on Facebook. If there was any annoyance, people could easily remove pests or hide themselves. The article ends with a good statement: "the most important function of a social network is connecting people and that its second most important function is keeping them apart."
This article was a basic and informative publishing. It does not go in-depth with facts or opinions at all. This would be a good article for those who do not know what Facebook is. I, however, happened to be a dedicated Facebook user. Reading this article was basically reading stuff I already knew. Grossman did mention a few facts I did not know, such as Yahoo! offering to buy Facebook for one billion dollars to get turned down. This article was written before Google bought Facebook, and Grossman mentioned that it would be a good move for Google to buy them. The article was fairly short, so that could explain the lack of details. It gives a reader the gist of how Facebook is changing the online world, and how it functions as a social network.
"Social Networking Goes Professional"
By Jessica E. Vascellaro, The Wall Street Journal
Michael Tomblyn, an oncologist radiologist at University of Minnesota Medical Center, was confused when treating a patient whose eye was coming out of its socket. He was not sure of what disorder this could be, so he sought for help on Sermo.com. Sermo is a social-networking website where 25,000 doctors log on to diagnose diseases. Other doctors suggested Tomblyn that it was fungal infection, which sparked Tomblyn's answer. The disease was a cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma. Social networking, popular among teenagers, is now starting to become useful in the business field. It is a good source for advertisement. Also, many professional workers can exchange contact information and other job recruiting details. There is also the need for communication to all workers, which can be used by online forums. A more personal way of business working is currently under way. Sermo is an example of one. People in the business field can have their own personal pages or blogs, share links to other users, send online even invitations, and instant message. Sermo and other professional networking websites are free to use and authenticate users.
I thought this was a well written article. The length was just right and it focuses mainly on social networking in the business field. It uses Dr. Tomblyn's example throughout the article, and refers to Sermo by using it as an example. I got a better understanding of how social networking can be used other than writing on walls and poking each other. Sermo seems like a very useful tool for doctors who don't know what they are doing, but for the most part I think it is not mainly a "professional" social network. Instead, I believe that it is more of a social network for people of the same profession. People of the same field can share ideas, opinions, and suggestions. Although it is probably a reliable source for medical answers, but people will not use it for that purpose. From the article, they made it seem like Dr. Tomblyn was relying on it, which is realisticly not the case.