As the website’s slogan says it, Yelp is where “real reviews from real people” are found. The website serves as a venue for sharing of experiences with local establishments and services. Individuals do not need to be industry experts to be able to place reviews on Yelp. Any registered user can rate an establishment or service and their reasons for giving it a high or low rating. As of February 2009, the number of reviews on Yelp has already reached 5 million. The website has a monthly average of 10.6 million visitors. Reviews are organized by cities and also by categories (e.g. museums, hotels, etc.). Yelp is more than a review site. It is a place where one can connect with people,... [Read more]
LinkedIn is the interconnections of business professionals from 200 countries and more than 170 industries around the world. Unlike other web-based social networks, LinkedIn is business-oriented. It is designed primarily for professional networking and now boasts more than 40 million members making it the largest network of professionals in the world. On LinkedIn, the people one has listed as contacts are called connections. One’s network of contacts may include direct connections, 2nd degree connections (connections added through direct connections) and 3rd degree connections (connections added through 2nd degree connections). In 2008, LinkedIn added new features such as the Amazon Reading... [Read more]
Twitter, created in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, is a free social networking service with features that have been described as a cross between blogging and text messaging. Users are able to send and read posts known as tweets, which are text-based messages only. They can be sent to followers via the Twitter website or through SMS (subject to service provider fees). Unlike blogs, tweets are limited in length by up to 140 characters. This allows individuals to make quick and frequent updates about their daily lives. This is just perfect for people who want to blog, but who don’t have the time or don’t want to spend a lot time creating beautiful or lengthy posts. On Twitter, you can be very brief.... [Read more]
