The 21st century is perhaps the most important century for social networking sites, for they have grown from 10 members up to 200 million (MySpace). Twittering is a word, that is used very often, for Twitter now is part of the vocabulary and you will even find the word in the dictionary. There are people who think that Twitter is bad for the youth among us, because they say: it is addictive and a danger for the privacy. I say it is not dangerous, as long as YOU protect your privacy.

The Net Generation is a silent danger for the youth, said prof. Ruth Gavison. I admit that the internet has dangers for the Net Generation, but I think that we live in a world of constant danger, and privacy in danger is part of this world. Privacy is something that we are entitled to have. And when that privacy is harmed on the internet because we share too much of information we actually bring our privacy in danger by doing so.

The Net Generation belongs to the 21st century and I don’t think that it thinks privacy is an old fashioned idea. People value their privacy and they would never harm their privacy on purpose. But as I said earlier, we live in a world of constant danger and there are people who will get your private information if you not playing it safe on the net. I say be on the net, belong to the Net generation but do so with certain amount of privacy and safety. I think that a lot of people belonging to the Net Generation, especially the younger ones, should pay more attention to where they leave their personal information on the net. Sharing information I think is good, but know what and what not to share. And respect your privacy.

Reference:

http://mehmetporgali.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/the-net-generation-and-privacy/

http://plsonline.wordpress.com/2008/06/02/educating-the-net-generation/

It is the 21st century and the way that people communicate with one another has been progressing since centuries; even the first humans were trying to find new ways of communicating with each other. Nowadays social networking and sharing sites are growing faster than anything else on the web. You have Facebook, Twitter, Hyves (The Dutch equivalent for Netlog) and many more. Flickr is one of those social networking and sharing sites (http://aaronlong.wordpress.com/2007/07/13/flickr-number-2-photo-website-in-all-of-internet-said-like-borat/). Flickr was developed by Ludicorp, a Vancouver-based company (in 2005 acquired by Yahoo along with Flickr). Flickr’s early version was used for real life chat and photo sharing. Like many other sites Flickr was renewing its system and evolving alongside with the internet, it also focused more on uploading and sharing of images by its users, rather than images from the web.

Users have the choice of becoming user or a pro-user. Each user is allowed to upload and share images with other users on Flickr and they appreciate that (http://weetoesandnoggins.wordpress.com/2008/06/07/best-of-flickr/). Flickr now has amateur photographers, professional photographers, designers, companies and even governments as signed users. It has grown to a large photo sharing networking site, where people meet and share their photos with one another. Photographers use Flickr also as a reference for when they write letters to a designer studio or company for a job. Companies then can use Flickr to see what kind of photographer that person is. Companies try to sell their products by using Flickr and to promote products. Flickr is now the second largest photo sharing site on the web behind Photobucket.

Reference:

http://weetoesandnoggins.wordpress.com/2008/06/07/best-of-flickr/

http://aaronlong.wordpress.com/2007/07/13/flickr-number-2-photo-website-in-all-of-internet-said-like-borat/

http://jessidee86.wordpress.com/2007/08/23/flickr-vs-photobucket/

http://www.flickr.com/

Amazon.com is one of the largest online retailers and also the grandfather of online shopping. Jeff Bezos, found Amazon.com, Inc in 1994 and launched it in 1995. Who would have thought that a small on-line bookstore would grow into a multinational electronic online shop, with diversity of products for retail? Amazon.com, Inc can with certainty be called a success story, for it has made it in the big world of multinationals, commerce and retail. Amazon.com sells: books, MP3s, DVDs, CDs, furniture, food, toys, video games and digital cameras (http://photobird.wordpress.com/2008/02/14/best-selling-digital-cameras-on-amazon/) not only in the United States of America but also in South America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Amazon.com, Inc provides international shipping to certain countries, and with its low price retail tactic and the amount of products it has, there is a huge fan base of buyers for its products. Nowadays, when you type in Google: Amazon, the first few search results are all about Amazon.com, hence the results for the Amazon river has been pushed to the second and third page of the search engine.

Amazon.com, Inc is paying a great amount of money for advertisement and to be on the top list of searches on Google. The sum of money that it is paying for advertisements in a year is ridiculously high. Some may think that Amazon.com, Inc only loses money, but that is not true, for it is making huge profits of its retail business (http://seattlefilmandmusic.wordpress.com/2009/02/09/shop-till-everyone-else-drops-how-amazoncom-is-thriving-in-a-horrendous-retail-climate/). Jeff Bezos has an estimated net worth of 10 billion US dollars. He is one of the leading figures in the business world in the USA.

A list of reference:

http://www.internetretailer.com/top500/list.asp

http://www.wikipedia.com

http://www.amazon.com