After reading Benkler’s ideas in chapter one, it became clear to me that he sees the social network sphere as a positive development. Like a few other students; I found Benkler’s writing style a bit of a struggle to understand. I did gain a few points about his view on the social network sphere. He mentioned in chapter one that social networks give individuals an opportunity to speak their minds and voice their opinions without the disruptions and getting into trouble by others and media owners. He also mentions that Individuals can reach and inform or edify millions around the world. Anyone is available to anyone connect to the network. Benkler mentioned that the rise of effective, large-scale cooperative efforts such as, gaining information, knowledge, and culture come from the rising of free and open-source software. I interrupted this as now a day you can get anything form of information for free from a social network site and the Internet. Any example of this would be Wikipedia, the most serious online alternative to the Encyclopedia. Anyone can access Wikipedia for free.
There is a several types of different social network sites out there available to everyone. The only social network sites that I am familiar with are email and facebook. I do not use twitter, MySpace. I know several people who use everyone form of social network site available. I believe cell phones and texting is a form of social networking as well. I think I use texting the most out of any social networking. I believe that there too many types of social network sites that are similar to one another. I have a feeling that more are still to come.
I use facebook the most out of any social network sites. I have used it several times in school for a few different classes. For class, I used facebook to set up fundraising events and group project meetings. I am in a sorority and have used it to inform others about our social events and philanthropy events. I do believe that facebook is used for many more reasons then just to keep up on our social lives. It is an informational tool that can be very beneficial.
I agree with you that there are too many similar social networking sites AND that texting is a form of social networking (especially with smart phones, ect). Like you said, I think more are coming, but I also think there will come a time when people will say, "Enough is enough." It will be interesting to see what forms stay, which ones fade, and how they evolve.
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