All about social networking services

A social networking service is an Internet service that models social relationships among people. Essentially it consists of a user profile, his or her social links, and a variety of additional services. Most social networking services are web-based and provide various ways for users to interact over the Internet, including sharing content and communications.

Early social networking websites started in the form of generalized online communities such as The WELL (1theglobe.com (1994), GeoCities (1994)Tripod (1995). These early communities focused on communications through chat rooms, and sharing personal information and topics via simple publishing tools. Other communities took the approach of simply having people link to each other via e-mail addresses. These sites included Classmates (1995), focusing on ties with former schoolm SixDegrees (1997), focusing on indirect ties.

SixDegrees.com in a way was the first to bring together the first few defining...