Advantage and Disadvantages of social networking?

A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, idea, financial exchange, friends, kinship, dislike, conflict, trade, web links, sexual relations, disease transmission (epidemiology), or airline routes.



Advantages

• Allow users to create a profile for themselves and can often be "friends" with other users. In most social networking services, both users must confirm that they are friends before they are linked.



• Social networks usually have privacy controls that allows the user to choose who can view their profile or contact them, etc.



• The ability to create groups that share common interests or affiliations, upload videos, and hold discussions in forums.



• Companies like MySpace and Facebook sell online advertising on their site. Sites are also seeking other ways to make money, such as by creating an online marketplace.

Disadvantages

• On large social networking services, there have been growing concerns about users giving out too much personal information and the threat of sexual predators. Large services, such as MySpace, often work with law enforcement to try to prevent such incidents.



• There is an issue over the control of data - information having been altered or removed by the user may in fact be retained and/or passed to 3rd parties.



• There is a perceived privacy threat in relation to placing too much personal information in the hands of large corporations or governmental bodies, allowing a profile to be produced on an individual's behavior on which decisions, detrimental to an individual, may be taken.