Social Networking services create online communities with which people can contact each other and share interests and activities through e-mail and instant messaging services and friends lists. A meteoric rise in the popularity of these services reflects a growing social interest for interpersonal communication. MySpace and Facebook are most widely used in North America; Nexopia (mostly in Canada); Bebo, Facebook, Hi5, MySpace, Tagged, Xing; and Skyrock in parts of Europe; Orkut and Hi5 in South America and Central America; and Friendster, Orkut, Xiaonei and Cyworld in Asia and the Pacific Islands. [1. Source: Wikipedia.org.]
Although early forms of social networking go back as far as the 1990s such as Classmates.com in 1995 for old school mates to find each other, and SixDegrees.com in 1997 for those with indirect ties, it was the more recent services of this decade that have facilitated viral expansion. Most popular among these are MySpace.com and Facebook.com MySpace.com opened in 2003, modeled on the potential success demonstrated by the opening of Friendster.com in 2002. MySpace became the most popular social networker in 2006 and it opened its 100 millionth account in the Netherlands in August of that year. [2. Source: Wikipedia.org.] Facebook began in 2004 and was initially used by Universities, then High Schools until it was opened to everyone over age 13 in September, 2006, and in September, 2008, Facebook announced that it would set up it international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland.[3. Source: Wikipedia.org.]
The explosion of Social Networking is taking place because it is now technically possible for the first time, but it also coincide with the fact the both the 432 Emotional Cycle and the 528 Intellectual Cycle have simultaneously crossed up in the High half in 2000 to make both the 21st and 22nd centuries a time in which we will have and Emo–Intellectual High.