Unit 3 the social network

FACEBOOK

Read and memorize the following words:

social networking service — социальная сеть

colloquial — разговорный

violating the site's terms — нарушающие правила использования сайта

exchange messages — обмениваться сообщениями

to be founded — быть основанным

to expand — расширяться

support for students — поддержка для студентов

to estimate — оценивать

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. As of January 2011, Facebook has more than 600 million active users. Users may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Facebook users must register before using the site. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics. The name of the service stems from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by university administrations in the United States to help students get to know each other better. Facebook allows any users who declare themselves to be at least 13 years old to become registered users of the website.

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow computer science students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. The website's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities before opening to high school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over, but based on ConsumersReports.org on May 2011, there are 7.5 million children under 13 with accounts, violating the site's terms.

A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social networking service by worldwide monthly active users, followed by MySpace. Entertainment Weekly included the site on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list, saying, "How on earth did we stalk our exes, remember our co-workers' birthdays, bug our friends, and play a rousing game of Scrabulous before Facebook?" Quantcast estimates Facebook has 138.9 million monthly unique U.S. visitors in May 2011. According to Social Media Today, in April 2010 an estimated 41.6% of the U.S. population had a Facebook account.

Questions:

What is Facebook?

When was Facebook launched?

How many users has Facebook?

What can users create with the help of Facebook?

At what age can you use Facebook?

Was the website's membership initially limited by the founders to Harvard students? Was it expended then?

How many visitors had facebook in May 2011?

Do you use Facebook? Why?

TWITTER

Read and memorize the following words:

microblogging — краткий формат ведения блогов

tweet — твит, запись в Твиттере

hashtag — хэштег, ключевое слово для поиска по Твиттеру

to own — владеть

incorporated — объединенный

to gain popularity — получить популярность

to generate and handle — производить и обрабатывать

increasingly used — все более используемый

advertising — реклама

to send and read messages — отправлять и читать сообщения

direct communication — прямая связь

civil unrest — общественные беспорядки

emergencies and political campaigning — чрезвычайные ситуации и проведение политических компаний

to encourage people — поощрять людей

Twitter is a website, owned and operated by Twitter Inc., which offers a social networking and microblogging service, enabling its users to send and read messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the user's profile page.

The website is based in San Francisco. Twitter also has servers and offices in San Antonio and Boston. Twitter, Inc. was originally incorporated in California, but as of 2011 is incorporated in Delaware.

Twitter was produced in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched in July. Since then Twitter has gained popularity worldwide and is estimated to have 200 million users, generating 190 million tweets a day and handling over 1.6 billion search queries per day. It is sometimes described as the "SMS of the Internet".

Twitter has been used for a variety of purposes in many different industries and scenarios. For example, it has been used to organize protests, sometimes referred to as "Twitter Revolutions" and which include the 2011 Egyptian protests, 2010–2011 Tunisian protests, 2009–2010 Iranian election protests, and 2009 Moldova civil unrest. The service has also been used in emergencies and political campaigning.

It is also used for direct communication among social groups and organizations, with the use of "hashtags." For instance, nedchat, used at the end of a tweet, means that the communication will be viewed by all users who follow the topic which refers to an ongoing chat among educators.

Twitter is also increasingly used for making TV more interactive and social. This effect is sometimes referred to as the "virtual watercooler" or social television. Twitter has been used successfully to encourage people to watch live TV events, such as the Oscars, the Super Bowl and the MTV Video Music Awards; this strategy has however proven less effective with regularly scheduled TV shows. Such direct cross-promotions have been banned from French television due to regulations against secret advertising.

Questions:

What is a 'tweet'?

Where is the website based?

Has Twitter gained popularity worldwide? Why?

What purposes has Twitter been used for?

How many characters can you use in one tweet?

Has Twitter been used successfully to encourage people to watch live TV events? What kind of them?

When was Twitter produced?

Why was Twitter banned from French TV?