Software Implementation for A Mobile Social Networking Application for Academics and for Collaborative Learning

Introduction

1.1 Background of Study

Social networking began when man started exist. Man is a social being that will always find it difficult to stay without relating to people around him. Many years ago (20th century and below), people connect and interact with each other through various means like using postal service, telegraph etc. Following the evolution of internet in 1970’s, people use the internet to connect or communicate with each other especially in established organizations like US Military. It was only in the last few decades that the use of social networking service became a global practice especially amongst young people (Horizon, 2009). Boyd and Ellison (2007) definesocial networking service as a web-based service that allow individuals to:

1. Construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system
2. Articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection
3. View and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.

The nature at which these features are implemented may vary from site to site. Social networking started with Bulletin Board System (BBS), they were often run by hobbyists who carefully nurtured the social aspects and interest-specific nature of their projects − which, more often than not in those early days of computers, was technology-related. But there were also other avenues for social interaction long before the Internet exploded onto the mainstream consciousness. One such option was CompuServe, a service that began life in the 1970s as a business-oriented mainframe computer communication solution, but expanded into the public domain in the late 1980s. CompuServe allowed members to share files and access news and events. But it also offered something few had ever experienced − true interaction. But if there is a true precursor to today’s social networking sites, it was likely spawned under the AOL (American Online) umbrella. In many ways, and for many people, AOL was the Internet before the Internet, and its member-created communities (complete with searchable “Member Profiles,” in which users would list pertinent details about themselves), were arguably the service’s most fascinating, forward-thinking feature. Other social networking applications like Friendster, Linkedln, MySpace, Facebook and Twitter was invented within the space of 2002 to 2007.