After a potato chip resembling an SUV was sold online, it seemed like just about anything could be found, purchased or experienced on the Internet. Among the billions of Web sites available, social networking, blogging and entertainment sites have emerged as student favorites.
The facebook, www.thefacebook.com, has become a hot place for social networking sites around campus. Students need only a college e-mail address to be part of the networking listing and can sign up to be listed on The facebook by creating a personal profile.
Members can browse profiles to find friends from the University by entering their name in a search box. Users who use the global search option can find and reconnect with friends from other universities through friend requests and a messaging service similar to e-mail.
“Facebook is great because it enables people, strangers even, to contact you in an informal way,” said junior Andy Freeman, a seasoned Facebook user. “I’ve added friends I haven’t spoken with since grade school, so it’s really like one big reunion every time I log on.”
Facebook also offers groups for people to meet others with similar interests.
MySpace, www.myspace.com, is a lesser-known social networking site that is quickly gaining popularity. My Space offers users a profile, groups and a messaging service similar to Facebook. However, MySpace is not exclusive to college students and staff; anyone 18 years or older can create a profile.
“With MySpace, it is a lot harder to find people because the search options aren’t as advanced and efficient as The Facebook,” freshman Beth Glazer said.
MySpace has a blog option and allows HTML editing, which helps make profiles unique. Users can add music, videos, pictures and color to their profiles.
Another way for students to meet people, share their lives and vent on the typical frustrations of college is through blogs. Blogs are a personal online diary published on a Web page, and numerous Web sites offer online journals.
Xanga, www.xanga.com, Blogger, www.blogger.com, and LiveJournal, www.livejournal.com, offer free accounts for journal keeping. The sites have different color templates and options. Each site also has a comments option that allows users to post opinions about entries. Xanga or LiveJournal users can also upgrade their account for about $2 per month to receive more options.
eBaum’s World, www.ebaums- world.com, is a collection of anything amusing, hilarious or simply entertaining.
“It’s one of the funniest sites on the Internet,” Freeman said. “There’s all kinds of videos that appeal to everyone’s sense of humor.”
eBaum’s World also offers comical pictures, animations, audio files, prank phone calls, games, sound boards and jokes. The site provides a trip down memory lane through edited GI Joe public-service announcements and games such as Duck Hunt and Sonic the Hedgehog.
Albino Blacksheep, www.albinoblacksheep.com, is a smaller entertainment site similar to eBaum’s World. It features another collection of humorous videos, cartoons and images, and also offers a chat room.
These Web sites are tools for procrastinating on homework, relieving stress and boredom, finding connections and providing a creative outlet. Sometimes students just need one good laugh before starting on a term paper.
Kaitlin Stewart is a freelance reporter for the Daily Emerald
