As the year 2010 is finishing, one of the hot topics for conservation is social networks. These are the sites which allows people to build lists of friends and chat and interact online.

For a long period of time, a good majority of communication online was conducted through anonymous 'nicks' or nicknames. It was not common place for people to provide, chat, or interact online with their real world name and persona.

That all changed with the introduction of social networking sites such as Twitter, Myspace and Facebook. Up until they were launched, online communication was often conducted through email and real time chat programs such as ICQ.

The drawback with email is that people can become annoyed at being spammed with aimless messages. And spam can get in the way of the message even being noticed. Chat programs require people to be online at the same time.

The advantage to social networking sites, is that a person is given a web page all about themselves. They can update it at their discretion, and readers can choose when and if they want to access it. The simplicity of the communication is it's advantage, and the convenience of when people want to respond or participate in a dialogue.

Social networks can help keep people in touch with passing acquaintances, work colleagues, fringe family members, or people you would generally not have the time to communicate with. All these people, who may have become estranged, a relationship can be continued with. The only thing that needs to be updated is one profile page, which thousands of people can then access. Organising a wedding, football practice, a school reunion, or a similar occasion is also simplified.

The criticisms of social networking sites include their privacy, the long term effects of having your life in digital data forever, what the social network companies and governments may do with the data in future, the stealing and spoofing of real world identity, people stalking others they have fallen afoul of and cyber bullying.