By Anna Valmero
INQUIRER.net

SOCIAL networking sites continue to evolve and now shape up for a new career: in the political arena. At Facebook’s News Feed menu, you can identify friends who are attending the inauguration of U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama online.

In the study “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship” by Danah M. Boyd and Nicole B. Ellison, one of the first recognizable social network site launched is SixDegrees.com (1997), as well as Classmates.com which started in 1995.

Today, social networking sites abound boasting different features, such as multimedia sharing, links, messaging and micro-blogging.

Previously, social networking sites linked up long-lost friends and even strangers, allowing them to interact via personal messages, blogs, file and link sharing applications, and comment posts. In addition to building online communities, social networking sites have evolved to become tools for product or self promotion, business, knowledge sharing, news and now, politics.

Looking back at the turnout of people on the Internet during Obama’s inauguration, millions have trooped to the Internet to witness this historic event in American history, as they expressed hope, setup pages for Obama on Facebook and kept themselves updated through Twitter.

To follow Obama, bloggers worldwide, such as U.S.-based Filipino Rheynz, has posted a slew of articles at the blogging site Reyna Elena.com on how to view the inauguration as it happened.

It has been a refreshing perspective that through social networking sites, people can again come together and share their feelings about a historic moment, Internet-style.

What do you think will be the next role of social networking sites? Do you think it can cause more “change”?