Web or Mobile System Paper
CIS 207 Week 3
Karl Kornegay
Technology is rapidly changing our lifestyles on a daily basis. From how we entertain ourselves, how we stay in contact with one another, all the way to how we pay our bills. Successful attempts within the world of information technology have significantly changed the way we do business as well. Web and mobile-based applications created a new platform for businesses to expose themselves to new clientele, along with staying abreast to what competitors are using to compete with them. Individual use of these web and mobile-based applications can help a user upgrade his or her own standing in the business world as well, which is what I would like to talk about in this essay. In the next few paragraphs, I will address a particular application that businesses and individuals have been using lately that has become quite popular because of all of its features and “social media-like” qualities: LinkedIn.
The web-based application LinkedIn, founded and developed in 2002 by Reid Hoffman (formerly a board member of the company PayPal), is essentially a social networking tool for businesses and individual use that promotes professional networking. Once a user creates a profile, sort of like they would on Facebook, filing out any information they would like to share, they are now able to search and connect with other users whom they might know personally or have had a professional relationship with. Doing so grows those users “connections” which sort of follows a “six degrees of separation” logic: essentially that everybody is somehow connected through 6 people at most. This then creates a network of professionals and in turn promotes business and career opportunities. Users are able to view other users work/employment history, resumes, websites, etc. Fortune 500 companies have created company profiles on LinkedIn for promotion, advertising and even acquisitioning new talent for their company. The company