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Social Networks. Contents. Introduction Facebook History Joining Home Page Friends Privacy Principles MySpace. Introduction. Social Networks , groups of people tied by interdependencies , have been studied by sociologists for decades.
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Contents • Introduction • Facebook • History • Joining • Home Page • Friends • Privacy • Principles • MySpace
Introduction • Social Networks, groups of people tied by interdependencies, have been studied by sociologists for decades. • B. Wellman and S. Berkowitz. Eds, Social Structures, a Network Approach, Cambridge University Press, 1988 • We are interested in social networking websites, where the ties are via the web. • See how important they are at http://alexa.com
Facebook History • Created in 2004 by Mark Zukerberg and classmates at Harvard • Initially for Harvard only, gradually expanded, now for all • Currently 250 million active users worldwide, 120 million log in each day. • Statistics are at http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics
Joining Facebook • Need to be 13 and have an email address • www.facebook.com • Name, email, password, gender, birthdate, captcha • FB checks your email address book for friends • If you wish, sends them requests • Create your profile:hometown, relationship, etc. • Used to find friends, choose ads • Optionally upload a photo • Join networks based on city, school or job • Used to find friends, choose ads, decide who can view your info • Join groups • Used to find friends, choose ads
Your home page • Newsfeed/Wall in the middle • I can type an entry and attach things to it • It will appear on all my friends' newsfeeds • Unless they have hidden me • Left: filters for the newsfeed • You can also hide friends • Right: unanswered requests, ads, suggestions • Bottom: applications, chat • Click profile to see what others see • Info tab • Photos • Top: Friends • Top: Inbox is a kind of email
Top Menu: Friends • Mouseover, then click: All Friends • Can create lists of friends • Permissions can be restricted to lists • Mouseover, then click: Find friends • Uses your profile and other info to suggest friends • Friends are the lifeblood of Facebook… • You will get lots of friend requests, some from strangers • Whom will you befriend? • Younger people tend to befriend everyone • Average number of friends is 120
Privacy • Top Menu: Settings/Privacy/Manage • The real issue here is what are the defaults • Profile • Notice that because I joined the PSU network recently, everyone in that network can see everything! • Notice that I can choose to allow only friends on certain lists to see parts of my information • Search • News Feed and Wall • Actions within Facebook • Facebook ads: Controversial • Applications: also controversial, because a friend's application may snoop at your information • Only 20% of users ever change a privacy setting! • http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/business/08digi.html
Which Principles does Facebook embody? • Data Rules: The value of an application is increased by the scale and dynamism of the data it manages • The long tail: Small products/ideas make up the great majority of all products/ideas. • Use your Users: Enable users to contribute content to the application • The Power of Groups: Apply the wisdom of users to solve problems • Enable Community: Enable users to share their experiences in your application • Folksonomy, not Taxonomy: Utilize user-generated tags to classify items, instead of expertly generated categories
The next most popular SNS: MySpace • www.myspace.com • More color, music • Younger users • Better graphics • Fewer applications • More spam • What do you think?
Twitter • See my home page • Tweets of people I am following • # precedes a topic that can be searched • RT means ReTweet • @ precedes the name of another user
Who uses SNS? • http://social-media-optimization.com/2009/08/social-networks-demographics/