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Social Networking Websites------ Viswanadha Vamsi

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Social Networking Websites

What are they?

Tool for:

Communication

Expressing interests

Nodes and Ties

Recent phenomena

Digg, 2004

Youtube, 2005

Myspace, 2003

Facebook, 2004

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How the Technology Operates

Specialization vs. Integration

Youtube, Digg, Del.icio.us,Livejournal

Myspace, Facebook

Web 2.0

Change in trend

Enhanced creativity,

information sharing,

collaboration, and functionality

User-contribution

Users submit content for other

users

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History

Early social networking websites:

1995 - classmates.com

focused on ties between former

schoolmates

1997 sixdegrees.com

focused on indirect ties

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2004 - Facebook (founded by Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard

as thefacebook.com)

largest and fastest growing site in the world

membership initially limited to Harvard students, but was

expanded to other colleges in the Ivy League; laterexpanded further to include any university student, then

high school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and

over

2005 - Bebostands for blog early, blog often

History, contd

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Developments

Third-party applications

Privacy settings

Instant messaging

News feed (Facebook)

Music (Myspace)

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Positive Aspects for Social Networking

Ease of access to recent trends/topics

Digg

Faster communication over longer distances

Facebook, Myspace, Digg

Big audience

Blogging (Blogger, Livejournal, Youtube,

Wordpress)

Equating computer to sociability; second life Facebook, Myspace

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Promoting False Identities

Celebrities/Political

Site Security

Lack of customer service

Accessibility and reliability

Child Safety

Stalking

Party gatecrashing

Crashing uninvited parties which were

advertised through sites like Myspace

and Facebook where anyone could see

the invitation.

Criticisms against Social Networks

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Criticisms against Social Networks, contd

Social Exploitation and Censorship

Social and Cultural

Dave Itzkoff and his experience

Censorship

Privacy

Security

MIT and 70,000+ Facebook profiles

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Our Opinion?

Social networking sites have caused much debate among users across

the globe. They help us to connect more easily to others, display our

interests in a public forum, and allow us to forge connections despitevast space between users.

Positive aspects:

Simple, user friendly set up and

personalization

Usually cost efficient/free

Easily accessible and globally available

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Positive aspects notwithstanding, there are some

arguments against social networking sites, including:

Our Opinion? contd

Lack of privacy/ control over what is public

and not

Encourages procrastination

Tendency to compartmentalize and make

vague and occasionally unfair assumptions

about others

Generally speaking, social networking sites are seen

as positive among the CMU community.