Special Interest Social Networks

Brenda F. Bell

ACGNJ Main MeetingNovember 4, 2011

HISTORY OF ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKS

Earliest Online Social Networks

• BBS’s– Routed discussion groups (e.g., Fido.Net)

• Online Services – AoL, Prodigy, CompuServe, GEnie

• Usenet Newsgroups (e.g., AlterNet)• Internet Mailing Lists (e.g., LISTSERV)• Online chat (e.g. AIM, IRC)

The Second Era: Multi-Mode Sharing

• Added photographs, hyperlinks, chat to mailing lists and forums

• Added Web interfaces• Community members may choose to

establish/include interactions from unrelated services (i.e., mailing list and related IRC room)

• Examples: eGroups (later Yahoo Groups)

Modern Social Networking

• Multi-mode: messages, photos, videos, blogs, chat

• Private messaging as well as broadcasting• Status and/or mood updates• Default setting is “share everything”• Examples: MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn,

Google+

GOING PRIVATE

Private and Special Interest social networks in the post-Facebook world

Why Go Private/Special-Interest?

• Common interest community– Special or “offbeat” interests

• Medical, political, professional, fannish

• Concentration of information– Important updates don’t get lost in a stream of

chatter• Hazards of sharing too widely

– Discrimination– Comingling of possibly-conflicting interests

• Work, family, hobbies, religion

• Facebook’s changing privacy standards

Advantages of Special-Interest Networks

• [Administrative] Targeted audience– Similar interests, issues, solutions– More effective monetization

• [Administrative] More granular control– Membership levels (free, basic, full-service)– Tighter content, mode/component control– Add novel and specialty interaction types

• Less chance of unwanted disclosure– Protected demographics– Alternative lifestyles

SOCIAL NETWORKING PLATFORMS

Basic Platforms

(These do not provide forums or allow inline integration of multiple media types)

• Yahoo Groups– Share e-mail, photos, links, calendar, profiles– Other Yahoo properties (Flickr) have group-limited

sharing available• Google Groups

– Share e-mail, MIME attachments, calendars– Other Google properties (Picasa, GoogleDocs,

YouTube) extend and customize group-sharing options

Streaming Media Platforms

• Ustream– For live and recorded streaming video– Live videos include option of simultaneous text

chat– Video stream can be embedded in other sites

• BlogTalkRadio– Live and recorded audio stream, listener phone-in

numbers, simultaneous text chat– Sometimes used as an adjunct to an existing

community

Building Networks From Scratch

• Drupal – Open Source content management system– Used to run communities, blogs, forums, etc.– Examples: dLife, dLife Community

• Ruby on Rails– Open Source development framework– Used for content management systems and

communities– Examples: Diabetic Connect, Geni, Ravelry,

Justin.TV

Advanced Social Networking Platforms

• Ning– Most-widely used social networking platform– Supports user profiles and status updates, blogs,

photo/video/event sharing, discussion forums, featured content, integrated news content, integrated chat, private messaging

– User-optional Facebook, Twitter integration• Grouply

– Similar to Ning, but includes free networks– Examples: New York Renaissance Faire

Ning Networks

• TuDiabetes• Diabetic Rockstar• WEGOHealth• The Twilight Saga• Examples in other spaces:

http://about.ning.com/spotlight/ • More about Ning:

http://about.ning.com/product/

Other Special Interest Social Networks

• Livestrong– Health, diet, and fitness tracking– Site developed using DemandMedia tools

designed for brand and content management• Map My Fitness

– Fitness-specific mapping and location sharing– Fitness tracking and training– Site developed using a number of standard Web

tools, including MySQL and PHP

GOING BEYOND A SINGLE NETWORK

Carving out your own special-interest social space

Multi-Platform Communities

Some users are active in multiple venues– Monetized own-domain or mainstream-hosted

blogs (Blogger, WordPress)– Special-interest groups and social networks for

outreach and support– YouTube or Vimeo for videos and vlogs– Twitter for blogpost broadcasting and real-time

chat– BlogTalkRadio and other podcasting platforms– Flickr or Picasa for cross-network photo sharing– Facebook and LinkedIn for general outreach

Keeping it Together

• Keep identical or similar usernames across all communities for your interest

• Don’t use your real name if you want to limit who sees your special-interest activity

• Create an interest-based username from– Your blog’s name– Your site’s name or domain name– Your interest

• Cross-broadcast new content to all of your communities for that interest

Keeping it Separate

• Use separate usernames and identities for your professional, family, and hobbyist activities– Exceptions:

• If your special-interest is career-related, use your professional identity

• If you represent your special-interest “in real life”, you may not be able to separate it from your family and/or professional identities

– Be careful what you post under which identity– If you’re caught out, admit it.

SUMMARY

Special Interest social networks

• Cater to targeted or limited interest groups• Combine a variety of social and information

services• Can be developed using one or more

software platforms• Are designed for member-to-member

interaction

They provide

• Information and sharing based on common interests

• Greater user-controlled privacy than Facebook

• Specialty social applications• Targeted opportunities for monetization