online social networks: where they came from and where they're going
DESCRIPTION
An outline of how social networks have developed from the early Usenet days, through informal bootstrapping of email lists and through to the modern-day giants of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Perhaps these slides offer a clue about what may happen next?TRANSCRIPT
Pt 1: What do we mean by ‘network’?
How online communities have evolved – and where they are going
In the beginning....
... there was Usenet• Established 1980• Pre-WWW browser – used a ‘newsreader’• Very un-regulated• Lots of conventions• Largely supplanted by web-forums• Still in use today (via Google Groups) – and very
busy too!
E-mail: The first ‘killer app’• The first common standard with mass take-up• CC / BCC used for informal group mailings• Formal mailing list software established –
Majordomo – with web-archives!• Lots of abuse – spammers, phishing etc• Commercial services (Vertical Response,
Mailchimp, Campaign Creator etc)• Open tools (Yahoo / Google Groups• Diminished value because of high noise / signal
ratio. How do we solve this?
Collaborative filtering: Firefly
• Sally likes....• U2 – 8/10• REM - 7/10• Tom Jones – 9/10• The Eurythmics – 4/10• The Stone Roses – 6/10• The Beatles – 7/10• Got a recommendation?
• Harry likes....• U2 – 8/10• REM - 7/10• Tom Jones – 9/10• The Eurythmics – 4/10• The Stone Roses – 6/10• The Beatles – 7/10• Radiohead – 9/10
Signal v Noise
• Over 1 trillion unique URLs• 115 million global TLD sites (not including gTLDs)• 112 million blogs by 2007• Spammers and Search Engine specialists distort
results
Collaborative filtering - examples
• Amazon – recommendations / people who bought this also bought ......
• Reputation management – eBay• Social bookmarks – Del.icio.us, Digg,
StumbleUpon• Peer-to-peer collaborative filtering –
Facebook ‘sharing’, Twitter linking, Google Reader
Personal networksBlogging / microblogging / sharing
Configurations
•Friends, followers (Twitter / fb)•Professional networks (LinkedIn)•Anonymous affinity (Flickr)•Social bookmarks•Personal showcases (YouTube) •Personal blogs•Micro-blogs (Tumblr, Posterous)•Group blogs•Commercial blogs / consultancy blogs•Project blogs – open networks•‘bolt-on blogs’ – attached to existing sites•Facebook groups / fan pages
A LinkedIn profile
A way of getting into a workplace
They work if they are....
• very easy / fun to use – compulsive• not dependent on a manual or training• are widely used and are growing• a sharing tool – making it easy and rewarding• interoperable – don’t block commercial rivals• valuable -collaborative filtering – help you to find the
better stuff from your contacts• promoters of trust – eBay / house rules • safe in other ways - offer some protection and privacy• not seen as meatmarkets – permissive marketing
Pt2: How it all fits together
Things you can’t ignore
Laws that actually do apply to the internet
• Unsolicited communications (Spam)• Privacy • Confidentiality• Copyright– http://tinyurl.com/sluggerpics– http://tinyurl.com/sluggerpics2
• Libel / defamation• ..... And then there’s ‘netiquette’
Netiquette: no...
• flamewars• sockpuppetting or impersonation• ‘astroturfing’• SHOUTING WITH CAPS• intolerance for newbies• jumping to the conclusion that your opponent
is a Nazi (Godwins Law)• outright plagiarism
Risks• Commercial / client confidentiality• Reputation management• The ‘direct democracy’ problem (see our ‘policy’ workshop)• Misrepresentation of services – trades description• Libel / defamation• Asymmetry of representation (exclusion of non-
networkers)• Personnel problems (t-shirt v suit friends, disciplinaries)• Response? Don’t vacate the field: Find a strategy / policy
Tech need-to-knows 1: Search engines
• The main source of traffic for most sites• Build their indexes by crawling websites,
grabbing text / images and applying algorithms• They *love* blogs and Twitter – human beings
indexing the internet for them – signal / noise• They *really* love tags – folksonomy & taxonomy• Search Engine Optimisation is an important
commercial service
Tech need-to-knows 2: RSS & XML
• Well-made websites usually hold text separate from styling
• That text can be exported• An RSS reader can ‘fetch’ stories from a selection of
websites• A website can ‘scrape’ other websites and re-use their
content• Your blog can update Twitter / your facebook page / • Complex information flows can be built fairly easily:• Watch this vid: http://edublogs.tv/play.php?vid=216
Other sessions in this series
• Involving more people in your policymaking processes – Monday 8th March 2010
• Promoting conversational communities – Tuesday 23rd March 2010
• Politics online – campaigning and representation – Tuesday 30th March 2010
• Promo code: 2march2010