Social Networking Websites
Jessica Van Hattem David Jia Celete Kato Won Shim Ami Tian
Social Networking Websites
• What are they? • Tool for: • Communication • Expressing interests • “Nodes and Ties” • Recent phenomena • Digg, 2004 • Youtube, 2005 • Myspace, 2003 • Facebook, 2004
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
History
Early social networking websites: 1995 - classmates.com focused on ties between former schoolmates 1997 – sixdegrees.com focused on indirect ties
History, cont’d
Modern social networking websites: • 2002 – Friendster
• now mostly used in Asia
• 2003 – Myspace • bought by News Corporation (parent company of Fox) in 2005 • most popular social networking site in 2006
History, cont’d
• 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; later expanded further to include any university student, then high school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over • 2005 - Bebo • stands for “blog early, blog often”
Developments
• Third-party applications
• Privacy settings • Instant messaging
• News feed (Facebook)
• Music (Myspace)
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
Criticisms against Social Networks
• 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, cont’d
• Social Exploitation and Censorship • Social and Cultural • Dave Itzkoff and his experience • Censorship • Privacy
• Security
•MIT and 70,000+ Facebook profiles
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 despite vast space between users.
Positive aspects: • Simple, user friendly set up and personalization • Usually cost efficient/free • Easily accessible and globally available
Our Opinion? cont’d
Positive aspects notwithstanding, there are some arguments against social networking sites, including: • 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.