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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?
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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
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