CS5038 The Electronic SocietyLecture: Social Networking Lecture Outline

• Social Networking Service• Social Networking Sites

– Bebo

– Friendster– MySpace

• Social Networking Feature• Business Model• The future of Social Networking• Social Networking 3.0

Social Network Service

• A social network service – focuses on the building online social networks – for people who share interests and activities– or for those interested in exploring the interests and activit

ies of others

• The usual internet things can be done in one place– uploading music, videos and photos, – updating blog

• No tricky programming to learn, no software to load • Contact all your friends

– and all their friends' friends– all the friends of friends of friends

• MySpace, Bebo, Friendster and Facebook

Bebo

• Jan 2005 , husband and wife team Michael and Xochi Birch

• 40 Million users• Features : profile , picture , blog ,quiz, music• Business Model : Advertising, e.g. Google Ads• Target population : teenagers (10-20 yrs)• Social effects : Ireland

Friendster

• Designed by Jonathan Abrams in 2002 • Considered as the top online social network service un

til around April 2004• Reasons

– Demand too high– servers were very slow – users less interested in logging into their pages every day– Poor human computer interaction

(such as tailored to users’ needs)

MySpace

• Owned by News Corporation• Local versions• Features : profile for companies• Target population : 20-30 yrs• Business model : e-advertising arm of empire• Concerns : commercialisation• Security

Features

• Allow users to create and join virtual groups

• Share common interests or affiliations

• Upload videos

• Hold discussions in forums

• Artists have become their own agents– musicians are their own record labels – video makers their own broadcasters– everyone has become their own publicist

Business Model

• No charge for membership• MySpace and Facebook sell online advertising on thei

r site• Huge amounts of data from members

– can be utilised for targeted advertising and marketing

• Other ways to make money: – Facebook’s Marketplace: members can buy/sell products,

find jobs and etc. – LinkedIn makes money by charging $10 for each message a

user wants to send to a potential employer through the network.

History and Future of Social Networking

History of Social Networking

• Social Networks 1.0

– OneList, ICQ, Evite

• Social Networks 2.0

– Friendster, Orkut, LinkedIn

• Social Networks 2.5

– Bebo, MySpace, YouTube

Social Networking 3.0

• Existing Problems– Each site is independent, does not open onto the world– Users may have identities on different social networks– Each identity was created from scratch

• Social Networking 3.0– Freeing up data from independent sites– Allow members to link up to each other at different sites– Use single global identity with different views– Connect to any site using an Open Identity standard

(OpenID) and get access to forum, blogs, wiki etc