Alex Gvozden TAC Slides

Actionscript and Socialnetworkingby Aleksandar Gvozden

[email protected]://mrsteel.wordpress.com

Social networking

• online communities of people• Sharing your interests and activities• Interested in others (friends)

interests and activities• Used by millions of people• Most popular MySpace, Facebook,

Habbo, Orkut ………• Social Network Service

• Social network – graph based representation of social structure

• Nodes – individuals, companies• Ties – different relationships – friendship,

professional, values, ideas, actions…

Facebook user social graph

Generations of SNSs:

• Friends list – Classmates.com (first SNS)• Social Network – linkedin.com • Social Media Sites – facebook, myspace

Types of SNSs:

• Online communities, instant messangers…• Open,closed• Socializing, business oriented, match

making, specific

Various interactions possible:

• Communication – Media communication– One way or two way– instant or asynchronous– private or public

• Games• Custom apps (music, video)

Identities:• Multiple identities – myspace, facebook …• Digital identity –

– Fragmentation– Fantasy– Temporary

Some numbers :• Number of users – questionable stats

– MySpace – 250M+ (110M active)– Facebook – 125M+ (60M active)– LinkedIn – 60M+ (30M active)– Twitter – 3M+ (probable about half a million active in a one

week period)

• Usage varies – 20% - France, Germany, India– 50% - Brasil– 70% - Korea

• Marketing success– 4 of 10000 comparing to 20 of 10000 on non-SNS websites

Actionscript

• Scripting language, ECMA standard• Powering Flash platform

– Flash – Flex– AIR– Flash Lite

• Possible to develop without cost (Flex, MTASC)• Great community• Fast development times

Flash on the Web

• >90% Internet enabled devices • Around 30% of all webpages have

Flash • Flash platform is cross-browser,

cross-platform• Gives you freedom (fonts, video,

audio, graphics)• Supporting all of the SNS interactions

Current state - SNSs

• Most of the SNSs have Flash on their landing page (as MP3 or video player, advertisement or …)

• Almost every SNS have Flash integrated as some of the interactions– Mp3 players, video players, widgets,

games, messaging

• Some of the SNS are Flash based

Flash based SNSs

• SNS for young people :– Club Penguin – Gaia Online– Imbee

• Famster – family network – lot of features including sharing, messaging…

• Mooble – socializing, Facebook like• Latest addition Webbr – visualized network

requires FP10 …

Flash as part of SNSs

• MySpace – audio, video player, layouts!• Facebook – widgets, games,

campaigns, 3rd party video, audio players

• Online campaigns – Viral : ExperienceWii– Facebook app : Burn Alter Ego – Coca Cola

• Rich media ads – rising marketincluding Flash lite on mobile devices

• AIR apps – AirTalkr, SocialAddict, Twhirl

SNSs APIs:• SNS should have API in some form – REST, SOAP

or …• Crossdomain policies are making a problem,

restricting access• Solution is to use proxy in form of PHP or other

Server-side language

• Facebook - http://code.google.com/p/facebook-actionscript-api/

• MySpace – OpenSocial - http://developer.myspace.com/community/libs/actionscript3.aspx

• Twitter – http://code.google.com/p/twitterscript/ Michael

Galpin SWX Aral Balkan - http://apiwiki.twitter.com/SWX+Twitter+API

Future of AS and SNS

• Full SNS build on Flash Platform• Pros :

– Cross-platform, cross-browser compatibility– Easy scaling of content– Easy integration into existing web – Audio, video– Visualizations

• Cons :– Not SEO ready – working on it– Not semantic ready