Production Assignment

THE RISE OF THE SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE

RYAN SNEDDONC3092346

What are social networking sites? Types of Social Networking Features of SNS History of Social Networking Reasons for Social Networking Concerns Privacy Famous cases The business side Future implications

CONTENTS

“We define social network sites as web-based services that allow individuals to:

1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system

2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection

3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system”

(Boyd & Ellison, 2007)

Defining Social Networking Sites

Broad-range social networking sites Those social networking sites that facilitate the greater

population by accommodating all interests and backgrounds. E.g. Facebook

Niche social networking sites Those social networking sites have a focus on a

particular niche and facilitate a specific group of people. The focus of the website can be based on ethnicity, culture, music, sports, hobbies, dating etc. E.g. Flixster (niche focused on film)

Types of Social Networking Sites

www.facebook.com – 650,000,000+ registered users www.twitter.com - 175,000,000+ registered users www.bebo.com – 117,000,000+ registered users www.flickr.com – 32,000,000+ registered users plus.google.com – 50,000,000+ registered users www.myspace.com – 100,000,000+ registered users www.qzone.com – 480,000,000+ registered users www.tagged.com – 100,000,000+ registered users www.delicious.com – 9,000,000+ registered users www.blackplanet.com – 20,000,000+ registered users

List of Social Networking Sites

Features are integral to the success of individual social networking sites as they try to incorporate unique tools to get a step-up on their competitors. Here is a list of commonly used features on social networking sites:

Profiles – A customisable page to exhibit the users interests, opinions, photos, videos and communication with other users

Search – A tool used to find other members, pages and groups of interest

Tagging – The ability to “tag” or link another user with a particular picture, video, comment or post

Features of Social Networking Sites

Privacy Settings – The ability to restrict the availability of content to the public

Friends – A modifiable list of people of interest, through “adding” people or “removing/blocking” people

Messaging – The ability to communicate with other users through a private mode

Integration with other websites – A feature used to interact with material outside the confines of the networking site

Applications – A feature that allows third-party programs to be incorporated and used within the networking system

Features of Social Networking Sites

1995 –www.classmates.com:A platform designed to connect people

with their acquaintances from

school

1997 –www.sixdegrees.com

:One of the first

layouts now seen in modern day social networking sites

2002 – www.friendster.com:A system used for dating, discovering events, bands and

hobbies

Timeline of Social Networking Sites

2003 – www.myspace.co

m:Launched after discovering the

success of Friendster. Most popular SNS in

2006.

2006 – www.facebook.com:Originally limited to Harvard students,

quickly became the most popular SNS in

the world (650+million users).

2006 – www.twitter.com:

Regarded as the SMS of the internet, sends “tweets” as a unique

form of communicated to networks

Timeline of Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites allow for communication among ever-widening circle of contacts. For many, social networking sites are vital for managing their identity, lifestyle and social relations. These sites provide opportunity for self-expression, creativity and sociability.

(Livingstone, 2008)

Why Use Social Networking Sites?

Many western societies are unaware of the massive scope of success social networking sites have had across the world. As Google have presented the top regions for Facebook consisting of Tunisia, Turkey, Italy, Indonesia and Venezuela. The Chinese QQ messaging system was the largest social networking site in the world as soon as they introduced profiles to their system.

(Ewers, 2006)

A Global Trend

Data mining – Third party applications obtain information from users on social networking sites predominately for marketing purposes.

Harassment – This is mainly concerned with cyber harassment but there have also been cases of physical harassment sourcing from social networking sites.

Sexual solicitation – Mainly regarding sexual predators who use social networking sites as platforms to mislead people into performing sexual acts.

Content – With the limited restrictions on material shared on social networking sites, there is a large amount of objectionable material available for the public.

Privacy – Privacy issues stem from the availability of private information to the public, with the potential to lead to identity theft, assault, abduction etc.

Concerns

There have been increasing concerns over how protected personal information is on these social networking sites. Privacy of information for children is a primary concern due to their vulnerability and nature of sharing information without properly evaluating the consequences. Should we be punished with the likes of identity theft or harassment due to a lack of knowledge of technology as children?

(Thierer, 2007)

Privacy

$100 million lawsuit against founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, by the Winklevoss twins.

http://www.inquisitr.com/116835/winklevoss-twins-drop-lawsuit-against-facebook-mark-zuckerberg/$1 billion lawsuit against Facebook for negligence

in removing the ‘Third Intifada’ page.http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/04/03/3086686/facebook-sued-for-1-billion-over-third-intifada-page Legal action taken out against Twitter over privacy

issues.http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/may/20/twitter-sued-by-footballer-over-privacy

Famous Cases

The potential of social networking sites as a marketing tool has quickly been realised. It has now become a multi-billion dollar industry with world wide social network ad revenue expected to reach $5.54 billion this year and expected to reach $10 billion by 2013.

Social Networking Sites:The Business

Here is a video that clearly demonstrates the business element of social networking sites and why they value data over individuality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UFW_v0G45M

“Social Networking Sites and Privacy”

Many have expected the rapid growth of social networking sites to plateau, however they continue to report massive growing numbers. This shows that social networking sites will be a major part of our lives for the foreseeable future. There is an expectation that these platforms will gradually evolve into a more object-centered environment as the demand for information continues to increase.

(Breslin & Decker, 2007)

Future Implications

• Boyd, D., M., & Ellisons, N., E. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13 (1), 210-230.

• Thierer, A. (2007). Social networking and age verification: Many hard questions; No easy solutions. Progress and Freedon Foundation Progress on Point Paper No. 14.5. Retrieved on March 21, 2007, from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=976936.

• Breslin, J., & Decker, S. (2007). The Future of Social Networks on the Internet. IEEE Computer Society, 86-90.

• Ewers, J. (2006). Bigger than YouTube? U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved July 30, 2007 from LexisNexis.

• Livingstone, S. (2008). Taking risky opportunities in youthful content creation: teenagers’ use of social networking sites for intimacy, privacy and self-expression. New Media Society, 10(3), 393-411.

References