Monday, September 19, 2011

Online Social Networking Sites

100 Million Spiders : An Experiment In Social Networking
http://www.100millionspiders.com/
100 Million Spiders is a social networking experiment operating on a priniciple similar to
6 degrees of separation. It creates social networks between users (friends, acquaintances
and colleagues) by collating threads.It is a closed community, if you have not been sent
an invite by someone on the system you'll not be able to use the system.

Affinity Engines
http://www.AffinityEngines.com/
Affinity-based social networking. Affinity Engines is a technology company that
provides a secure infrastructure for private-label online social networks. Affinity
networks help individuals build and maintain personal and professional connections in a
trusted and secure online community

AlwaysOn
http://alwayson-network.com/
AO is the only media brand to combine traditional news and analysis, participatory
journalism (blogging), and a powerful social network (AO Zaibatsu) for a growing
membership base of senior executives, technology geeks, and investors from a broad
selection of industries. No other media brand has dared allow such openness and
collaboration amongst its readers and event participants.

Business Parc
http://www.BusinessParc.com/
Grant Watling founded Businessparc.com Limited in March 2003 to help internet users
find products and services in a new way. Instead of the user making contact with
businesses to research prices and services, Businessparc will forward requests to all
relevant businesses and make the contacts free of charge.

Can You Connect – Personal and Professional Social Networking
http://www.canyouconnect.com/
Want to tap the true power of your personal and professional networks? Join Can You
Connect today and connect with your friends, family, coworkers, community, and
thousands of like-minded people throughout the world. We offer dozens of fun, powerful,
and easy to use tools to help you create, manage, and use your social networks.

Classmates Online
http://www.classmates.com/
Classmates Online, Inc., founded in 1995 and based in Renton, WA, is a leader in online
community-based networking. The Company operates Classmates.com, connecting more
than 38 million members with friends and acquaintances from school, work and the military.

CraigsList
http://www.CraigsList.org/
Craigslist is about 1) giving each other a break, getting the word out about everyday, realworld
stuff; 2) restoring the human voice to the Internet, in a humane, non-commercial
environment; 3) keeping things simple, common-sense, down-to-earth, honest, very real;
4) providing an alternative to impersonal, big-media sites; 5) being inclusive, giving a
voice to the disenfranchised, democratizing ...; and 6) being a collection of communities
with similar spirit, not a single monolithic entity.

del.icio.us
http://del.icio.us/
del.icio.us is a social bookmarks manager. It allows you to easily add sites you like to
your personal collection of links, to categorize those sites with keywords, and to share
your collection not only between your own browsers and machines, but also with others.
What makes del.icio.us a social system is its ability to let you see the links that others
have collected, as well as showing you who else has bookmarked a specific site. You can
also view the links collected by others, and subscribe to the links of people whose lists
you find interesting.

Friendster (beta)
http://www.friendster.com/
Friendster is an online community that connects people through networks of friends for
dating or making new friends.

GoodContacts
http://www.GoodContacts.com/
GoodContacts is a world leader in managing contact data quality. The Professional and
Enterprise product families deliver solutions that span customers ranging in size from a
individual business professional to a large enterprise. Solo products verify and update
contact data for professionals and businesses managing large contact lists in Outlook,
Outlook Express or ACT! while Enterprise products maintain the integrity and accuracy
of contact data across enterprise-wide databases, CRMs or personal contact managers.

Guide To Online Social Networks, Social Software and Business Communities
http://www.onlinebusinessnetworks.com/online-social-networks-guide/index.php
You may notice, not all of the sites covered here fall into the category "social networking
sites". They have elected not to make that distinction because... a) social networking
takes place in online communities whether they are explicitly known as "social
networking sites" or not, and b) the boundaries are just too fuzzy.

Huminity – Social Networking
http://www.huminity.com/
They believe that people will achieve more by helping each other and that it is time the
Internet evolves for people as much as it has evolved for corporates. They believe the
Internet's greatness is the interaction it brings between people and they hope that
Huminity will take this one step further, and through combining Instant Messaging with
Social Networks open a whole range of possibilities to enrich everyone's life. Huminity
is built to facilitate friendships, make it easy for people to find and make friends, find
jobs faster, make better deals and reach anyone in the world. Above all - to have fun!

IKNOW (Inquiring Knowledge Networks on the Web)
http://www.spcomm.uiuc.edu/Projects/TECLAB/IKNOW/
In short, IKNOW will answer the following: 1) Who knows who?, 2) Who knows what?
3) Who knows who knows who? and 4) Who knows who knows what?

Institute for Social Network Analysis of the Economy (ISNAE)
http://www.isnae.org/index.html
The purpose of ISNAE is to study social networks and use the resulting knowledge to
promote economic growth and social well-being.

Its Just Coffee – A New Stir In Online Dating
http://www.itsjustcoffee.com/

At ItsJustCoffee.com your soul mate could be a sip away. So sit back, relax, and get
ready to meet some intelligent, authentic, interesting people. But don't stay online too
long - the local coffeehouse is where you'll really see if the spice is right. And remember,
when you're ready for that first in-person encounter, keep it coffee, keep it simple.

JigSaw – The Business Contact Marketplace
http://jigsaw.com/
Jigsaw is an Online Business Contact Marketplace where business people buy, sell and
trade business contact information. Jigsaw is a collaborative system. Each member
provides a few pieces of the puzzle. Jigsaw assembles them for the benefit of the
community. Jigsaw is a place to find the highest quality contacts in existence. All
contacts have been added by Jigsaw members and include phone number and e-mail.

Journal of Digital Information A SPECIAL ISSUE on Social Aspects of Digital
Information in Perspective (Volume 5, issue 4, December 2004)
http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/?vol=5&iss=4
This special issue showcases a series of studies that are guided by the methods and
perspectives of Social Informatics. This line of inquiry extends a research stream of the

late Rob Kling, a pioneer in social informatics studies who strived for over 30 years to
make social issues central to discussions about computing and information systems.

LinkedIn
http://www.linkedin.com/
Find the people you need through the people you trust - Your trusted friends and
colleagues can help put you in touch with many more people than you expect; and those
people can refer you to thousands of contacts.

Midentity
http://www.midentity.com/
Midentity helps you stay connected with important contacts by allowing you to create
your own Business and Personal Profiles which you can share with them. If you change
any of your contact details, simply update your profile(s) and all the contacts you've
shared them with will receive the update instantly.

Military Advantage
http://www.military.com/
Military.com is the largest online military destination, offering free resources to serve,
connect, and inform the 30 million Americans with military affinity, including active
duty, reservists, guard members, retirees, veterans, family members, defense workers and
those considering military careers.

Messenger Taps Social Nets
http://snipurl.com/7rn8
It often ends up that the information you need is just beyond your immediate reach, but
probably sits at the ready in the mind of an unidentified friend of a friend of a friend.
Extending the capabilities of ubiquitous communications tools like instant messaging and
email could make that information easier to come by.

NetMiner - Social Network Analyzer
http://zillman.blogspot.com/2004/12/netminer-social-network-analyzer.html
NetMiner can be used for general research and teaching in social networks. Also, it can
be effectively applied to various business fields, where network-structural factors have
great deal of influences on the performance: e.g. intra- and inter-organizational, financial,
Web, criminal/intelligence, informetric, telecommunication, distribution, transportation
networks.

Online Business Networks
http://www.onlinebusinessnetworks.com/
This site is a guide to social network software, online communities, and other tools that
help you leverage the internet to build more and better business relationships.

Online Social Networking for Business: An Interview with Konstantin Guericke,
Marketing VP, LinkedIn By Debbie Bardon
http://www.infotoday.com/online/nov04/bardon.shtml
Online social networking is a hot topic in Internet circles. These online communities
claim to create networks of friends and business colleagues based on referrals from other
friends and colleagues. They connect people based on who those people know rather than
who they are.

Open Business Club (openBC)
http://www.openbc.com/
The Open Business Club (openBC) is the worlds first multi-lingual on-line contact
exchange and business networking club for professionals.

Orkut
http://www.orkut.com/
Orkut is an online community that connects people through a network of trusted friends.
They are committed to providing an online meeting place where people can socialize,
make new acquaintances and find others who share their interests.

Pal Junction – Meet With the Friends Of Your Friends
http://www.PalJunction.com/
Helping you find friends, dates, roommates, employees, employers, etc. etc. through your
network of friends. Helping you build your own social network!

PeopleAggregator
http://www.PeopleAggregator.com/
An Open Source Social Network

Plaxo
http://www.plaxo.com/
Plaxo, Inc. keeps people connected by solving the common and frustrating problem of
out-of-date contact information. In 2000, Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster, joined
forces with two Stanford engineers, Todd Masonis and Cameron Ring, to create Plaxo, a
service that securely updates and maintains the information in your address book.

Refernet for Referrals: Business Networking
http://www.refernet.net/
Refernet helps entrepreneurs find partners and referrals through online business
networking. Business Networking is proven to be one of the best methods to establish
credibility, build your contact list and obtain quality business referrals.

Semantic Web Draws On the Power of Friends
http://www.freepint.com/issues/270504.htm#feature
In today's environment of constant "Googling" of people's background, where someone's
name or other identifying features are entered into the popular search engine for the sake
of finding background information, ShareYourExperiences.com offers an unparalleled
service. This online community allows people to directly connect with other individuals
who have had direct positive or negative experiences with their search subjects.

Spoke - Extending Business Relationships
http://www.spoke.com/
Delivering insight, influence and access through relationships for greater business
advantage.

Smarter, Simpler Social - An Introduction To Online Social Software Methodology
by Lee Bryant : Version 1.0, 18 April 2003
http://www.headshift.com/moments/archive/sss2.html
An interestting lengthy read that gives a good introduction to online social networks
software methodology and explains what does and does not work ....

SocialGrid
http://www.socialgrid.com/
SocialGrid was founded to provide the world with free search system to promote social
networking and enable people to find their soulmate in a way that is cost-effective and
universally appealing. SocialGrid is dedicated primarily to improving search quality for
its members.

Social-informatics
http://www.Social-informatics.org/
The notion of social informatics relates to the interaction between society and
information-communication technologies (ICT). In its broadest sense it includes (1) the
social consequences of ICT at micro (e.g. social aspects of ICT applications in
organisations) as well as at macro (e.g. information society studies), (2) the application of
ICT in areas of social science and (3) the use ICT as a tool - within a general context of
social science methodology - for studying social phenomena.

Social Networking Services Meta List
http://socialsoftware.weblogsinc.com/entry/9817137581524458/
The Social Networking Services Meta List. is broken out into nine loose categories that
will be shifting soon. These social networking categories are: business; common interest;
dating; face-to-face meeting facilitation; friend; MoSoSo (Mobile Social Software); pet;
photo; and 'edge' cases or social networking 'plus' sites.

Software Product Marketing Quickbase for Social Networking Sites
https://www.quickbase.com/db/9f72vfgx?a=q&qid=1
Social networking sites and software database created by Cynthia Typaldos but is
updated and maintained by everyone. A good resource listing many new sites and
resource software.

The FOAF Project - Friend of a Friend
http://www.foaf-project.org/
The Friend of a Friend (FOAF) project is about creating a Web of machine-readable
homepages describing people, the links between them and the things they create and do.

The Social Software Weblog
http://socialsoftware.weblogsinc.com/
The Social Software Weblog by Judith Meskill is the home of the Social Networking
Services meta Lists as well as a very active Blog on all the latest and exciting happenings
in online social networking.

ThinkBot
http://www.pmbrowser.info/thinkbot.htm
ThinkBot is an easy way to find other people who are thinking about the same things as
you. With a simple command, you can search Thinkbot's database of users and chat
instantly to someone who shares your thoughts.

Tickle Social Network
http://web.tickle.com/
Tickle is the leading interpersonal media company, providing self-discovery,
matchmaking, and social networking services to more than 18 million active members in
its community worldwide. Formerly known as Emode.com, Tickle was founded on the
belief that personal insight and connections to others could be both scientific and fun.

Tribe
http://www.Tribe.net
This site is devoted to tapping the power of social networks. Their goal is to provide tools
that help make your network most useful.

Visible Path
http://www.visiblepath.com/
Visible Path delivers unprecedented reach into companies and access to decision-makers
by allowing sales teams to discreetly leverage the relationship capital of the enterprise
throughout the sales cycle.

Word of Mouth Research
http://www.WordofMouthResearch.com/
WordofMouthResearch.com is a background research tool that allows users to access the
valuable information source known as "word-of-mouth" on an international scale. People
submit their shared experiences on people who they know. The authors of such
information are either looking for knowledge or have knowledge to share.

Zaibatsu
http://community.alwayson-network.com/
Listing for this social networked received from a Slashdot posting ....

Zero Degrees™ - The People Network Company
http://www.zerodegrees.com/
ZeroDegrees (ZDI) automates Milgram's process. ZDI replicates the social process we
use when we ask colleagues with an introduction. If no one knows the person directly,
they ask others on our behalf. If all parties along the way, agree-an introduction is made
to date.

Privacy and Social Networking Sites

College students are relying on the Internet to make connections with other
people every day (Lukianoff and Creeley, 2007; Verga, 2007; Hodge, 2006).
As the Internet has developed and grown, so have the capabilities for interaction.
Social networking sites are a part of college students’ regular daily
lives (Bugeja, 2006; Jones and Madden, 2002). With this new technology,
questions about ethical use and the lines of what is private and what is not
have become so blurry and misunderstood that students can find themselves
involved in situations that are less than desirable.
Social networking sites are a group of Web sites that provide people
with the opportunity to create an online profile and to share that profile
with others (Barnes, 2006). There are sites to meet almost any topic of
interest. The two most commonly used are MySpace, with over 80 million
unique users, and Facebook, with over 60 million unique users, about half
of whom are college students. MySpace and Facebook have a variety of
options and applications that make them attractive to a broad audience.
Because these are the most commonly used social networking sites, we focus
our discussion on them.
Little empirical research has been related to technology and privacy
issues, although numerous anecdotal and opinion articles explain social networking
sites and the negative actions taken by individuals on these sites.
Several articles address issues related to higher education, but few examine
the issues related to privacy. The topic of social networking sites has gathered
increasing amounts of attention from student affairs professionals.
Indeed, many formal and informal conversations at national conferences as

Understanding Privacy

Privacy is defined here as personal information that an individual deems
important and unattainable by the general population (Richards, 2007;
Hodge, 2006; Etzioni, 1997; Kaplin and Lee, 1997). Personal information
includes a person’s name, physical address, e-mail address, online user
name, telephone number, social security number, and any other information
with which that person could be identified (Blakely, 2007; Richards). Privacy
also involves the individual’s right to control the dissemination of personal
information (Berman and Bruening, 2001). Having the autonomy to
control the sharing of information and how it will be used and manipulated
is paramount to an individual’s right to privacy (Barnes, 2006). Berman and
Bruening stated, “When we talk about privacy, we are often talking about
personal autonomy as it relates to information about an individual” (p. 2).
When contemplating issues of privacy, there are two important considerations
to keep in mind: the intent of the information shared and the expectation
that it will remain private (Hodge, 2006). A person who willingly posts
information on a social networking site for others to view cannot assume it
is private because the intent is to share that information (Meredith, 2006).
When an individual uses privacy settings to prevent most users from viewing
his or her information, the user has an expectation that this information
will remain private (Hodge, 2006). This differs from e-mail, where the sender
intends the information to be sent to a specific individual, although this
information too can be accessed by others. Lindsay (2007) warns students
that anything they post online is public and cannot be assumed private.
Understanding privacy as it relates to social networking sites requires
understanding how personal information may be shared and the intent of
sharing it. Reszmierski and Ferencz (1997) spoke of privacy as an individual’s
right to control personal information. Much of the information posted
in a profile is in fact personal information that the individual willingly posts
to the site. Meredith (2006) stated that when an individual shares information
on a social networking site, he or she is sharing that information
with the rest of the world even if the intent was to share with only a select
group of people. It appears that people become sensitive about their privacy
when they feel that they are being exposed.
Individuals feel that it is within their rights under the First Amendment
to post information on a social networking site (Hodge, 2006). The First
Amendment does protect an individual’s right to speak, write, and gather
freely so far as it does not cause harm or incite violence (Verga, 2007). An
interesting dichotomy exists when students believe what they have written
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is private and protected when in reality it is neither (Hodge, 2006). An
example is a student who posts negative comments about a faculty member,
including threats of a violent nature, on his or her social networking site
profile accessible to other members of the institution. The student does have
the right to post this information under the First Amendment; however,
if the faculty member or others in the community are threatened, the speech
is not protected. In this situation, privacy rights are not violated because the
student chose to share information in an open public forum.
Another gray area in regard to information posted on social networking
sites relates to how the information is accessed and used against an individual.
For example, underage students post pictures of themselves
consuming alcohol in a residence hall, which is used in a judicial hearing.
Under the Fourth Amendment, individuals are protected from illegal search
and seizure and guaranteed due process unless information is found in plain
view (Lindsay, 2005).When information is posted online by an individual,
such as pictures of underage drinking, it is no longer considered private
(Barnes, 2006). Information obtained from a social networking site is not
considered an illegal search of a person’s private information because it is
found in plain view in a public forum (Lane, 2006).
Many professionals may also question the impact of the Family Educational
Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) on the student’s right to privacy
related to social networking sites. FERPA was designed with respect to student
records on campus (Kaplin and Lee, 1997). It was created to protect
academic records, and the determining factor was that if the information
could identify a specific student, it was considered an educational record
and protected (Lindsay, 2007). Lindsay explained that this could include
class schedules, financial aid records, e-mails, and electronic records but
does not have to include directory information. Thus, FERPA has no control
over social networking sites because they are not connected to the institution
and are created and maintained by individual students.
Both Facebook and MySpace provide a clear privacy statement
to inform users about the limits of protection that the site maintains for the
information shared, as well as how the site will use the personal information
provided. These privacy policies do not delineate who can access the
information posted on the site but outline the actions that are taken by
the site’s administrators. The focus of these privacy statements is on what
information will be shared with a third party but does not speak to who else
may access the information posted. Little is known about whether individual
users read and are aware of privacy settings. However, when Facebook
created the news feed feature users were outraged that “friends” would be
informed of their actions on the site. Facebook states that it will do everything
possible to protect the information posted on the site but “cannot and
do not guarantee that User Content you post on the Site will not be viewed
by unauthorized persons” (Facebook, 2008). In addition to privacy policies
that outline how Web sites will protect personal information provided to
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NEW DIRECTIONS FOR STUDENT SERVICES • DOI: 10.1002/ss
the company, the sites also outline who is responsible for the information
posted in a profile. Facebook (2008) states, “You may not want everyone in
the world to have the information you share on Facebook; that is why we
give you control of your information.” Both MySpace and Facebook provide
advice to parents and users about how to keep the information shared in the
profile protected. MySpace cautions users, “Don’t forget that your profile
and MySpace forums are public spaces” (MySpace, 2008). Chris Hughes,
cofounder of Facebook, stated in a personal conversation with us that Facebook
has provided ways for students to continue to connect online and that
it is up to the user to protect his or her own information by using the tools
provided on the site (Hughes, 2007). The tools provided to social networking
site users include a set of privacy controls that users can alter to prevent
others from viewing all information shared in a profile. On most sites, the
default or automatic setting allows the profile to be seen by the maximum
number of people. On Facebook, the default setting for a profile is that all
members of the person’s network can view the entire profile. On MySpace,
the default setting for a profile is that all users on MySpace can view a user’s
profile. On Facebook, if a user leaves the privacy setting at the default, his
or her profile will be visible to less than 0.5 percent of the entire Facebook
community (Wischnowsky, 2007). The privacy options that are available for
users on other sites vary. On most sites, a user can restrict who can see the
profile and is given options to create a limited profile that makes parts of his
or her information unavailable to all friends. On Facebook, students can
select who can search for their profile, which means they can restrict faculty
and staff from viewing it. Although these options are available, many
students do not use the privacy settings (Barnes, 2006).

Understanding Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites are set up to provide individuals with a means for
communicating and interacting with one another. To join a site, individuals
sign up as a member; this process may include providing personal information
such as an e-mail address, permanent address, or a zip code. Users
then create a sign-in name and password for their personal profile, a requirement
that creates a false sense of security and the impression that their
information is private, similar to entering a gated community (Hodge,
2006). It is easy to understand why students may be disillusioned about
what is considered private.
A profile contains information that an individual chooses to share
within the site. Most profiles provide users with the option to share home
town, address, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers. There are also opportunities
for users to post information regarding where they attend or
attended school, where they are employed, personal interests, and more trivial
information, such as favorite movies and music. College students share
personal information about themselves, including their residence hall room
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number, class schedule, and campus involvement (Lenhart and Madden,
2007). Many users share their gender and whether they are in a relationship.
In an unpublished paper about online privacy, Jones and Soltren
(2005), students at MIT, stated that students are not required to provide
information in all sections, although many take the time to complete all portions
of the profile.
The individual creating the profile determines the types of information
shared in it. Although a profile may seem, on the surface, as a way to share
real-world personal information, students may be using it to market their
ideal identities (Rosen, 2007). Students may want to portray their ideal self
as popular, athletic, and attractive. When individuals create blogs about
their life and post pictures of themselves in provocative attire, consuming
alcohol and partying, the lines between reality and fantasy may become
blurred (Barnes, 2006).
The identity users post on the site is what they personally deem important.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project that looked at teen online
activity reported that over 50 percent of teens post some false information in
their online profiles (Lenhart and Madden, 2007). Junco (2007) reported 10
percent of students lie about their age, 7 percent lie about their behaviors,
5 percent report lying about their picture, 3 percent lie about their gender,
and 5 percent lie about their occupation. Mitrano (2006) noted that this
technology “can also be a vehicle for traditional adolescent expression”

Understanding the Ethical Implications

The numerous ways that students can use this technology to share pictures,
ideas, and thoughts and, most important, connect with one another has
been demonstrated throughout this chapter and in other chapters of this
volume. As this technology has become more pervasive on college campuses,
it has also brought to the forefront ethical issues that student affairs
professionals are facing when interacting with students. This topic provokes
numerous questions that need to be answered in order for student affairs
professionals to understand the impact that this technology is having on student
culture and professional practice. Professionals who have a thorough
understanding of this technology and privacy rights are better equipped to
face the ethical issues present and identify strategies for appropriate use.
As student affairs professionals are gaining insight into how students
use social networking sites, the national professional organizations can play
a key role in establishing ethical standards that help define the behaviors
and actions of professionals working in higher education. In order to better
understand this topic, we reviewed the ethical standards of several professional
organizations: American College Personnel Association (ACPA,
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2007), National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA,
1990, 2007), Association of Student Judicial Affairs (ASJA, 2007), Association
of College and University Housing Officers–International (ACUHO-I,
2007), and National Orientation Directors Association (NODA, 2007). ASJA
states that ethical standards are established “to maintain and strengthen the
ethical climate and to promote the academic integrity of our institutions.”
ACPA shares that its statement of ethical principles and standards is
designed to “assist student affairs professionals in regulating their own
behavior by sensitizing them to potential ethical problems and by providing
standards useful in daily practice.”
At the time this chapter was being developed, only NODA, ACUHO-I,
and ACPA had established standards that specifically address technology.
NODA states that technology should be used appropriately and as a tool for
furthering the student experience. ACUHO-I states that each professional
and institution be “committed to incorporating technology into the residential
environment for the benefit of residents and staff and identify strategies
to promote appropriate use of technological resources.” ACPA states that
professionals need to know their institution’s guidelines for electronic submission
of information. ACPA was the only organization that addressed the
professional’s ethical responsibility related to privacy rights, calling on professionals
to be knowledgeable about current laws and regulations and how
student information and records are shared. They state that professionals
should stay up-to-date about legislation related to the privacy rights of students,
including online activity.
The ethical standards set by the various professional organizations present
similar information and have common applications and online impact.
Two common themes relate to the issue of privacy and social networking
sites: the pursuit of knowledge and providing strong educational communities
for students. Staying abreast of current issues, research, and student
culture is a key to success in the field(ACPA,2007; ACUHO-I, 2007; ASJA,
2007; NASPA, 1990, 2007; NODA, 2007). Professionals have “an obligation
to continue personal professional growth and to contribute to the development
of the profession by enhancing personal knowledge and skills”
(NASPA, 1990, 2007). In order for professionals to support student learning
and education effectively and create intellectual communities for students,
they need an understanding of the student culture and the means for
communicating (ACPA, 2007; ACUHO-I, 2007; ASJA, 2007; NODA, 2007).
Professionals in student affairs are also called on to serve as role models
and create relationships with students that promote learning and development
(ACPA, NASPA, 1990). This must be done without confusing
students about the role student affairs professionals play and by modeling
ethical behavior (ACPA, NODA). Student affairs professionals using social
networking sites can role-model how to set up an appropriate profile. In
addition, professionals who are knowledgeable about and understand social

Friday, September 16, 2011

The Internet lacks walls. Conversations spread and contexts collapse. Technical solutions
are unlikely to provide reprieve from this because every digital wall built has been
destroyed by new technologies. The inherent replicability of bits and the power of search make most walls temporary at best. This is why most participants in networked publics
live by 'security through obscurity' where they assume that as long as no one cares about
them, no one will come knocking. While this works for most, this puts all oppressed and
controlled populations (including teenagers) at risk because it just takes one motivated
explorer to track down even the most obscure networked public presence.

Teenagers are facing these complications head-on and their approaches vary. Some try
to resumé-ify their profiles, putting on a public face intended for those who hold power
over them. While this is typically the adult-approved approach, this is unrealistic for most
teens who prioritise socialisation over adult acceptance. Some teens work to hide their
profiles by providing false names, age, and location. This too is encouraged by adults,
typically without any reflection on what it means to suggest lying to solve social woes. Yet,
because of the network structure, it's not that hard for motivated searchers to find an
individual through their friends.
Another common approach is to demand adults understand that these sites are '*my*
space'. In other words, why expect teens to act like they're in school when they're not?
This dilemma introduces another complication of how public life has changed. Just
because it's possible to get access to information, is it always OK to do so? The jury is out
on this one. Many parents claim that if it's public, they have the right to see it. Of course,
these same parents would not demand that their children record every conversation on
the school bus for review later… yet. Because mediated publics are easier to access, they
afford less privacy than unmediated publics. So, what does it mean that we're creating a
surveillance society based on our norms?
While I can argue that 'just because we can, doesn't mean we should', it is foolish to
assume that society will quietly take up conscientious restraint. College admissions
officers and employers will continue to try to get a portrait of the 'real candidate'. Smitten
admirers will continue to try to uncover any juice on their crush. And the press will
continue to treat any digital data as fair game when publicly destroying someone's
character.
When asked, all youth know that anyone could access their profiles online. Yet, the most
common response I receive is "…but why would they?" Of course, the same teens who
believe that no one is interested in them are pseudo-stalking the 'hottie' they have an eye
on. Educators are not the only ones playing ostrich for mental sanity.
In response to this surveillance, some youth are starting to play tricks on their invisible
audiences. At George Washington University in the United States (US), college students
played a prank on the watchful campus police. They advertised a massive beer blast, but
when campus police arrived to bust them, all they found was cake and cookies decorated
with the word 'beer' (Hass 2006). Activist youth are taking advantage of distributed
messaging features on mainstream social network sites (bulletins, news feeds) to rally
their fellow students to protest, vote (usually campus elections and American Idol), and
voice their opinion. An example of this occurred when thousands of American teens used
MySpace to organise protests against US immigration policies (Melber 2006).

Youth are also working through the implications of the comments system. For example,
teens often break up with their significant other through MySpace comments (typically
boys breaking up with girls). The reason for this is simple: a vocalised breakup is visible to
all Friends, making it difficult to play the 'he said/she said' game or to control the breakup narrative by modifying the Instant Messaging (IM) conversation.

While most of this is taking place through text right now, video is increasing daily. Video is
not currently searchable, but technology will advance, making it possible to determine
who was in what footage. These systems will also go mobile the moment someone
figures out how to break through the mobile carrier roadblock. When things go mobile,
location based information will add a new dimension to the hyperpublic infrastructure.

Supporting Youth Engagement

By providing just a taste of how social technologies have altered the architecture of public
life, my goal is to whet the reader's appetite. It is critical for educators to understand how
mediated publics are shifting the lives of youth. There are very good reasons why youth
use them and encouraging them to return to traditional socialisation structures is simply
not feasible (boyd, in press). Rather than diving deeper into these shifts, I want to offer
some concrete advice to educators about how to think about the new media and how to
engage with youth directly.

1. Recognise that youth want to hang out with their friends in youth space.

Although most adults wish that formal education was the number one priority of youth, this
is rarely the case. Most youth are far more concerned with connecting with friends. Their
activities are very much driven by their friend group and there is immense informal
learning taking place outside of school. Learning social norms, status structures, and how
to negotiate relationships of all types is crucial to teens. While most adults take these
skills for granted, they are heavily developed during the teen years. In contemporary
society, this process primarily takes place amongst peer groups.
Right now, the primary public space that allows teens to gather is online. Not surprisingly,
teens are gathering online to hang out with their friends. Much of what they're doing
resembles what you did when you hung out with your friends.

2. The Internet mirrors and magnifies all aspects of social life.

When a teen is engaged in risky behaviour online, that is typically a sign that they're
engaged in risky behaviour offline. Troubled teens reveal their troubles online both
explicitly and implicitly. It is not the online world that is making them troubled, but it is a
fantastic opportunity for intervention. What would it mean to have digital street outreach
where people started reaching out to troubled teens, not to punish them, but to be able to
help. We already do street outreach in cities - why not treat the networked world as one
large city? Imagine having college students troll the profiles of teens in their area in order
to help troubled kids, just as they wander the physical streets. Too often we blame
technology for what it reveals, but destroying or regulating the technology will not solve
the underlying problems that are made visible through mediated publics like social
network sites.
It's also important to realise that the technology makes it easier to find those who are
seeking attention than those who are not. The vast majority of teens using these sites are
engaged in relatively mundane activities, but the ‘at risk’ ones are made visible through
mainstream media. In this way, both the technology and the press coverage magnify the
most troublesome aspects of everyday life because they are inherently more interesting.

3. Questions abound. There are no truths, only conversations.

Over the last year, dozens of parenting guides have emerged to provide black and white
rules about how youth should interact with social network sites. Over and over, I watch as
these rules fail to protect youth. Rules motivate submissive youth, but they do little to get
youth to think through the major issues. Conversation (not lecturing) is key and it needs to
be clear that there is no correct answer; it's all a matter of choices and pros and cons.

History of Social Network Site

The Early Years

According to the definition above, the first recognizable social network site launched in
1997. SixDegrees.com allowed users to create profiles, list their Friends and, beginning in
1998, surf the Friends lists. Each of these features existed in some form before SixDegrees,
of course. Profiles existed on most major dating sites and many community sites. AIM and
ICQ buddy lists supported lists of Friends, although those Friends were not visible to
others. Classmates.com allowed people to affiliate with their high school or college and
surf the network for others who were also affiliated, but users could not create profiles or
list Friends until years later. SixDegrees was the first to combine these features.

SixDegrees promoted itself as a tool to help people connect with and send messages to
others. While SixDegrees attracted millions of users, it failed to become a sustainable
business and, in 2000, the service closed. Looking back, its founder believes that
SixDegrees was simply ahead of its time (A. Weinreich, personal communication, July 11,
2007). While people were already flocking to the Internet, most did not have extended
networks of friends who were online. Early adopters complained that there was little to do
after accepting Friend requests, and most users were not interested in meeting strangers.

From 1997 to 2001, a number of community tools began supporting various combinations
of profiles and publicly articulated Friends. AsianAvenue, BlackPlanet, and MiGente
allowed users to create personal, professional, and dating profiles—users could identifyFriends on their personal profiles without seeking approval for those connections (O.
Wasow, personal communication, August 16, 2007). Likewise, shortly after its launch in
1999, LiveJournal listed one-directional connections on user pages. LiveJournal's creator
suspects that he fashioned these Friends after instant messaging buddy lists (B. Fitzpatrick,
personal communication, June 15, 2007)—on LiveJournal, people mark others as Friends
to follow their journals and manage privacy settings. The Korean virtual worlds site
Cyworld was started in 1999 and added SNS features in 2001, independent of these other
sites (see Kim & Yun, this issue). Likewise, when the Swedish web community
LunarStorm refashioned itself as an SNS in 2000, it contained Friends lists, guestbooks,
and diary pages (D. Skog, personal communication, September 24, 2007).

The next wave of SNSs began when Ryze.com was launched in 2001 to help people
leverage their business networks. Ryze's founder reports that he first introduced the site to
his friends—primarily members of the San Francisco business and technology community,
including the entrepreneurs and investors behind many future SNSs (A. Scott, personal
communication, June 14, 2007). In particular, the people behind Ryze, Tribe.net, LinkedIn,
and Friendster were tightly entwined personally and professionally. They believed that
they could support each other without competing (Festa, 2003). In the end, Ryze never
acquired mass popularity, Tribe.net grew to attract a passionate niche user base, LinkedIn
became a powerful business service, and Friendster became the most significant, if only as
"one of the biggest disappointments in Internet history" (Chafkin, 2007)

The Rise (and Fall) of Friendster

Friendster launched in 2002 as a social complement to Ryze. It was designed to compete
with Match.com, a profitable online dating site (Cohen, 2003). While most dating sites
focused on introducing people to strangers with similar interests, Friendster was designed
to help friends-of-friends meet, based on the assumption that friends-of-friends would
make better romantic partners than would strangers (J. Abrams, personal communication,
March 27, 2003). Friendster gained traction among three groups of early adopters who
shaped the site—bloggers, attendees of the Burning Man arts festival, and gay men (boyd,
2004)—and grew to 300,000 users through word of mouth before traditional press
coverage began in May 2003 (O'Shea, 2003).

As Friendster's popularity surged, the site encountered technical and social difficulties
(boyd, 2006). Friendster's servers and databases were ill-equipped to handle its rapid
growth, and the site faltered regularly, frustrating users who replaced email with
Friendster. Because organic growth had been critical to creating a coherent community, the
onslaught of new users who learned about the site from media coverage upset the cultural
balance. Furthermore, exponential growth meant a collapse in social contexts: Users had to
face their bosses and former classmates alongside their close friends. To complicate
matters, Friendster began restricting the activities of its most passionate users.
The initial design of Friendster restricted users from viewing profiles of people who were
more than four degrees away (friends-of-friends-of-friends-of-friends). In order to view
additional profiles, users began adding acquaintances and interesting-looking strangers to
expand their reach. Some began massively collecting Friends, an activity that was
implicitly encouraged through a "most popular" feature. The ultimate collectors were fake
profiles representing iconic fictional characters: celebrities, concepts, and other such
entities. These "Fakesters" outraged the company, who banished fake profiles and
eliminated the "most popular" feature. While few people actually created
Fakesters, many more enjoyed surfing Fakesters for entertainment or using functional
Fakesters (e.g., "Brown University") to find people they knew.
The active deletion of Fakesters (and genuine users who chose non-realistic photos)
signaled to some that the company did not share users' interests. Many early adopters left
because of the combination of technical difficulties, social collisions, and a rupture of trust
between users and the site (boyd, 2006). However, at the same time that it was fading in
the U.S., its popularity skyrocketed in the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia
(Goldberg, 2007).

SNSs Hit the Mainstream

From 2003 onward, many new SNSs were launched, prompting social software analyst
Clay Shirky (2003) to coin the term YASNS: "Yet Another Social Networking Service."
Most took the form of profile-centric sites, trying to replicate the early success of
Friendster or target specific demographics. While socially-organized SNSs solicit broad
audiences, professional sites such as LinkedIn, Visible Path, and Xing (formerly openBC)focus on business people. "Passion-centric" SNSs like Dogster (T. Rheingold, personal
communication, August 2, 2007) help strangers connect based on shared interests. Care
helps activists meet, Couchsurfing connects travelers to people with couches, and
MyChurch joins Christian churches and their members. Furthermore, as the social media
and user-generated content phenomena grew, websites focused on media sharing began
implementing SNS features and becoming SNSs themselves. Examples include Flickr
(photo sharing), Last.FM (music listening habits), and YouTube (video sharing).
With the plethora of venture-backed startups launching in Silicon Valley, few people paid
attention to SNSs that gained popularity elsewhere, even those built by major corporations.
For example, Google's Orkut failed to build a sustainable U.S. user base, but a "Brazilian
invasion" (Fragoso, 2006) made Orkut the national SNS of Brazil. Microsoft's Windows
Live Spaces (a.k.a. MSN Spaces) also launched to lukewarm U.S. reception but became
extremely popular elsewhere.

Few analysts or journalists noticed when MySpace launched in Santa Monica, California,
hundreds of miles from Silicon Valley. MySpace was begun in 2003 to compete with sites
like Friendster, Xanga, and AsianAvenue, according to co-founder Tom Anderson
(personal communication, August 2, 2007); the founders wanted to attract estranged
Friendster users (T. Anderson, personal communication, February 2, 2006). After rumors
emerged that Friendster would adopt a fee-based system, users posted Friendster messages
encouraging people to join alternate SNSs, including Tribe.net and MySpace. Because of this, MySpace was able to grow
rapidly by capitalizing on Friendster's alienation of its early adopters. One particularly
notable group that encouraged others to switch were indie-rock bands who were expelled
from Friendster for failing to comply with profile regulations.
While MySpace was not launched with bands in mind, they were welcomed. Indie-rock
bands from the Los Angeles region began creating profiles, and local promoters used
MySpace to advertise VIP passes for popular clubs. Intrigued, MySpace contacted local
musicians to see how they could support them. Bands were not the sole source of MySpace growth, but the
symbiotic relationship between bands and fans helped MySpace expand beyond former
Friendster users. The bands-and-fans dynamic was mutually beneficial: Bands wanted to
be able to contact fans, while fans desired attention from their favorite bands and used
Friend connections to signal identity and affiliation.

Futhermore, MySpace differentiated itself by regularly adding features based on user
demand (boyd, 2006) and by allowing users to personalize their pages. This "feature"
emerged because MySpace did not restrict users from adding HTML into the forms that
framed their profiles; a copy/paste code culture emerged on the web to support users in
generating unique MySpace backgrounds and layouts (Perkel, in press).
Teenagers began joining MySpace en masse in 2004. Unlike older users, most teens were
never on Friendster—some joined because they wanted to connect with their favorite
bands; others were introduced to the site through older family members. As teens began signing up, they encouraged their friends to join. Rather than rejecting underage users,
MySpace changed its user policy to allow minors. As the site grew, three distinct
populations began to form: musicians/artists, teenagers, and the post-college urban social
crowd. By and large, the latter two groups did not interact with one another except through
bands. Because of the lack of mainstream press coverage during 2004, few others noticed
the site's growing popularity.

Then, in July 2005, News Corporation purchased MySpace for $580 million (BBC, 2005),
attracting massive media attention. Afterwards, safety issues plagued MySpace. The site
was implicated in a series of sexual interactions between adults and minors, prompting
legal action (Consumer Affairs, 2006). A moral panic concerning sexual predators quickly
spread (Bahney, 2006), although research suggests that the concerns were exaggerated.

A Global Phenomenon

While MySpace attracted the majority of media attention in the U.S. and abroad, SNSs
were proliferating and growing in popularity worldwide. Friendster gained traction in the
Pacific Islands, Orkut became the premier SNS in Brazil before growing rapidly in India
(Madhavan, 2007), Mixi attained widespread adoption in Japan, LunarStorm took off in
Sweden, Dutch users embraced Hyves, Grono captured Poland, Hi5 was adopted in smaller
countries in Latin America, South America, and Europe, and Bebo became very popular in
the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia. Additionally, previously popular
communication and community services began implementing SNS features. The Chinese
QQ instant messaging service instantly became the largest SNS worldwide when it added
profiles and made friends visible (McLeod, 2006), while the forum tool Cyworld cornered
the Korean market by introducing homepages and buddies (Ewers, 2006).
Blogging services with complete SNS features also became popular. In the U.S., blogging
tools with SNS features, such as Xanga, LiveJournal, and Vox, attracted broad audiences.
Skyrock reigns in France, and Windows Live Spaces dominates numerous markets
worldwide, including in Mexico, Italy, and Spain. Although SNSs like QQ, Orkut, and
Live Spaces are just as large as, if not larger than, MySpace, they receive little coverage in
U.S. and English-speaking media, making it difficult to track their trajectories.

Expanding Niche Communities

Alongside these open services, other SNSs launched to support niche demographics before
expanding to a broader audience. Unlike previous SNSs, Facebook was designed to
support distinct college networks only. Facebook began in early 2004 as a Harvard-only
SNS (Cassidy, 2006). To join, a user had to have a harvard.edu email address. As
Facebook began supporting other schools, those users were also required to have university
email addresses associated with those institutions, a requirement that kept the site
relatively closed and contributed to users' perceptions of the site as an intimate, private
community.Beginning in September 2005, Facebook expanded to include high school students,
professionals inside corporate networks, and, eventually, everyone. The change to open
signup did not mean that new users could easily access users in closed networks—gaining
access to corporate networks still required the appropriate .com address, while gaining
access to high school networks required administrator approval. (As of this writing, only
membership in regional networks requires no permission.) Unlike other SNSs, Facebook
users are unable to make their full profiles public to all users. Another feature that
differentiates Facebook is the ability for outside developers to build "Applications" which
allow users to personalize their profiles and perform other tasks, such as compare movie
preferences and chart travel histories.

While most SNSs focus on growing broadly and exponentially, others explicitly seek
narrower audiences. Some, like aSmallWorld and BeautifulPeople, intentionally restrict
access to appear selective and elite. Others—activity-centered sites like Couchsurfing,
identity-driven sites like BlackPlanet, and affiliation-focused sites like MyChurch—are
limited by their target demographic and thus tend to be smaller. Finally, anyone who
wishes to create a niche social network site can do so on Ning, a platform and hosting
service that encourages users to create their own SNSs.
Currently, there are no reliable data regarding how many people use SNSs, although
marketing research indicates that SNSs are growing in popularity worldwide (comScore,
2007). This growth has prompted many corporations to invest time and money in creating,
purchasing, promoting, and advertising SNSs. At the same time, other companies are
blocking their employees from accessing the sites. Additionally, the U.S. military banned
soldiers from accessing MySpace (Frosch, 2007) and the Canadian government prohibited
employees from Facebook (Benzie, 2007), while the U.S. Congress has proposed
legislation to ban youth from accessing SNSs in schools and libraries.

The rise of SNSs indicates a shift in the organization of online communities. While
websites dedicated to communities of interest still exist and prosper, SNSs are primarily
organized around people, not interests. Early public online communities such as Usenet
and public discussion forums were structured by topics or according to topical hierarchies,
but social network sites are structured as personal (or "egocentric") networks, with the
individual at the center of their own community. This more accurately mirrors unmediated
social structures, where "the world is composed of networks, not groups" (Wellman, 1988). The introduction of SNS features has introduced a new organizational framework
for online communitie.

Social Network

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, and (3) view and traverse their list of
connections and those made by others within the system. The nature and nomenclature of
these connections may vary from site to site.
While we use the term "social network site" to describe this phenomenon, the term "social
networking sites" also appears in public discourse, and the two terms are often used
interchangeably. We chose not to employ the term "networking" for two reasons: emphasis
and scope. "Networking" emphasizes relationship initiation, often between strangers.
While networking is possible on these sites, it is not the primary practice on many of them,
nor is it what differentiates them from other forms of computer-mediated communication
(CMC).
What makes social network sites unique is not that they allow individuals to meet
strangers, but rather that they enable users to articulate and make visible their social
networks. This can result in connections between individuals that would not otherwise be
made, but that is often not the goal, and these meetings are frequently between "latent ties"
(Haythornthwaite, 2005) who share some offline connection. On many of the large SNSs,
participants are not necessarily "networking" or looking to meet new people; instead, they
are primarily communicating with people who are already a part of their extended social
network. To emphasize this articulated social network as a critical organizing feature of
these sites, we label them "social network sites."While SNSs have implemented a wide variety of technical features, their backbone
consists of visible profiles that display an articulated list of Friends
1
who are also users of
the system. Profiles are unique pages where one can "type oneself into being" (Sundén,
2003, p. 3). After joining an SNS, an individual is asked to fill out forms containing a
series of questions. The profile is generated using the answers to these questions, which
typically include descriptors such as age, location, interests, and an "about me" section.
Most sites also encourage users to upload a profile photo. Some sites allow users to
enhance their profiles by adding multimedia content or modifying their profile's look and
feel. Others, such as Facebook, allow users to add modules ("Applications") that enhance
their profile.
The visibility of a profile varies by site and according to user discretion. By default,
profiles on Friendster and Tribe.net are crawled by search engines, making them visible to
anyone, regardless of whether or not the viewer has an account. Alternatively, LinkedIn
controls what a viewer may see based on whether she or he has a paid account. Sites like
MySpace allow users to choose whether they want their profile to be public or "Friends
only." Facebook takes a different approach—by default, users who are part of the same
"network" can view each other's profiles, unless a profile owner has decided to deny
permission to those in their network. Structural variations around visibility and access are
one of the primary ways that SNSs differentiate themselves from each other.
After joining a social network site, users are prompted to identify others in the system with
whom they have a relationship. The label for these relationships differs depending on the
site—popular terms include "Friends," "Contacts," and "Fans." Most SNSs require bidirectional confirmation for Friendship, but some do not. These one-directional ties are
sometimes labeled as "Fans" or "Followers," but many sites call these Friends as well. The
term "Friends" can be misleading, because the connection does not necessarily mean
friendship in the everyday vernacular sense, and the reasons people connect are varied
(boyd, 2006a).
The public display of connections is a crucial component of SNSs. The Friends list
contains links to each Friend's profile, enabling viewers to traverse the network graph by
clicking through the Friends lists. On most sites, the list of Friends is visible to anyone
who is permitted to view the profile, although there are exceptions. For instance, some
MySpace users have hacked their profiles to hide the Friends display, and LinkedIn allows
users to opt out of displaying their network.
Most SNSs also provide a mechanism for users to leave messages on their Friends'
profiles. This feature typically involves leaving "comments," although sites employ various
labels for this feature. In addition, SNSs often have a private messaging feature similar to
webmail. While both private messages and comments are popular on most of the major
SNSs, they are not universally available.
Not all social network sites began as such. QQ started as a Chinese instant messaging
service, LunarStorm as a community site, Cyworld as a Korean discussion forum tool, and
Skyrock (formerly Skyblog) was a French blogging service before adding SNS features.Classmates.com, a directory of school affiliates launched in 1995, began supporting
articulated lists of Friends after SNSs became popular. AsianAvenue, MiGente, and
BlackPlanet were early popular ethnic community sites with limited Friends functionality
before re-launching in 2005-2006 with SNS features and structure.
Beyond profiles, Friends, comments, and private messaging, SNSs vary greatly in their
features and user base. Some have photo-sharing or video-sharing capabilities; others have
built-in blogging and instant messaging technology. There are mobile-specific SNSs (e.g.,
Dodgeball), but some web-based SNSs also support limited mobile interactions (e.g.,
Facebook, MySpace, and Cyworld). Many SNSs target people from specific geographical
regions or linguistic groups, although this does not always determine the site's
constituency. Orkut, for example, was launched in the United States with an English-only
interface, but Portuguese-speaking Brazilians quickly became the dominant user group
(Kopytoff, 2004). Some sites are designed with specific ethnic, religious, sexual
orientation, political, or other identity-driven categories in mind. There are even SNSs for
dogs (Dogster) and cats (Catster), although their owners must manage their profiles.
While SNSs are often designed to be widely accessible, many attract homogeneous
populations initially, so it is not uncommon to find groups using sites to segregate
themselves by nationality, age, educational level, or other factors that typically segment
society (Hargittai, this issue), even if that was not the intention of the designers.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Top 15 Social Network Sites

Top 15 Most Popular Social Networking Sites | September 2011

Here are the 15 Most Popular Social Networking Sites as derived from our eBizMBA Rank which is a constantly updated average of each website's Alexa Global Traffic Rank, and U.S. Traffic Rank from both Compete andQuantcast. "*#*" Denotes an estimate for sites with limited Compete or Quantcast data. Last Updated: September 12, 2011