Social Networking 101

Anne Pemberton • Instructional Services Coordinator • Randall Library

Workshop Outline

Social Networking and Web 2.0

Overview of Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace

Social Networking & Web 2.0

Social Networking

“ … focuses on the building … of online … communities of people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others, and which necessitates the use of software. Most social network services are primarily web based and provide a collection of various ways for users to interact, such as chat, messaging, email, video, voice chat, file sharing, blogging, discussion groups, and so on.”(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking_sites)

Social Networking & Web 2.0

Web 2.0

“The phrase Web 2.0 refers to a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies — which aim to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users. The term became popular following the first O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004, and has since become widely adopted.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2)

• “Who are these people? Seriously, who actually sits down after a long day at work and says, I'm not going to watch Lost tonight. I'm going to turn on my computer and make a movie starring my pet iguana? I'm going to mash up 50 Cent's vocals with Queen's instrumentals? I'm going to blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation … Who has that time and that energy and that passion?

• … And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 is you.”

•http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html

Social Networking in Plain English

http://www.commoncraft.com/video-social-networking

Social Networking

Not just for your average Joe

Not just for college students

All ages

http://www.myspace.com/barackobama

http://www.famoustweeters.com/

Keeping Up http://radar.oreilly.com/

http://www.newmediamusings.com/social_media/index.html

http://www.socialnetworking-weblog.com/

http://www.technewsworld.com/perl/section/social-networking/

http://mashable.com/

http://www.virtualhosting.com/blog/2007/top-100-social-media-and-social-networking-blogs/

The Appeal

Students love Myspace and Facebook because:- It's an easy way to contact with friends and family.- We like to see what's going on in people's lifes and be nosy.- Myspace/Facebook is a good way to keep track of people and what they're doing.- We love the attention that we get from the comments and messages that are left on our page.

Twitter

“Jack Dorsey had grown interested in the simple idea of being able to know what his friends were doing”

Twitter was funded initially by Obvious, a creative environment in San Francisco, CA

The first prototype was built in two weeks in March 2006 and launched publicly in August of 2006

In May 2007, Twitter Incorporated was founded

Twitter Stats

About 900,000 U.S. monthly website visitors

1.3 million unique monthly visitors in March (2008) from worldwide visitors

Hard to estimate exact numbers

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/29/end-of-speculation-the-real-twitter-usage-numbers/

Let’s Look … Twitter

http://www.twitter.com

Facebook Facts

“Founded in February 2004, Facebook is a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers. The company develops technologies that facilitate the sharing of information through the social graph, the digital mapping of people's real-world social connections. Anyone can sign up for Facebook and interact with the people they know in a trusted environment. Facebook is a part of millions of people’s lives and half of the users return daily. Facebook is a privately-held company and is headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif.” (http://www.facebook.com/press.php)

Facebook Facts

More than 250 million active users

More than 120 million users log on to Facebook at least once each day

More than two-thirds of Facebook users are outside of college / the fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older

Must be at least 13 years of age

http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

Let’s Look … Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/

MySpace Facts

Launched in January 2004

Acquired by News Corp. in October 2005

Los Angeles-based

MySpace has nearly 130 million monthly active users around the globe

MySpace has more than 70 million total unique users in the US

http://www.myspace.com/pressroom?url=/fact+sheet/

MySpace Facts

“MySpace is an online community that lets you meet your friends' friends.

Create a private community on MySpace and you can share photos, journals and interests with your growing network of mutual friends!

See who knows who, or how you are connected. Find out if you really are six people away from Kevin Bacon.”

http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=misc.aboutus

MySpace Facts

“Eligibility. Use of and Membership in the MySpace Services is void where prohibited. By using the MySpace Services, you represent and warrant that (a) all registration information you submit is truthful and accurate; (b) you will maintain the accuracy of such information; (c) you are 13 years of age or older; and (d) your use of the MySpace Services does not violate any applicable law or regulation. Your profile may be deleted and your Membership may be terminated without warning, if we believe that you are under 14 years of age. “

http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=misc.terms

Let’s Look … MySpace

http://www.myspace.com/

Differences BTW them

AP’s perceptions: Twitter is “hot” and very simple Facebook has more applications and

more “controlled” than MySpace MySpace seems more “chaotic” MySpace may disappear More privacy in Facebook All are the “new” e-mail

Questions? Discussion?