1. CS5038 The Electronic Society Lecture: 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

2. 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 activities 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

3. 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

4. Friendster Designed by Jonathan Abrams in 2002 Considered as the top online social network service until 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)

5. 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

6. 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

7. Business Model No charge for membership MySpace and Facebook sell online advertising on their site Huge amounts of data from members –can be utilised for targeted advertising and marketing Other ways to make money: –Facebooks 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.

8. 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

9. 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