Net204: Internet Communities and Social Networks - Stage 2: Social Networks

Stage 2 is about preparing for the 2000-2500 word paper for the Online Conference. There are 4 streams:

1. Communities and Web 2.0
2. Social Networks
3. Identity in Communities and Networks
4. Communities and Online Gaming

Social Networks

Social Network Sites: Definition, History and Scholarship

This paper discusses the history of social networking sites, what attracted users to them, and what made them succeed or fail. Some sites cater to diverse audiences, while others attract people based on common language or shared racial, sexual, religious, or nationality based identities. Tools of communication vary among social networking sites, i.e. mobile connectivity, blogging and photo/video sharing.

We define social networking 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

Here is a brief history:

• 1997 - SixDegrees.com was the first recognisable social networking site and failed because it was considered ahead of it's time
• AIM and ICQ supported buddy lists
• Classmates.com connected school friends
• 1997 - 2001 - Friends, AsianAvenue, BlackPlanet and MiGente were considered dating sites
• 1999 - Live Journal and Cyworld
• 2000 - LunarStorm
• 2001 - Ryze, Tribe.net, LinkedIn and Friendster. Friendster has been considered one of the biggest disappointments in Internet history. It lost members due to technical problems, server crashes and negative press coverage
• 2003 - MySpace became very popular because it connected bands with their fans and because they welcomed younger members. They were also the first to introduce html customisation into member profiles. Around this time blogging services with SNS features became popular like Xanga, LiveJournal and Vox
• 2004 - Facebook began as Harvard only, then all university students and eventually anyone could join

Reference

boyd, d., & Ellison, N. (2007). Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1).