OUseful Info

An Introduction to Social Networking

I ran a training session hour this morning on social networking, giving a very rapid overview of a lot of sites that people have heard about, but never seen, let alone used.

As ever, I asked who in the audience of 20 or so who used things like MySpace, flickr, youTube and so on (none, two and one respectively, I think..)

Whenever I do a presentation like this the first time, I'm unsure as to what exactly I want the take homes to be... (hmmm, what does that say about my preparation...?) Which is usually okay, because most presentations I put together end up being delivered two or three times, so I get to work on the things that came to mind during the first run through.

Anway, main take homes that ocurred to me that are not really covered in the presentation (which can be found, along with links, on this Social Networking Playlist) include:

1. In terms of development, and presumably reflecting the evolution of a robust permissions structure, single/small team developer social sites frequently add functionality in the following order: public sharing, private (i.e. no) sharing, group sharing.


2. Many social sites allow you to upload content, as long as you share it. If you want privacy, (and in particular, group privacy), you often have to pay for it (privacy is a privilege/paid for service, not a right...)


3. Some sites limit the amount of content you can upload on a free account. Heavy users need to pay for additional storage.


4. Many social sites grow virally - social networking (personal profile sharing) sites encourage users to invite their friends to join in the fun; collaborative content genearation sites require you to invite your collaborators to sign up in order that they can gain access to the document you want them to collaborate on.

One other thing I need to bring into the presentation, which was actually a point raised in the audience, was the question of how user behaviour is regulated on public, social sites, and the extent to which socially acceptable behaviour is enforced through architectural features, and/or self-policed by the community.

Certainly, sites that provide private groups allow for different norms (e.g. what may be acceptable in one closed group may be unacceptable in another, or in the public space).

And as to how those norms arise and are enforced/reinforced? Well, that's an interesting question, and one I think I need to explore in a lot more detail...

Posted by ajh59 at October 25, 2006 07:38 PM