Transcript CS 101 - 10 Social Software

Social
Software
What is “Social Software”
Software that enables people to
rendezvous, connect, or collaborate
through computer-mediated
communication1.
1. “Social software.” Wikipedia. 26-Apr-2007. 26-Apr-2007. ,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Social_software
What is Social Software?
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Actually not a well-defined term
Means different things to different
people
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Example: Include older media, such as
email and mailing lists?
Most users restrict “social software” to
more recent types, such as blogs, wikis,
Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, etc.
What is Social Software?
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Generally speaking, most people would
agree on the following about Social
Software:
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It facilitates back-and-forth discourse – not
a one-way distribution of ideas1
It facilitates the formation of “bottom-up”
online communities
1. Matt Vilano. “Social Revolution.” Campus Technology. January, 2007. pp 40 - 45
Bottom-Up Communities1
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Membership is voluntary
Members establish online reputations
within the community
Mission and governance of the
community is defined and controlled by
the members themselves
1. Social software.” Wikipedia. 26-Apr-2007. 26-Apr-2007. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Social_software>
Top-Down Communities
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Bottom-up communities contrast with
those that are top-down
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Controlled by an external authority
Users’ access usually is limited
Users may not have joined voluntarily
Frequently work-related
Social Software Examples
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Several types
Instant Messaging
 Text Chat
 Blogs & Microblogs
 Wikis
 Social Networking
 Social Bookmarking
The first two are important, but also very familiar
I will focus on the last ones
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Blogs
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From Blogger.com1, a Google blog site
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A blog is a web site, where you write stuff on an
ongoing basis.
New stuff shows up at the top, so your visitors
can read what's new.
Then they comment on it or link to it or email you.
Or not.
Most blogs are simple – mainly online diaries
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http://www.livejournal.com/
(Explore LJ)
1. “What’s a blog?”. 30-Apr-2007. <http://www.blogger.com/tour_start.g>
Blogs
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The significant ones are deeper and
more complex
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Commentary on important topics
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Include comments and blogrolls (links to
other blogs with shared interests) that can
foster online communities
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http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/
http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/
Have the potential to become one of
the more important aspects of the Web
Blogs
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Why are blogs so important?
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They are easy to use and invite
participation
They can be highly networked and can
take full advantage of the Web
They are decentralized and offer the
opportunity for free expression
Blogs: Easy to Use
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Anyone can publish a blog
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Not difficult to learn
Cheap
As a consequence, the “blogosphere” is
growing astronomically
Blogosphere: Rapid Growth
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It is clear blogs have
caught on -- their
number is growing
exponentially1
The most rapidly
adopted technology
in history2
One caveat: how
many of these blogs
are active?
1.
http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000493.html
2.
http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2005/05/chapter_2_why_b.html
Blogs: A New Medium1
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Blogs have become influential in global
politics
On the surface, this is not easy to understand
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Most blogs are personal and usually trivial
Only a small number of Americans read blogs
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1.
4% in 2004
Bloggers are part-time volunteers, for the most
part doing it for fun rather than money
Daniel Drezner and Henry Farrell. “Web of Influence.” Nov/Dec 2004.
<http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=2707&print=1>
Blogs: A New Medium
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Blogs have certain advantages over the traditional
media
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Much faster to publish
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Networked to each
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Information can spread rapidly
Not under the control of editors, publishers, etc.
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Allows them to focus quickly on breaking news
Can focus on new or under-reported issues
Not always good, of course. You need to take unedited text
with a grain of salt
Repositories of expertise
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Mainstream media staff generally are not experts with
specialized, detailed knowledge – some bloggers are
Blogs: A New Medium
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Main influence – affecting the content of
mainstream media coverage
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Mainstream media leaders pay attention to
political blogs
Political bloggers “keep watch on” mainstream
media publications
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Fact-checking and error correction
Pressure to cover a topic that mainstream media is
ignoring
The level of blogging is one barometer of public
interest in an issue
Microblogs: Twitter
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Allows users to send status updates, or
"tweets" from
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Cell phones
IM services
Facebook
Limit -- less than 140 characters
Can be fairly trivial – “I am eating a
burger and fries for dinner.”
Microblogs: Twitter
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Has been seized on by politicians and
news media, and others
http://twitter.com/BarackObama
http://twitter.com/cnn
University of Texas at San Antonio
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http://twitter.com/engineeringutsa
Wikis
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Websites that allow a large number of users
to add and edit content in a collaborative
manner1.
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The CS 101C wiki we used in Project 2 is an
example
Different than blogs, in that wikis mainly
facilitate document-based collaboration.
1. “A Short Guide to Wikis.” A Project Locker Whitepaper. April, 2006.
<http://www.zybic.com/wiki_whitepaper.pdf>
Wikis
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Most obvious successful wiki is Wikipedia, the
online encyclopedia
Otherwise, wikis are not nearly as widespread
as blogs
Many applications lie in the corporate sector
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Internal documentation
Collaborative teams
Frequently bottom-up
Social Network Sites
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Web-based services that allow
individuals to:1
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Construct a public or semi-public profile
Choose and make visible a list of other users with
whom they share a connection
View and traverse their list of connections and
those made by others within the system
1http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html
Social Networking Sites
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Extremely important today
Examples:
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Facebook and MySpace
YouTube
Flickr
How many people use them?
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A lot --MySpace had over 114,000,000
visitors in June 2007
Social Networks – Privacy Issues
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A lot of personal information in MySpace and
Facebook
Fluency (p 482): “There are only two basic
threats [to privacy]: government and
business.”
Everything in social network web sites is
potentially available to governmental (e.g.,
law enforcement) and business organizations
Social Bookmarking1
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Similar to Favorites folders in
your personal computer
This has disadvantages
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Located only on a local machine
and not available anywhere else
Gets hard to handle if you have a
lot of favorites
Difficult to share with others
1. “Social Bookmarking.” <http://www.educause.edu/eli>
Social Bookmarking
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Social bookmarks are stored on a separate
web site
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Example: del.icio.us
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http://del.icio.us/
Social bookmarks are available anywhere
there is an Internet connection
Especially useful if the bookmarks need to be
shared
Social Bookmarking
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Has the added advantage that you can
tag bookmarks with key words
Social Bookmarking
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You can see the bookmarks of others
who also used your bookmark
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Possibly an indication of other interesting
pages
Allows you to make social connections with
other individuals with similar interests
You can explore how others have used
tags you have used
Social Bookmarking
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Produces a linked network of web
pages created by similar tags and
bookmarks
This user-based taxonomy has been
called a “folksonomy.”
Example: del.icio.us
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Use my account as example
Folksonomy
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A classification scheme made by a crowd of
interested individuals rather than by experts1
Advantages
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Insights of others in a community of like-minded
individuals
Scheme may include links an expert might not
think of
Disadvantages
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Constructed by amateurs – may be uneven
Reflects value of the community – may be skewed
1. “What is a Folksonomy.” <http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-folksonomy.htm>
Web 2.01,2
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Everything we have talked about so far
has been summed up as “Web 2.0”
Business-oriented look at recent social
networking developments.
Not accepted by everyone.
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Real phenomenon or marketing buzzword?
1.
Tim O’Reilly. “What is Web 2.0? Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation
of Software.” 30-Sept-2005. 27-Apr-2007 http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/a/6228
2.
“Web 2.0.” wikipedia. 27-Apr-2007. 26-Apr-2007. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0”
Web 2.0
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Characteristics
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Uses Web as a an operating system
Dependent on user contributions
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Users add value – the more the merrier
Users control the data
Profits from the collective intelligence of users
Integrates content from different sources
Easy to use
Web 2.0: Web as an OS
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Use the Web as the operating system
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Use application entirely through a browser
Example: Google
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Not a traditional software package
Instead, delivered entirely as a web service
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Wouldn’t exist without the Web
Mainly functions as an enabler, which helps
users find the web content they need
Web 2.0: Users Add Value
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Web 2.0 applications grow in
effectiveness the more people use them
Examples: eBay and del.icio.us
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Their power stems from the human
connections they establish
Effectiveness depends on participation
Web 2.0: Users Add Value
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User-generated data adds value
Examples:
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Wikipedia
Amazon
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User reviews
Flickr
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Entirely dependent on user-submitted photos
Web 2.0: Users Own Data
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Users exercise control over data on web
site
Examples:
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Wikipedia
Flickr
Web 2.0: Collective Intelligence
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Web 2.0 harnesses the collective intelligence
of users with no centralized authority
Examples:
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Wikipedia
Google
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Blogging
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PageRank
Collective attention of blogosphere identifies elite blogs
to which mainstream media pays attention
Social Bookmarking
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Folksonomies that are developed
Web 2.0: Integration of Content
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Mashup: integration of multi-sourced content
into a single application1
Example: Google Maps
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Begins with satellite imagery services licensed by
Google
Coupled with rich browser-based application to
view data
Housingmaps.com combines Google Maps with a
web-based database of homes for sale or rent
1. “Gartner’s 2006 Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle.”
<http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=495475&format=print>
Web 2.0: User-Friendly Interface
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Example: Ajax
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Collection of techniques to deliver a rich,
user-friendly interface using modern
browsers
Can turn difficult-to-use web applications
into ones that are much easier to use
Google Maps is a good example