Lecture 1: Social Web Introduction (2012)

Social Web Lecture 1 Organization & Introduction What IS the Social Web Lora Aroyo The Network Institute VU University AmsterdamMonday, February 27, 12

Course Organization Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Old_book_-_Timeless_Books.jpgMonday, February 27, 12

Goals of the course • understand & try how the Social Web works • What IS the Social Web & Social Computing? • What people DO on the Social Web? • How is DATA on the Social Web ACCESSED? • How is DATA on the Social Web STUDIED? • What are typical Social Web APPLICATIONS? • What are CHALLENGES on the Social Web?Monday, February 27, 12

You will learn about • data formats • social web platforms • data mining, analysis, visualization & reuse across applications • user-generated content • personalization in Social Web applications • interdisciplinary research • critical thinkingMonday, February 27, 12

Format of the course • Lots of WORK, but also lots of FUN • Lots of different interaction • post a question or a discussion point by Sunday 17:00 • vote on questions from Sunday 17:00 till Monday 10:00 • discuss on selected topics during lectures on Monday • group work during hands-on sessions • presentations of ﬁnal assignments • Use your own name or VUNetID for identiﬁcation on the website postingsMonday, February 27, 12

How does it work • Before the Lectures: do the required reading & assignments • Assignments & Hands-on: done in groups • use Skype, Dropbox, Google Docs to organize&plan your work • state who did what in the “Acknowledgements” section • document template: ACM SIG proceedings style; in PDF • name of the ﬁle: [group#]_[handson#]; [group#]_[assignment#] • include the names of all group members & group# on the title page of your reportsMonday, February 27, 12

Schedule • Interactive Lectures: Mondays 1:30-3:15 • assignments & hands-on are introduced during lecture • Hands-on Sessions: Thursdays 11:00-12:45 • practical exercises & work on assignments • hand in your hands-on reports by Friday 5:30pm • Final Presentations: in week 12Monday, February 27, 12

Grading • Assignment 1 (15%) • Assignment 2 (15%) • Assignment 3 (15%) • Final Assignment: application & presentation (15%) • Final Assignment: individual report (30%) • Questions/Discussion (10%)Monday, February 27, 12

Can you imagine ... image source: http://dusanwriter.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/2521824681_532cfcb749.jpgMonday, February 27, 12

How many hours we spend watching TV?Monday, February 27, 12

Monday, February 27, 12

How much content is consumed & created every second?Monday, February 27, 12

Current record: • 10.000 tweets/s in the last 3 min of Super Bowl • 8000 tweets/s during Madonna’s performance Previous records: • 9000 tweets/s during MTV Video Music Awards (Beyonce pregnant) • 7200 tweets/s before the end of the WC for womens football (Japan beats US), july 2011Monday, February 27, 12

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1664377/infographic-of-the-day-the-alchemy-behind-facebook-and-youtubeMonday, February 27, 12

http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/01/17/internet-2011-in-numbers/Monday, February 27, 12

What do those numbers mean? Image source: http://clareactman22.blogspot.com/2010/06/meaning-of-life.htmlMonday, February 27, 12

Our goal is to ... understand the practices, implications, culture, & meaning of the sites, as well as users engagement with them include this understanding as part of software engineering for the new social worldMonday, February 27, 12

How did it all start?Monday, February 27, 12

Some Historical Facts • Before 1997: AIM, ICQ, Classmates.com • 1997: SixDegrees.com - combining all in one (2000 the service went ofﬂine) - not enough user base, not enough interaction • 1997 - 2001: AsianAvenue, BlackPlanet, MiGente, LiveJournal, Cyworld (Korean), LunarStorm (Swedish) • 2001: professional networks - Ryze.com (San Francisco business and technology community), Tribe.net, LinkedInMonday, February 27, 12

2002: Rise & Fall • Friendster - a social complement to Ryze to compete with Match.com - online dating site • early adopters: bloggers, attendees of the Burning Man arts festival & gay men • 300,000 users in 2003 and it couldn’t handle its rapid growth • started restricted access to profiles, e.g. not more than four degrees away • "Fakesters": fake profiles representing iconic fictional characters: celebrities, concepts • popularity in Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia & IndonesiaMonday, February 27, 12

2003: Mainstream • YASNS: "Yet Another Social Networking Service." (Clay Shirky) • professional: LinkedIn,Visible Path, Xing (formerly openBC) • passion-centric: Dogster (dogs), Care2 (activists), Couchsurﬁng (travel), MyChurch (christian), Flickr (photos), Last.FM (music),YouTube (video) • failures: Googles Orkut failed & Microsofts Windows Live Spaces (a.k.a. MSN Spaces) • MySpace to compete with Friendster, Xanga, AsianAvenue; 2004 massive popularity (bands, teenagers); 2005 News Corporation purchase for $580Monday, February 27, 12

The Big OnesMonday, February 27, 12

2001: Wikipedia 2000: Nupedia - articles written by experts licensed as free content founded by Jimmy Wales with Larry Sanger (editor-in-chief) 2001: Wikipedia - a side-project of Nupedia, to allow collaboration on articles prior to entering the peer-review process 19,700 articles in 2002 3,865,279 articles in 2012Monday, February 27, 12

Issues creators! Community-based Systems 1! • Participation vs. lurking 10! • Social capital Synthesizers! • Social networking • Trust and reputation • Privacy and presence 100! consumers! Peter Brusilovsky, Social Web Course, University of PittsburghMonday, February 27, 12

2004: Facebook distinct college networks only (Harvard-only SNS)Monday, February 27, 12

2005: Facebook including other universities, high school students, professionals inside corporate networks, and, eventually - everyone ability for outside developers to build "Applications"Monday, February 27, 12

2007: Facebook API Platform that consists of a Facebook variant of HTML = Facebook Markup Language (FBML) a Facebook variant of SQL = FQL (Facebook Query Language) not based on open standards sites support: Bebo & MeeboMonday, February 27, 12

2010: Facebook Open GraphMonday, February 27, 12

2012: Facebook Goes Public “ ... eight years after its computer-hacking CEO Mark Zuckerberg started the service at Harvard University." "We cannot assure you that we will effectively manage our growth." "... it hopes to raise $5 billion in its IPO. That would be the most for an Internet IPO since Google Inc. and its early backers raised $1.9 billion in 2004."Monday, February 27, 12

Social Computing • interdisciplinary study • social structure where technology puts power in communities (not institutions) • internet provides a good platform for emerging social structures • manifestos of social computing, e.g. social networks, blogs, podcasting, tagging, meet-ups, mash-ups, social search, user-generated-content, wikis, P2P content distribution, RSS, open source software, etc.* * Forrester Research (2008), http:// wwwforrester.com/ResearchThemes/SocialComputingMonday, February 27, 12

Interdisciplinary • way of interacting and collaborating on the Web (computer science) • observing social phenomena & analyzing the interactions in communities (social science) • behavioral economics, e.g. money-economy vs. social norms, why people behave irrationally/altruistically? * Julita Vassileva (2009), Social Computing Course, University of Saskatchewan, Canada * Dan Ariely (2007). Predictably IrrationalMonday, February 27, 12

“Tenets of Social Computing”* • innovation will shift from top-down to bottom-up • value will shift from ownership to experience • power will shift from institutions to communities * Charlene Li (2006), http://www.socialcustomer.com/2006/02/the_forrester_s.htmlMonday, February 27, 12

Social Web deﬁnes for Individual users Businesses GovernmentMonday, February 27, 12

New Means of Communication • beyond email, text messaging, and mobile phone • asynchronous (not requiring real-time response) • a lot of the communication seems irrelevant & trivial • some can be helpful & interesting • many people (especially the teenagers) addicted to this new mode of communication • celebrities & organizations use it to communicate with their fan bases & audience for self-promotionMonday, February 27, 12

New Form of Communities • Social Web sites are in essence online communities • Groups around a number of natural attributes of the members, e.g. schools attended, employers, cities of residence. • Groups around any type of interest, hobby, or cause, where people can help one another with information, advice, and personal networks Example: the role of communities in “the Arab Spring”Monday, February 27, 12

New Source of Knowledge • beyond what search engines can dig into • people can dig into their network of connections to ﬁnd answers to questions • folklore knowledge • friends-based news updates • friends-based serendipity • ‘‘worldwide directories’’ of peopleMonday, February 27, 12

New Source of Entertainment • Most people need to entertain themselves to enjoy life, to recharge themselves, and to pass the time • That’s why people have accounts on several social Web sites, and visit them rather diligently and regularly • People got catapulted to worldwide fame after they appeared on YouTubeMonday, February 27, 12

New Venue for Self-expression • a surprisingly large number of people have had a strong desire for self-expression and desire for self- satisfaction that comes from helping others • a major reason for the Wikipedia success, where more than 10 mil articles have been contributed by thousands of volunteers without ﬁnancial incentives • the personal posting many people do appears to help them to derive a sense of ‘self-assurance and belonging’Monday, February 27, 12

Social Web Sites Social web sites: web sites that allow people to form online communities, and share user-created content. • People: users of the open Internet or those who belong to a particular organization (corporation, university, professional society, etc.) • Community: network of ofﬂine friends, online acquaintances, interest groups (based on school attended, hobby, interest, cause, profession, ethnicity, gender, age, group, etc.). • User-created content (UCC): photos, videos, bookmarks, user proﬁles, activity updates, text, (blog, microblog, and comments), etc. • Sharing of UCC: posting, viewing, and commenting of UCC; also voting on, saving, and re-transmitting of the UCC. On social Web sites,Won Kima, Ok-Ran Jeong, Sang-Won Lee, Information Systems 35 (2010) 215–236Monday, February 27, 12

Social web sites = social networking sites + social media sitesMonday, February 27, 12

Social Networking Sites • integrated into daily practices • web-based services allowing individuals to: • construct a (semi-)public proﬁle • articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection • view & traverse connections Majority of Facebook’s 845 million users are women Women are also its most engaged usersMonday, February 27, 12

Social Media Sites • Web sites that allow people to share user- created content • Most users are teens or those in early twenties • males and female how are they represented? A way to involve more women with technology? Sandberg: women drive 62% of Facebook activity (e.g. status updates, messages & comments); 71% of daily fan activity; have 8% more Facebook friends than men; spend more time on the site. In Facebook’s early days, women were ﬁrst to upload photographs, join groups and post to walls.Monday, February 27, 12

Social Sites Categories • Social networking sites (open vs. closed) • General-purpose, e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn • Vertical, e.g. Dogster, Couchsurﬁng • Social media sites (open vs. closed) • Media types, e.g. Flickr (photos), Last.FM (music),YouTube (video) * Won Kim, Ok-Ran Jeong, Sang-Won Lee (2010). On social Web sites. Information Systems 35, 215–236Monday, February 27, 12

Diversity in Cultures • MySpace - US & abroad • Hi5 - Latin & South America, Europe • Friendster - Paciﬁc Islands • Bebo - UK, New Zealand & • Orkut - Brazil, India Australia • Mixi - Japan • QQ - China • LunarStorm - Sweden • Cyworld - Korea • Hyves - the Netherlands • Skyrock - France • Grono - Poland • Windows Live Spaces - Mexico, Italy, and SpainMonday, February 27, 12

2011: FB vs. Orkut in Brazil http://mashable.com/2012/01/17/facebook-beats-orkut-brazil/Monday, February 27, 12

Diversity in Activities • aSmallWorld & BeautifulPeople • Usenet & public discussion intentionally restrict access to forums - structured by topics appear selective and elite or topical hierarchies • Couchsurﬁng: activity-centered • "egocentric" - social network sites are structured as • BlackPlanet: identity-driven personal networks - individual at the center of their own • MyChurch: afﬁliation-focused community • niche social network on Ning - • accurately mirrors unmediated a platform & hosting service social structures: "the world is for users to create their own composed of networks, not SNSs groups"Monday, February 27, 12

SNS: Features • Personal proﬁles • Establishing online connections • Participating in online groups • Communicating with online connections • Sharing user generated content • Expressing opinions • Finding information • Retaining usersMonday, February 27, 12

Personal profiles • Most sites have members create and manage personal profiles • Differences in types of information in profiles, ways to control access (privacy) • Archived memories • Impress others • Aggregators, e.g. klout.com Compare Twitter profile with Facebook profileMonday, February 27, 12

Establishing online connections • discover connection (‘‘friend’’) candidates from existing members • automatic discovery of members from address books, browsing of groups, friend-recommendation, or keyword- based search • some friend relationships require consent by both members, some don’t How do you ﬁnd friends on different networks? What are pros & cons of (a)symmetry of friendship?Monday, February 27, 12

Participating in online groups • form new groups, and/or join them • members & non-members could both view all the user-created content, only members may post content • sense of belonging • being where many other people are How does LinkedIn facilitate the forming & joining of groups?Monday, February 27, 12

Communicating with online connections • Ambient intimacy - “...that you wouldn’t usually have access to, because time & space” • Emotional support • Hanging out virtually How do Twitter, Facebook and Flickr differer in terms facilitating communication?Monday, February 27, 12

Sharing User-created Content • members post various types of user-created content, e.g. blogs, microblogs, photos, images, music, video, bookmarks, and text • friends view & re-share • social media sites provide richer facilities for sharing content than social networking sites How often do you experience problems of duplication of content shared across different sites?Monday, February 27, 12

Expressing Opinions • Allowing members to leave comments on the content, voting by ranking (3 out of 5 stars), or marking as ‘‘favorite,’’ ﬂagging as spam/ inappropriate • Sites use different ways to present and organize those comments (hierarchical, timestamping, counting, etc.) For example, Digg has two buttons, ‘‘digg it’’ and ‘‘bury’’ Why there is no ‘DISLIKE’ button in FB? Should there be?Monday, February 27, 12

Finding Information • search engines: looking for names of people, names of groups, and particular content • browsing: done on selected groups and content in a particular category • Most sites provide categories for the content stored, to support browsing. Can be rich / simple • through timelines and archives of memories • social voyerism For example, Digg has 8 categories: technology, world & business, science, gaming, lifestyle, entertainment, sports, and offbeat. Further organized in terms of most recent, top in 24h, 7, 30, and 365 daysMonday, February 27, 12

Retaining Users • Various features designed to have the users spend a long time on the sites & have them return frequently • For example, • display data related to the data the users speciﬁcally seek • special designations, such as ‘‘popular’’ and “recent,’’ to attract those not searching for it • special interest pages • making them addicted to games, etc. What examples at YouTube, Facebook or Flickr?Monday, February 27, 12

Where do YOU come in understand the practices, implications, culture & meaning of the sites, as well as users engagement with them learn how to use this knowledge in designing successful social web applicationsMonday, February 27, 12

The New Web: The Web of People Peter Brusilovsky, Social Web Course, University of PittsburghMonday, February 27, 12

Web 1.0 vs Web 2.0 Semantic Web & Social Web ric C ent Semantic Web D ata Web 1.0 Web 1.0 Us er C ent Web 2.0 ric Social Web Web 2.0 Something funny: http://youtube.com/watch?v=XPYLn2QblNI Peter Brusilovsky, Social Web Course, University of PittsburghMonday, February 27, 12

Hands-on Teaser • ﬁrst (basic) taste of social web data analysis & visualization • some Python & command line experience • Twitter data • check out on the website the software you will be working with • check out the exercises in the book • Mining the Social Web, by Matthew A. Russell image source: http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/bionicteaching/1375254387/Monday, February 27, 12

Lecture 1: Social Web Introduction (2012)

by Lora Aroyo

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