The document discusses designing systems for social sharing and interaction online. It makes the following key points: 1. Social interaction is now a major part of how people use the web, through activities like online gaming, social networks, and sharing content. 2. Successful social sharing systems center around making the experience personally useful and enjoyable for users while also creating opportunities for social connections through shared content and interactions. 3. Design principles for social systems include making individual contributions valuable yet small, blurring the line between public and private sharing, allowing for various levels of participation, and enabling serendipitous discovery of new content and connections.

1. Designing for Social Sharing Rashmi Sinha www.uzanto.com www.rashmisinha.com

2. browsing alone

3. Part I: Why NOW?

4. The web has become a social sphere

5. Who is online Broadband penetration is at more than 50% From Pew Internet Research, for US only

6. From Pew Internet Research, for US only

7. Just for fun! 34% men , 26% women 37% of 18-29 yrs old , and 20% of 65 and over go online, on any given day, just for fun… From Pew Internet Research, for US only

8. The web has become a social sphere Massively multiplayer online games

9. 6.5 million people

10. WOW is millions of people with diverse backgrounds collaborating, socializing, and learning while having fun. It represents the future of real-time collaborative teams in an always-on, diversity-intensive, real-time environment. WOW is a glimpse into our future. Joi Ito in Wired Magazine

11. 240,000 users

12. Wells Fargo StageCoach Island

13. American Apparel

14. Four draws of such games the ability to socialize an achievement system that gives players an incentive to improve complex and satisfying strategy that makes combat fun underlying narrative that players want to learn more about Many games also update continuously, adding features and addressing user requests

15. Alone together Social interaction in online gaming (Ducheneaut et al. 2006) Surrounded by others. Feel their presence, not interacting all the time Analogy: Reading book in a cafe Spectacle: Performing for an audience Analogy: Playing pinball with others watching Social facilitation (Zajonc, 1960) Improved performance in presence of others (even if presence is passive) Observed even in cockroaches!

16. The web has become a social sphere Massively multiplayer online games Rich interfaces enable richer interactions

17. Part II

18. Part II: What is social sharing?

20. Hi I found you while I was searching my network at LinkedIn. Let's connect directly, so we can help each other with referrals. If we connect, both of our networks will grow. To add me as your connection, just follow the link below.

21. First generation Social Networks (Friendster, LinkedIn…) 1) I am linked to -> -> to you ---> --->You are linked to her -> ---> so on… How it works Individuals connected to each other Relationships can be marked, hubs identified Concept of six degrees of separation “ Are you my friend” type of awkwardness

22. Object mediated social networks “… call for the rethinking of sociality along lines that include objects in the concept of social relations.” Katrin-Knorr Cetina

23. Coffee Dance performance Tomatoes

24. Second generation social networks Put objects at the center Social sharing Tagging Viral sharing Social News Creation

25. Social sharing of our stuff (social networks with objects in between) e.g., Flickr, Yahoo answers 1) I share my pics -> -> with you ---> -->You share your pics -> ---> with him How it works People share objects and watch others Social connections are through objects Formation of social streams of information with emergence of popular, interesting items

26. Viral sharing (passing on interesting stuff) e.g., YouTube videos 1) I send video I like -> -> to you. You pass on --> --> to her, who sends on to her, who passes on… How it works Individual to individual to individual Popularity based navigation helps track “viral” items

27. Tag-based social sharing (linked by concepts…) e.g., Flickr, del.icio.us 1) I tag my bookmarks -> you see my tags -->You share your tags -> How it works Saving & tagging your stuff (creating bookmarks). Tags mediate social connections Formation of social/conceptual information streams. Emergence of popular, interesting items politics lebanon Global voices politics technology Global voices web JAVA CNN networks blogs science science science brain

28. Social news creation (rating news stories) e.g., digg, Newsvine 1) I find interesting story -> you rate story -->Others rate stories How it works Finding and rating stories Popular stories rise to top 5 4

29. Objects invite us to Connect Play React Reach out

30. Part III: So you want to design for social sharing?

31. Forget the ipod!

32. Give up control This is messy!

33. Some principles…

34. 1: Make system personally useful For end-user system should have strong personal use Memorable Personal Snippets (e.g., Del.icio.us & Flickr) Self-expression (e.g., Newsvine) Social status: Digg Don’t count on altruism System should thrive on people’s selfishness

35. Bite-sized self-expression Creative self-expression Artistic expression (Flickr, YouTube) Humor (YouTube) Individual piece should be small Can create sets & lists Do Mashups Simple, guessable URLs for everything Leave room for games & social play Appreciation Stalking (some!) Gossip

36. 2: Identify symbiotic relationship between personal & social Personal snippets > Social stream Pictures > Organized by Events Music > Organized by Playlists

37. 3: Create porous boundary between public & private Earlier systems Personal (Personal Desktop Software, e.g., Picasa, EndNote) OR Social websites (Shutterfly) Rethink public & private People share for the right returns Set defaults to public, allow easy change to private Give user control Over individual pieces & sets Delete items from history Reset /remove profile Privacy settings on Flickr

38. 4. Allow for levels of participation Everyone does not need to create! Implicit creation (creating by consuming) Remixing—adding value to others’ content Source: Bradley Horowitz’s weblog, Elatable, Feb. 17, 2006, “Creators, Synthesizers, and Consumers”

39. Why do people digg? “ commenting, digging, burying comments, typing descriptions, reading hundreds of articles and… … for a lot of nerds, using digg is just a casual free-time activity. Entertaining. Fun. Engaging.”

40. how to encourage participation Insights from Social Psychology Highlight unique contribution Allow for smaller local groups Highlight benefit to self from Highlight benefit to group Source: Using social psychology to motivate contributions to online communities, Ling et al. 2005

41. 5. Let people feel the presence of others What paths are well worn User profiles / photos Real-time updating Like a conversation Sense that others are out there What people are digging right now!

42. 6. And yet, moments of Independence… Choreography: when alone, when part of group Prevent mobs Don’t make it too easy to mimic others Incentives for originality & uniqueness

43. Allow for alternative viewpoints & perspectives Social sharing can lead to tyranny of dominant view People of a group agree Viewpoint rises to top (popularity lists, tag clouds)

44. Create conditions for wise crowds Cognitive Diversity Independence Decentralization Easy Aggregation

45. Wise Crowds: Cognitive Diversity Need many perspectives for good answers Groups become homogenous Members bring lesser new information in Diversity reduces groupthink Groupthink works by shielding members from outside opinions Diversity reduces conformity Chance that you will change opinion to match group

46. Wise Crowds: Independence Keeps people’s mistakes from getting correlated (uncorrelated mistakes averaged out) Encourages people to bring in new viewpoints (diversity) Concept of Social Proof Milgram experiment People assume that groups know what they are doing Assuming crowd is wise, leads to herd like behavior Can sometimes lead to good decisions Information Cascades Sequence of uninformed choices, building upon each other

47. Wise Crowds: Decentralization “ A crowd of decentralized people working to solve a problem on their own without any central effort to guide them, come up with better solutions, rather than a top-down driven solution.” Suroweicki

48. Wise Crowds: Easy Aggregation A decentralized system can pick right solution With easy way for information to be aggregated across system Example: votes on Digg

49. 7. Enable Serendipity Don’t make navigation all about popularity Access to some popular stuff (keep this fast moving) Make the “long tail” accessible Popularity as a jump off point to other ways of exploring Provide personalization Recommendations using collaborative filtering Similar tags, content, others Ad-hoc groups?

50. 8. Most of all, allow for play

51. Things to try at home! Create an account on myspace.com Read Emergence, Wisdom of Crowds Play a Multiplayer Online Game (WOW, Second Life) Play with an API (try GoogleMaps API) Try a mobile social application (DodgeBall) Ask your friends what they find “fun” on the web

52. Questions? www.rashmisinha.com www.uzanto.com