This document discusses principles for designing massively multiplayer social systems. It covers different models of social networks like those centered around sharing objects, viral sharing of content, and tag-based sharing. It also discusses factors like individuals, groups, popularity, and how to design for personal usefulness, porous boundaries between public and private sharing, levels of participation, and adding elements of serendipity, independence, and expertise. The document concludes with nine principles for designing social systems, such as making them personally useful and symbiotically linking personal and social aspects, while also allowing for play.

1. Designing massively multiplayer social systems Rashmi Sinha www.slideshare.net

2. - Second generation social networks - Individuals, groups & popularity - 9 principles for design

3. Second generation social networks Sharing in large networks, versus own site Human crawlers Urban sociality

4. First generation Social Networks (Friendster, LinkedIn…) How it works People connect to each other Six degrees of separation “ Are you my friend” awkwardness 1) I am linked to -> -> to you --->You are linked to her -> -> to her…

5. 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… X

6. Object-based social networks objects allow us to -connect -play... Coffee Tomatoes

7. Model a: Watercooler conversations (around objects e.g., Flickr, Yahoo answers) 1) I share my pics -> -> with you ---> -->You share your pics -> ---> with him How it works People share objects | watch others Connections through objects Social info streams: emergence of popular, interesting items

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

9. Model c: Tag-based social sharing (linked by concepts. e.g., 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

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

11. SlideShare: Presentations as objects of sharing digital representation Social practices around presentations Building community

12. What people share... Cartoons Paintings Humor Love Songs Talk slides Images of women Sermons Standalone lectures Activism Lesson plans Movie reviews Mother’s day cards

13. Individuals, groups and popularity

14. Designing for the individual Usability Findability Interactions and their flow …

15. Designing for the group How people interact Rules for interaction Product of interaction Collaboration, joint decision… Problems with groups

16. Wisdom of crowds on web-based systems Cognitive Diversity Independence Decentralization Easy Aggregation

17. Popularity is popular on sharing sites No multi-level menus! Navigation = Top100 lists, tag clouds

18. Duncan Watts experiments on popularity Two worlds Individual Social Influence – 8 separate worlds Rich get richer effect

19. N Sync vs. lonely girl

21. System designer as trend creator People want a shared reality the watercooler effect did not go away

22. Designing popularity Everything starts as equal People can connect locally Highlight alternative viewpoints System should be flexible

23. 3 models of sociality Google Digg YouTube

24. Google – no social navigation less social engagement sequential conformity reduced

25. Digg as a laser beam Focused in time, tech topics, young male users! Encourages mobs the “digg” is quick, engaging and transparent sequential decisions

26. Youtube - promiscuous popularity Many metrics Different strokes for different folks

27. Popularity on SlideShare Keep it on your desktop Download Remember stuff, tell someone you like their stuff Favorite & tag Share with your friends Email Share on your blog Embed Watch it View Interact with others Comment Goal Metric

28. most viewed most favorited/tagged

29. 9 principles for designing social systems

30. Forget the ipod!

31. Give up control This is messy!

32. 1. Make system personally useful memorable personal snippets (e.g., Del.icio.us & Flickr) Self-expression (e.g., Newsvine) Social status: Digg Don’t count on altruism thrive on people’s selfishness

33. 2. Symbiotic relationship between personal & social Small individual contributions can be collected and mashed-up Simple, guessable URLs for everything Personal snippets > Social stream Pictures > by Events Music > by Playlists

34. 3. Porous boundary between public & private Personal desktop software vs. social websites People will share for the right returns defaults to public, can change to private user has control individual pieces & sets Privacy settings on Flickr

35. 4. 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”

36. 5. Let people feel presence of others Sense that others are out there what paths are worn real time updating

37. 6. and yet, moments of Independence… Choreography: when alone, when part of group prevent mobs not too easy to mimic others incentives for originality allow for alternative viewpoints

38. 7. Add in serendipity navigation not just about popularity access to some popular stuff (keep this fast moving) make “long tail” accessible popularity as jump off point to other ways of exploring personalization & recommendations ad-hoc groups?

39. 8. Add in a dash of experts contest on SlideShare: both judges & popular votes

40. 9. Most of all, allow for play

41. Finally slides at www.slideshare.net/rashmi/social-design-wordcamp/ find me at www.slideshare.net/rashmi