Special Interest Social Networks

1. Special Interest Social Networks Brenda F. Bell ACGNJ Main Meeting November 4, 2011

2. History of Online Social Networks

3. Earliest Online Social Networks • BBS’s • Routed discussion groups (e.g., Fido.Net) • Online Services • AoL, Prodigy, CompuServe, GEnie • Usenet Newsgroups (e.g., AlterNet) • Internet Mailing Lists (e.g., LISTSERV) • Online chat (e.g. AIM, IRC)

4. The Second Era: Multi-Mode Sharing • Added photographs, hyperlinks, chat to mailing lists and forums • Added Web interfaces • Community members may choose to establish/include interactions from unrelated services (i.e., mailing list and related IRC room) • Examples: eGroups (later Yahoo Groups)

5. Modern Social Networking • Multi-mode: messages, photos, videos, blogs, chat • Private messaging as well as broadcasting • Status and/or mood updates • Default setting is “share everything” • Examples: MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+

6. Private and Special Interest social networks in the post-Facebook world Going private

7. Why Go Private/Special-Interest? • Common interest community • Special or “offbeat” interests • Medical, political, professional, fannish • Concentration of information • Important updates don’t get lost in a stream of chatter • Hazards of sharing too widely • Discrimination • Comingling of possibly-conflicting interests • Work, family, hobbies, religion • Facebook’s changing privacy standards

8. Advantages of Special-Interest Networks • [Administrative] Targeted audience • Similar interests, issues, solutions • More effective monetization • [Administrative] More granular control • Membership levels (free, basic, full-service) • Tighter content, mode/component control • Add novel and specialty interaction types • Less chance of unwanted disclosure • Protected demographics • Alternative lifestyles

9. Social Networking Platforms

10. Basic Platforms (These do not provide forums or allow inline integration of multiple media types) • Yahoo Groups • Share e-mail, photos, links, calendar, profiles • Other Yahoo properties (Flickr) have group-limited sharing available • Google Groups • Share e-mail, MIME attachments, calendars • Other Google properties (Picasa, GoogleDocs, YouTube) extend and customize group-sharing options

11. Streaming Media Platforms • Ustream • For live and recorded streaming video • Live videos include option of simultaneous text chat • Video stream can be embedded in other sites • BlogTalkRadio • Live and recorded audio stream, listener phone-in numbers, simultaneous text chat • Sometimes used as an adjunct to an existing community

12. Building Networks From Scratch • Drupal • Open Source content management system • Used to run communities, blogs, forums, etc. • Examples: dLife, dLife Community • Ruby on Rails • Open Source development framework • Used for content management systems and communities • Examples: Diabetic Connect, Geni, Ravelry, Justin.TV

13. Advanced Social Networking Platforms • Ning • Most-widely used social networking platform • Supports user profiles and status updates, blogs, photo/video/event sharing, discussion forums, featured content, integrated news content, integrated chat, private messaging • User-optional Facebook, Twitter integration • Grouply • Similar to Ning, but includes free networks • Examples: New York Renaissance Faire

14. Ning Networks • TuDiabetes • Diabetic Rockstar • WEGOHealth • The Twilight Saga • Examples in other spaces:http://about.ning.com/spotlight/ • More about Ning: http://about.ning.com/product/

15. Other Special Interest Social Networks • Livestrong • Health, diet, and fitness tracking • Site developed using DemandMedia tools designed for brand and content management • Map My Fitness • Fitness-specific mapping and location sharing • Fitness tracking and training • Site developed using a number of standard Web tools, including MySQL and PHP

16. Carving out your own special-interest social space Going Beyond A Single Network

17. Multi-Platform Communities Some users are active in multiple venues • Monetized own-domain or mainstream-hosted blogs (Blogger, WordPress) • Special-interest groups and social networks for outreach and support • YouTube or Vimeo for videos and vlogs • Twitter for blogpost broadcasting and real-time chat • BlogTalkRadio and other podcasting platforms • Flickr or Picasa for cross-network photo sharing • Facebook and LinkedIn for general outreach

18. Keeping it Together • Keep identical or similar usernames across all communities for your interest • Don’t use your real name if you want to limit who sees your special-interest activity • Create an interest-based username from • Your blog’s name • Your site’s name or domain name • Your interest • Cross-broadcast new content to all of your communities for that interest

19. Keeping it Separate • Use separate usernames and identities for your professional, family, and hobbyist activities • Exceptions: • If your special-interest is career-related, use your professional identity • If you represent your special-interest “in real life”, you may not be able to separate it from your family and/or professional identities • Be careful what you post under which identity • If you’re caught out, admit it.

20. Summary

21. Special Interest social networks • Cater to targeted or limited interest groups • Combine a variety of social and information services • Can be developed using one or more software platforms • Are designed for member-to-member interaction

22. They provide • Information andsharing based on common interests • Greater user-controlled privacy than Facebook • Specialty social applications • Targeted opportunities for monetization