Facebook Infographic

… exploring the impact of Facebook.

by Jean-Jacques Parys

History of Online Social Networking

„The first online social network, SixDegrees.com, was established in 1997 (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). […]. The concept that all things are within „six degrees of separation“ was behind this innovative idea. The site attracted many users. A number of sites similar to SixDegrees.com were introduced to the public in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including LiveJournal, Asian Avenue, BlackPlanet, and LunaStorm. […]

MySpace was launchen 2003 by the Company eUniverse. Its user base grew exponentially within just a couple of years, transforming the Web site into the most popular online social networking community in the United States. […]. By 2006 MySpace had more than 20 million users. It was aquired by News Corporation for US$580 million in July 2005 (Rosebush, 2005).

Facebook, another popular social networking Website, was founded by a former Harvard student who used it as a tool to reconnect with former classmates. It was launched in February 2004 (Yadav, 2006). […]. Initially, to join the network, a person was required to have an active college e-mail address. In 2006, the network extended to high schools students and some larger companies. Now, anyone age 13 or older can join the network.

LinkedIn is a professionally oriented social networking site. It was founded in 2003 by Reid Hoffmann and Konstantin Guericke. […] LinkedIn tries to help people to connect with others who might help their careers […].

Other popular social networking sites include Furl, Spurl.net, Shadow, Scuttle, Yahoo! My Web 2.0, Ma.gnolia, Digg, StumbleUpon, and reddit.“

Baker, Kim and Butler, Iryna (2009): Social Networks. History of Social Networking. In: Deans, P. Candace (Hrsg.), Social Software and Web 2.0 Technology Trends. New York, Information Science Reference: 187-188.

Begriff – What is Social Network

„A social network is a grouping of personal relationships that each of us establishes. As opposed to other types of networks, the value of a social network is not in the nodes of the network, which in this case are people, but in the relationships themselves. Social networking, therefore, is the act of building one’s social network.“

Quelle: Deans, P. Candace (2009): Social Software and Web 2.0 Technology Trends. Glossary. New York, Information Science Reference: 150.

Begriff – What is Collaboration

„Collaboration is about formalizing the group establishment through a social network into a team to work toward a common goal.“

Quelle: Burkhardt, Peter (2009): Social Software Trends in Business: Introduction. In: Deans, P. Candace (Hrsg.), Social Software and Web 2.0 Technology Trends. New York, Information Science Reference: 15.

Begriff – What is Social Networking

„Social Networking is about the relationships between people. It is about bringing people and knowledge together and better leveraging what you know about who you know.“

Quelle: Burkhardt, Peter (2009): Social Software Trends in Business: Introduction. In: Deans, P. Candace (Hrsg.), Social Software and Web 2.0 Technology Trends. New York, Information Science Reference: 15.

Kultur-Kommunikation und Web 2.0

„Frank Tentler weist zu Recht immer wieder drauf hin: Kulturinstitutionen haben den Vorteil, dass es an Inhalten und Geschichten nicht mangelt. Hier ein paar Vorschläge wie diese Inhalte Web 2.0 spezifisch aufbereitet werden können:
1. Dokumentation: Ein Blick hinter die Kulissen. Web 2.0 eignet sich hervorragend, um Einblicke in die Museumsarbeit zu gewähren: Z.B.: Wie sieht der Alltag eines Restaurators aus oder Aufbauarbeiten einer Ausstellung.
2. Persönlicher Kontakt mit Künstlern und Personal: Durch soziale Medien ist es relativ einfach Kontaktfenster zwischen Künstlern, Institutionspersonal und Publikum zu schaffen.
3. Subjektive Erzählperspektive I (non-Fiction): Eine Person aus dem Haus berichtet regelmässig aus dem Alltag. Z.B.: der Museumsdirektor oder der Kurator.
4. Subjektive Erzählperspektive II (Fiction): Man könnte natürlich auch eine fiktive Persona über die jeweilige Institution erzählen lassen. Z.B. Geschichten aus dem Museumsalltag aus der Sicht einer Aufsichtsperson. […]
5. Crowdsourcing: Projekte in denen das Publikum für das Museum oder gemeinsam mit dem Museum Inhalte generiert. […]
6. Blick ins Archiv: Inhalte, die sonst nicht zugänglich sind, können einem breiten Publikum zugänglich gemacht werden.“

Quelle: http://blog.hslu.ch/audienceplus/2010/05/19/kultur-kommunikation-im-kontext-web-2-0-workshop-iii-2/
Zugriff: 25.08.2010

Applying Social Software – for Businesses

„It is a good first step to identify that there is value in using social software to support daily interactions and relationships between individuals working at or with a business. However, […] not all existing social networking applications that are available on the Internet are appropriate for use in a business environment. […]

Businesses value social software for its ability to facilitate relationships that benefit the needs of the business. […]

[…] businesses need to examine the social software and Web sites in the public domain, understand why they are popular and what functions they offer that could be useful to the business, and then implement those functions in areas of their business that will provide the greatest benefit. […]

Most importantly, businesses need to understand that all of the individual added value social software brings to the table roll up under one umbrella. The social software trend is about empowering people. Through this empowerment, a business achieves the maximum potential from social software. Freeing people from traditional business control of information and organization and giving them tools that they need to make their voices, thoughts, and ideas heard while transending boundaries is the value that social software brings to the table.“

Quelle: Burkhardt, Peter (2009): Social Software Trends in Business: Introduction. In: Deans, P. Candace (Hrsg.), Social Software and Web 2.0 Technology Trends. New York, Information Science Reference: 9-11.

The Problem with Measuring the Benefits of Social Media

„While the benefits are undeniable, many will struggle with measuring those benefits. […]

The problem with measuring the value of social software and social networking is the extreme difficulty of putting an objective measure on a subjective topic. It is just not possible to put a direct measurement on human elements, like relationships or tacit knowledge. […]

Social networking is about personal relationships and personal relationships are about people. In order to make the investment in social software, a company has to value their employees, partners, and customers and be ready to make an investment in people.“

Quelle: Burkhardt, Peter (2009): Social Software Trends in Business: Introduction. In: Deans, P. Candace (Hrsg.), Social Software and Web 2.0 Technology Trends. New York, Information Science Reference: 8-9.

Begriff – What is Social Networking

„[…] social networking is a sociology concept that has evolved from sociology studies in the late 1800s and continues to mature even today. […]

A social network is a grouping of personal relationships that each of us establishes. As opposed to other types of networks, the value of social network is not in the nodes on the network, which in this case are people, but are in the relationships themselves. Social networking, therefore, is the act of building one’s social network. People rely heavily on this relationships to help them with everyday tasks, such as making decisions, forming opinions, and/or finding information: […].“

Quelle: Burkhardt, Peter (209): Social Software Trends in Business: Introduction. In: Deans, P. Candace (Hrsg.), Social Software and Web 2.0 Technology Trends. New York, Information Science Reference: 3.