Social Network Service

Moscow State University by M.V. Lomonosov

The Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics

“Social Network Service”

Kuznetsov Nikita

group 213

Moscow, 2011.

Contents

1. Introduction 3

2. Social network as a social structure 3

3. History of social network sites 4

4. Conception of modern social network service 5

5. Business capabilities with the use of social networks 5

6. Emerging trends is social networking 7

7. Real social networks 9

8. Reasons for such a popularity 10

9. Risks for users 12

10. Conclusion 14

11. References 15

1. Introduction

According to Participatory Marketing Network’s data 99 percent of respondents report having an active profile on at least one social networking site. Although it might be wrong value the research gives right insight how popular social networks became for such a small period of time. The rapid growth of social networking that has been observed over the last years is indicative of its entry into mainstream culture and its integration into the daily life. I’m going to find out the reasons of it’s popularity, how does it technically work and different aspects of influence on ordinary users and the entire world.

2. Social network as a social structure

Only six handshakes separates any man on the world from Aboriginals in Australia, from acquaintance with the Queen of England, Bill Gates, or Madonna. This is so-called small-world effect or the theory of six handshakes. The social network allows to observe this phenomenon in practice. 

A social network is a social structure made up of individuals (or organizations) called "nodes", which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.

Social network analysis views social relationships in terms of network theory consisting of nodes and ties (also called edges, links, or connections). Nodes are the individual actors within the networks, and ties are the relationships between the actors. The resulting graph-based structures are often very complex. There can be many kinds of ties between the nodes. Research in a number of academic fields has shown that social networks operate on many levels, from families up to the level of nations, and play a critical role in determining the way problems are solved, organizations are run, and the degree to which individuals succeed in achieving their goals.

In its simplest form, a social network is a map of specified ties, such as friendship, between the nodes being studied. The nodes to which an individual is thus connected are the social contacts of that individual. The network can also be used to measure social capital – the value that an individual gets from the social network. These concepts are often displayed in a social network diagram, where nodes are the points and ties are the lines.

For the analysis of social networks number of quantitative and qualitative terms are used, such as the degree of centralization, the degree of clustering, connectivity and others. One of the most famous examples of the analysis was conducted in 1970 the American sociologist Mark Granovetter. He showed that weak ties are much more effective than strong ones for many social problems, such as job search, for example. This effect he called "the power of weak ties." For efficiency and sustainability of social networking number of functional roles of its participants, such as information brokers, experts and others, is important.

After the advent of the Internet a lot of social network sites appeared that represent cited abstract model in virtual reality.

3. History of social network sites

T o talk about historical aspect another definition of SN should be given:

Social network is a web-based service that allows individuals to

1. construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system

2. articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection

3. view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system

According to the definition above, the first recognizable social network site launched in 1997. SixDegrees.com allowed users to create profiles, list their friends and, beginning in 1998, surf the Friends lists. Each of these features existed in some form before SixDegrees, of course. Profiles existed on most major dating sites and many community sites. AIM and ICQ buddy lists supported lists of Friends, although those Friends were not visible to others. Classmates.com allowed people to affiliate with their high school or college mates and surf the network for others who were also affiliated, but users could not create profiles or list Friends until years later. Six Degrees was the first to combine these features.

Next sites had more and more abilities, they aren’t just social networks anymore. Today, it is estimated that there are now over 200 active sites using a wide variety of social networking models. Modern description would be given below.

4. Modern conception of social network service

At the most basic level social networking sites are sites which allow users to set up online profiles or personal homepages, and develop an online social network. The profile page functions as the user’s own webpage includes profile information ranging from their date of birth, gender, religion, politics and hometown, to their favorite films, books quotes and

what they like doing in their spare time. In addition to profile information, users can design

the appearance of their page, and add content such as photos, video clips and music files.

Users are able to build a network of connections that they can display as a list of friends.

These friends may be offline actual friends or acquaintances, or people they only know or

have met online, and with whom they have no other link. It is important to note that the term

‘friend’, as used on a social networking site, is different from the traditional meaning given to

the term in the offline world. In this report the term will be used as it is used on a social

networking site: anyone who has invited, or been invited by, another user, to be their ‘friend’.

Nowadays Social Network is a great database, it stores information about people, their connections, events, groups, organizations, it’s an enormous repository of music, photo and video content. It’s like Internet inside Internet and the internal one is never far from the news. So it turned to be excellent platform for business.

5. Business abilities with the use of social networks

• Advertising

The benefit is that this is a very cheap way of reaching a potentially very large audience. Media coverage of social networking sites being used for commercial reasons tends to focus on large-scale operations and well-known brands. The advantages of using social networking sites for these organisations are numerous, although there are potential risks as well.

The huge numbers involved in social networking, and the dominance of the traditionally hard-to-reach cohort of 18 - 24 year olds, raise companies’ interest in marketing to social networkers. The enormous amount of information that sites hold about their users enables marketers to target their message to specific demographics or interest groups in a much more precise way than is possible through search engines or traditional advertising.

There are three major classifications of Social Network Advertising:

Direct Advertising that is based on network of friends - This can be the most effective format but also causes the most controversy. An example is the Facebook beacon project. Based on an action of an user’s friend Bob, the user might see a message in his news feed saying 'Bob has just bought a 'RadioHead CD from MusicWorld'. This can be an extremely effective mode as often people make decisions to purchase something or do something based on their close group of friends. However, there is also a lot of controversy surrounding this as it can be considered exploiting the personal relationships you have with your friends and also raises privacy concerns.

Direct Advertising placed on social networking site - This is a more traditional form of web advertising that is minimally, like midget like, effective. Just like you see banner ads on many other sites, this is a similar concept, except on a social networking site. You can see these - for example - as a brick in the top right of MySpace pages or as a banner on the left of Facebook profiles and so on. There are two differences however - one is that these social networks can take advantage of demographic data on your profile and hence target the ad directly to you. Secondly, these types of ads can also be placed by individual developers on their application pages through ad networks such as SponsorPay, AdParlor or Offerpal. They have access to the same data and can generate income for application developers giving them further motivation to create apps and giving advertisers a more engaging way to reach out to these social networking users.

Indirect Advertising by creating 'groups' or 'pages' - This is an innovative marketing technique in which a company will create a 'page' or 'group' that users can choose to join. They will use this to build up 'subscribers' or 'fans' and use this to market a contest, a new product, or simply just to increase brand awareness. These groups can quickly grow in numbers of subscribers which can become a very effective marketing tool.

• Getting feedback

Asking for feedback from people on social media networks can be one of the best things that can be done to help your internet business grow and find more ideas to make it even better.

Social media sites let business interact directly with the people who might be your potential customers or who already are your customers in a meaningful way. If it has been taken time to develop good relationships with friends, followers, fans, and customers on social networking sites, they will be happy to help you if they would be asked. It may be a good response any time a question is asked. The feedback can be very helpful in determining the future of business and internet marketing strategies, but unsolicited feedback can be much more beneficial. Sometimes customers and peers send both positive and negative business feedback without even asking for it. Unsolicited feedback is great for two reasons. First, it’s extremely honest. Customers are sharing their feedback because they truly have something to say, not because they were asked. Second, customers might surprise with the ideas and advice they present. They might come up with things that haven’t been thought and maybe never would have. And those ideas can help to evolve products, services, and overall business in a way that suits the wants and needs of customers. And, of course, being in touch with customers make them closer to company.

• Screening employees

As social networking becomes increasingly widespread, more employers are using these sites to screen potential employees. "Social networking is a great way to make connections with potential job opportunities in 2010 and promote your personal brand across the Internet," said Farhan Yasin, president of CareerBuilder EMEA. 

More than half (53%) of employers reported in a recent CareerBuildere.co.uk survey that they use social networking sites to research job candidates. Another 12 percent plan to start using social networking sites for screening. Among employers who conduct online background checks of job candidates, 43 percent use search engines, 12 percent use Facebook and 12 percent use LinkedIn. Three percent search blogs and 4 percent follow candidates on Twitter.

It’s necessary to be said about quality of future employees. The best characteristic for this is list of top reasons why employers disregarded candidates after screening online:

• Candidate lied about qualifications – 38%

• Candidate showed poor communication skills – 31%

• Candidate made discriminatory comments – 13%

• Candidate posted content about them drinking or using drugs – 10%

• Candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information –9%

• Candidate bad-mouthed their previous employer, co-workers or clients – 9 %

• Candidate shared confidential information from previous employer – 8%

Although the method has strong disadvantages it can be regarded as the strongest one.

6. Emerging trends in social networking

As the increase in popularity of social networking is on a constant rise, new uses for the technology are constantly being observed. Social networks start to be more interoperability between themselves led by technologies such as OpenID and OpenSocial.

At the forefront of emerging trends in social networking sites is the concept of "real-time web" and "location based." Real time allows users to contribute content, which is then broadcasted as it is being uploaded - the concept is analogous to live radio and television broadcasts. Twitter set the trend for "real time" services, where users can broadcast to the world what they are doing, or what is on their minds within a 140 character limit. Facebook followed suit with their "Live Feed" where users' activities are streamed as soon as it happens.While Twitter focuses on words, Clixtr, another real time service, focuses on group photo sharing where users can update their photo streams with photos while at an event. Friends and nearby users can contribute their own photos and comments to that event stream, thus contributing to the "real time" aspect of broadcasting photos and comments as it is being uploaded. In the location based social networking space, Foursquare gained popularity as it allowed for users to "check-in" to places that they are frequenting at that moment. Gowalla is another such service which functions in much the same way that Foursquare does, leveraging the GPS in phones to create a location-based user experience. Clixtr, though in the real time space, is also a location based social networking site since events created by users are automatically geotagged, and users can view events occurring nearby through the Clixtr iPhone app. Recently, Yelp announced its entrance into the location based social networking space through check-ins with their mobile app; whether or not this becomes detrimental to Foursquare or Gowalla is yet to be seen as it is still considered a new space in the internet technology industry.