Reflection on Social Software and Groups

Kim Lerchbacher 40761679

Introduction

With the rise of web 2.0 and social software in recent years, we are seeing new ways of using the Internet. Millions of users are engaging in social software. As Shirky states, we have reached the stage where, in some cases, all members of a social group have access to the Internet [6]. This opens up a myriad of possibilities for online group interaction, and social software is being used in new and innovative ways to develop social groups and enhance their functionality.

Background

Over the past weeks I have been using and investigating social software. The following five websites are in current, popular use worldwide and will form the basis of this reflection.

Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking service which allows users to save and tag personal and public bookmarks, and discover new sites based on tags on popularity.

Last.fm, "the social music revolution", uses a plugin installed on a user’s computer to track which songs are played. Data is compiled to provide statistics and recommendations. The site also features information on music and artists and offers a range of tools to support social interaction and group building.

Flickr is a platform for sharing photographs and other user-created images. It supports folksonomic tagging, commenting and groups.

Twitter is a social networking service based on users posting brief updates in less than 140 characters.

Facebook is a social networking site which allows users to define friendships and join networks based on real life information such as school and location. Facebook offers photo sharing and discussion tools, and provides a platform for user created social applications.

Focus

The following reflection examines these social software systems in light of my personal experience, evaluation and research. I will be outlining my observations on the social functionality of the systems and how this affects the formation of groups within them.

Del.icio.us

With search engine results based on various metrics that can be skewed by marketing and other factors, I found Del.icio.us to be an effective way of locating valuable resources that might get hidden amongst the masses of sites that form the Internet. Search engines are great for finding something specific, but personally I enjoy perusing new things on the Internet that I didn't know existed. Del.icio.us fills this gap by providing a database of current sites which other people have found worthy of attention and thus, I might also find useful.

The primary purpose of the site is to allow users to collect and tag websites. The social aspect of Del.icio.us is limited and largely impersonal. Adding a user as a friend simply shows their bookmarks on your "network" page, essentially bookmarking a set of bookmarks. While the site does support a community between all users, there is no direct interaction between specific users.

The power of Del.icio.us lies simply in users bookmarking and tagging sites, creating an index of the Internet based on popularity and content. Users do not have avatars or personal details listed publicly, only a username. Any kind of identity must be deduced from a user's bookmarks, tags, notes and friends. All users are counted equally, and bookmarks make it onto the front page based on their popularity alone.

By Webb's [8] attributes of successful social software, Del.icio.us has minimal identity (sufficient to support basic reputation association by users), limited presence and relationships, and no conversations, groups or additional reputation mechanisms. By using additional tools, these can be pushed to external mediums e.g. many sites offer commenting services, which can allow conversation with other users. The core site is primarily about sharing. In [6], Shirky provides examples of group downfalls, which largely revolve around the issues of free speech. The absence of conversations and sub-groups has allowed Del.icio.us to become and sustain a cooperative group without any moderation (which would be required if these aspects were implemented).

It will be interesting to see if Del.icio.us can remain a "pure" system, without being devalued by spam, advertising, or websites falsely boosting their numbers.

Last.fm

Similarly to Del.icio.us, Last.fm appears to focus on collecting data from users to populate a database of music, artists, listeners, etc. Individual users can contribute to the community and gain value from the system without having friends on the site. As repeatedly noted, the recommendations, neighbours, automatic artist/track information retrieval, etc. are all valuable to many people, yet only require installing the scrobbler and listening to music as per usual.

The site features journals/articles, and forums/discussion groups for both individual users and groups, reducing the need for users to migrate to other sites for more general textual communication. The group tools allow users to manually form social groups based on musical taste. As in traditional discussion group software, the group creator becomes the leader and holds administrative privileges. The group pages follow a similar format to the main information sections of the site, allowing more intimate groups to form and develop their own area on the site.

Artist and music information is in the form of a highly structured wiki. Users are free to contribute to the biography, events, videos and pictures for each artist. Users can comment on artists, albums, videos, pictures, events, you name it. A high level of connectivity between information and users is developed by linking artists/albums/events from user and group pages, and vice versa.

Being in a real-life community does not necessarily mean seeing other people everywhere you go. Browsing Last.fm feels like exploring an environment built by the people that live in it. On some pages you'll find statistics and content (only traces of the inhabitants), and on others will be a strong user presence, showing thoughts and identities.

One common identity-building feature which is noticeably absent from Last.fm is the ability to customise the appearance of user profiles. Customisation is an important part of sites such as Myspace, where users can essentially "dress" their personal area on the site to support their identity. This creates a stronger sense of ownership and personal connection to the site, much like decorating a bedroom or dressing to create an impression. Last.fm takes a divergent approach by creating a music identity from track listings and thumbnails of recently listened to albums. As a result the site is able to retain a clean and consistent presentation and maintain ease of use across the site. This attracts a different user base to sites that employ the customisation technique, and changes the overall social experience.

Despite its plethora of social tools, I believe that Last.fm's strongest point will always be the indirect connection between users created by scrobbling; the presence of the entire community felt through statistics and recommendations. Other tools require significantly more time and energy to use. While some people may be inclined to talk about music, it will always be, first and foremost, for listening to.

Last.fm is a music site, with social features, in comparison to Myspace, a social site with music features. It is logical that Last.fm will attract only those interested in music, while Myspace can be used by anyone. Naturally, one can expect that Last.fm will never reach the kind of popularity that a general social site can attract. High usage may not necessarily mean an improved user experience for all, but it certainly means more money.

Interestingly, despite the rise of Last.fm and Myspace, mp3 blogs still seem to be persisting despite their writer-centric focus and limited user contribution.

Flickr

Flickr follows a similar vein to del.icio.us and last.fm, except that this time it is photos being collected and tagged. As Last.fm uses statistics to generate interesting ways to find music, Flickr generates interesting ways to "explore" public photos. Users are able to describe and tag photos, provide data on location and camera, and organise their photos into sets. Social tools on the site include groups (containing discussion boards and image pools), relationships, testimonials on users, and comments and notes on photos. I found notes (comments attached to a specific area of a photo) to be an innovative communication tool appropriate to the content. Users are also able to tag photos that do not belong to them.

The idea of exploration is reinforced in the interface design. Relevant thumbnails, tags and other information are displayed/linked making it very easy to wander around the site and become immersed in the images.

I had previously used photobucket as an image hosting service, which is aimed at image and video hosting primarily for blogs. I have found Flickr community to be more closely aligned with my attitudes and interests. The differences in design and functionality of the sites reflect the disparate audiences. Photobucket uses the term "find stuff", displays images on the front page based on popularity and features large flashing ads on every page. Flickr uses "explore", promotes photos based on "interestingness", has minimal content related ads and a clean visual design akin to an art gallery. Comparing the sites on alexa.com [1] indicates that photobucket is the more popular choice. My investigation of both products leads me to believe that flickr nurtures community moreso than photobucket. As stated by Schroeder [4], "While Photobucket focuses on hosting the images, Flickr focuses on sharing them".

Consistent with my experiences on other image/art sites, comments on photos are fairly infrequent, typically a very low percentage of the total views. Photos which display a high level of quality or appeal are more likely to recieve comments from strangers, and such photos which are highlighted on the Explore page even more so. Users are able to create invite-only groups, to restrict membership based on relationship or quality. The latter appears to be quite common. Various pools exist composed of high quality photos gathered by posting exclusive invitations on specific photos. As such, a user can builds a reputation based on the responses of other users. This in turn incites competition, which I have found to be a necessity in any group of creatives. It encourages improvement, builds respect and increases perceived value in being a member of a group. It can prevent continued use from becoming stale.

The intended use of Flickr is sharing photos, which immediately brings to mind sharing personal photos amongst family and real life friends. These real-life social groups are reproduced online as an enhancement to real life socialisation, but rely on Internet connectivity and computer literacy of family and friends. It is also likely that personal photos are made private or restricted, and this may affect the public appearance of group activity on Flickr.

The Explore section of Flickr seems to focus on art photographers. Coupling this exposure with the fact that it is generally inappropriate for strangers to comment on personal photos, the art community has a much stronger opportunity to flourish than that of personal photo sharers. That said, it is possible for both uses to continue simultaneously as Flickr provides different contact classifications and allows photos to be made available to users of specific classifications. While art photography may remain at the fore, people can continue to share private photos discretely behind the scenes.

While photos may have been Flickr's focus, groups of non-photographic artisans have also developed around the collaborative aspect of photo pools e.g. Illustration Friday, Crafting 365. Supporting alternative use, Flickr provides the means to classify and search images as "photos" or "other". Interesting social activities with participants from across community include what's in your bag and memory maps.

Twitter

As the simplest of the assessed tools, I found twitter the easiest to use regularly. Taking only 30 seconds to read through updates and 30 seconds to post an update, I felt that I was getting my time's-worth of social connectivity.

One aspect of twitter which I found particularly reassuring was the use of the term "follow" rather than "friend". I am constantly concerned by use of "friend" on social websites as I am unsure whether adding a friend might be overstepping social bounds, or implying some kind of obligation to interact. "Following" a user on twitter holds no implications about relationships or previous and future interactions. Thus I am quite happy to follow whichever random user takes my fancy, regardless of whether or not they are following me.

Originally, Twitter was intended to enhance real-life social interaction, provide awareness of friend's activities and help organise physical events. Initially I began using it in this way, to attempt some kind of interaction with other COMP3505 students. It did increase my feeling of connectedness considering that previously I'd had essentially no connection at all. Eventually this began to feel a little pointless so I took to following any users with updates on topics of interest to me. Similarly, other users are moving away from the original intended use. Twitter can be used for marketing, news, updates on products and services, the list goes on [3]. I has been used to coordinate a protest [7], and for marriage proposals [5].

Twitter's simplicity and flexibility allows these different uses to be supported simultaneously. Users can utilize twitter as best suits their needs, contrasting with sites which have a more rigid functionality which is either useful to you or not. Diverse groups will be formed as a result, and will likely continue to morph as different uses of twitter are uncovered and drift in and out of vogue.

Facebook

As mentioned in previous reflections, Facebook is inherently social. Other social software examined all have a specific focus which limits their user base. Del.icio.us is for bookmarks, Last.fm is for music and Flickr is for photos. Facebook however, is for connecting people. The most basic functionality is defining relationships, and from there, interacting with friends in whatever ways are made available by application developers. I imagine that this is a factor of Facebook's initial popularity and success. Practically everyone knows people, and therefore everyone has a potential use for Facebook.

Facebook is the only website which I had used prior to this course. It seems to serve as an accompaniment to real life rather than a virtual community. Of all the social sites I have used, my activities on Facebook are most closely aligned with my real world social life. I use Facebook to keep track of what the people I know are doing, browse photos of social activites, and use applications to interact with real life friends. Statistics show similar activities from other Facebook users [2].



I have come to view Facebook as something of a playground for grown-up children. Not to make light of the discussion boards and other more conventional tools available (which I personally do not use), but the bizarre array of small applications have been the most socially beneficial aspect of the website.

Facebook has provided a means to maintain relationships where real life meetings are difficult to organise and phone calls would be 90% awkward silence. Throwing a sheep at someone may seem childish and only requires 3 mouse clicks, but it says that you still care and want to maintain contact. I have been able to maintain high school friendships and keep in contact with my sister in Tasmania by using facebook applications in such seemingly trivial (and even slightly annoying ways). I have also found facebook to be particularly useful for birthdays. Even if I remember dates, I'm often too caught up in other business to realise when they pass.

Organising events with friends was previously done via email which resulted in various conversation break-downs e.g. forgetting to reply to everyone or sending to old email addresses. Creating a private group and event on Facebook, we were able to coordinate our efforts with greater ease. As well as solving the previous problems, entire discussions were immediately visible and it became easier to share links to information on transport options. However the novelty of the group for general communication wore off very quickly as there was simply nothing to be said to a bunch of people I saw once or twice a year.

One issue which I have encountered is the implication of Facebook friendship. A month ago, I was offered friendship by a friend of a friend whom I had no recollection of. After several days of deliberation I accepted the friendship to avoid being rude. I have since had no real interaction with this person and still do not know who they are, but have received about 50 forwarded emails and an invitation to play badminton from them. I have no intention of responding to these emails. This kind of situation is the product of a label ("friend") which has no well defined meaning. To me, a friend on Facebook is someone that sits on my friends list. To my new forward-happy associate, it means something else entirely. This is not helped by differing uses of the word "friend" on other social websites.

Conclusion

These examples of social software all have specific functions (although Facebook and Twitter have a little more flexibility) and people must recognise value and worth in the software before investing time and energy in using it. As such, the kind of people which choose to use the software will be influenced by initial perceptions of the software. In turn the groups and networks which are formed will depend on the interactions supported and shaped by the software and the nature of the users.

It is evident that users are developing new ways to use the tools available. In the case of Twitter and Flickr we are witnessing some divergence from the original intended use (most notably in Twitter), while Facebook supports highly interactive user generated content for more technically skilled users. In all cases, external tools are continually emerging which can be used to build another level of social interaction, developing even more complexity in the affect of software on groups.

According to alexa.com [1] Del.icio.us use has been steadily declining for the past year and Flickr use no longer appears to be increasing. While Twitter, Last.fm and Facebook are still on the rise, the question begs to be asked; how long will people continue to use these social tools? Will they eventually be passed off as novelty items and fade into disuse, or could they ever reach the value and persistence of search engines and email?

References

[1] Alexa Internet Inc, "Alexa the Web Information Company," 2008. http://www.alexa.com/.

[2] M. Freiert, "14 million people interacted with Facebook Applications in August," 14 September 2007. http://blog.compete.com/2007/09/14/facebook-activity-breakdown-application/.

[3] Maki, "17 Ways You Can Use Twitter: A Guide for Beginners, Marketers and Business Owners," 15 January, 2008. http://www.doshdosh.com/ways-you-can-use-twitter/.

[4] S. Schroeder, "Photobucket Gets MySpaced - Time to Switch to Flickr?," 27 May, 2007. http://mashable.com/2007/05/07/photobucket-myspaced/.

[5] S. Schroeder, "Did We Just Witness a Twitter Marriage Proposal?," 21 March, 2008. http://mashable.com/2008/03/21/max-emily-twitter-proposal/.

[6] C. Shirky, "A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy," 1 July, 2003. http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html.

[7] S. L. Stirland, "S.F. Activists Use Twitter, Pirate Radio to Manage Anti-War Protesters," 19 March, 2008. http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/03/san-francisco-a.html.

[8] M. Webb, "On Social Software Consultancy," 28 April, 2004. http://interconnected.org/home/2004/04/28/on_social_software.