Aaron Wakem
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Social networks are becoming more and more popular everyday. Many are confused about these websites rapid grow and many are scared of them. This report looks at the use of the seven main websites; Facebook, Blogger, Google calendar, Last.FM, Twitter, Flickr, and Delicious. These all have many similarities with others, as well as many differences, but the major aspect of all is the social networking and communicating. The focus of this report is on the experiences of new users, with emphasis on starting up; aliases; locating people; and connecting. With this focus in mind, there are two major questions that need to be considered; firstly, which sites assisted new users, and secondly, which sites proved to be problematic.
The first thing that can easily be noted when it comes to the creation of accounts on these social networks is how far you involve yourself. Do you put your real name, or create an alias that represents you that you and hopefully your friends will remember and can refer to you as. The issue then arises as to what is your usual name available for use or what will you try next in the case of it not working. Almost all the seven sites required a user name and Last.FM and Delicious even recommended an installation of some software to improve your experience with their websites. Both of these installations were straight forward and easy, and only with use did I create an informed decision that whilst Last.FMs in-the-background running meant that I could interact with it if I wanted, but that on the most part it did its job unnoticed. The delicious add-on, on the other hand, became a large annoyance, due to the size and rare use of the buttons.
In regards to names, the nature of Facebook, being meant to locate university and high school friends that you have lost contact with, gives users more inclination to use their correct name, where as Last.FM where the focus is on music and what style your into, gives to more of nickname social networking, as people wish to represent themselves in the genre they love the most. The other five, from my limited experience, have a combination of both those who look to redefine themselves and also those who have no wish to hide themselves. There has always been concerns that people can change their identity and stalk others or worse. This makes aliases problematic and whilst Facebook has primarily peoples’ real names, it could be easy to use an alias.
Finding people was the hardest part of the whole learners experience. Because without physically asking friends if they connected to a site and what their username is, then the user is completely reliant on the sites search engine. Which, due to aliases, makes it hard to find people if they are not using their real names. Another interesting thing I discovered was that due to the shear amount of users on some of these sites, there can sometimes be multiple people with the same name if it’s a common name, e.g. “John Smith”.
Out of all the sites, Blogger by far had the most annoying navigation, and to make matters worse I could not find a searcher for people or blogs, but only by clicking my profiles interests would it do a search. Google calendars has a potentially useful and also annoying way to find people as have to know the persons email address, and as people nowadays have multiple email accounts for standard emails, work emails, and with different webpages requiring gmail, hotmail or yahoo accounts then it becomes hard to keep track of what people would be using for what purposes. In Delicious you must know username, or search for a webpage and add them via a bookmark of theirs, there is no people search. Twitter searches for people using their emails and if they don’t have an account it will send them an email inviting them to join.
Unlike the above examples of finding people, Flickr had both a person and interest scan that worked well. The only issue with the results was aliases, and the issue of multiple people with the same name. Both Facebook and Last.FM had a unique and interesting method that worked exceptionally well on Facebook and just didn’t work at all on Last.FM, it was using an existing email accounts address book to search for people you know on their site. Last.FMs version of this just returned me with errors, compared to their useful group search, which is primarily used for band groups to communicate on all things about the band. I found this one of the most useful tools out of all the sites as bands put their tour dates, album release dates etc. and I can get this information now directly from the bands.
After using all the search facilities on all the sites, I ended up with a grand total of several bands in Last.FM, the comp3505 groups and related people, and one other person; a friend who I met in my first year at uni and had lost contact with. Using Facebook I had found that he had an account and so I added to my friends list. And so after almost 2 years, we caught up again. Both of us still use msn messenger but never at the same time it would seem and we both have been to busy with everything else to keep in contact, so now we communicate via Facebook.
Multiple accounts: some Google, some Yahoo, some usernames, some emails. With so many accounts and passwords it gets to a point where without aid, it still can take a few times to get the right combination to get into a site. Although most internet explorers can record some usernames and passwords, when users login from multiple locations the problem still arises.
For users it is important for the experience to go smoothly for them to continue using the social network. Whilst most users find these sites easy to use, the new users without a support network of friends who already use these sites, need easy ways of starting up, remembering all of the numerous usernames and passwords, and finding friends. While many of these sites offer some of these areas, none prove all areas which are vital to ensuring the retention of new users.
The first thing that can easily be noted when it comes to the creation of accounts on these social networks is how far you involve yourself. Do you put your real name, or create an alias that represents you that you and hopefully your friends will remember and can refer to you as. The issue then arises as to what is your usual name available for use or what will you try next in the case of it not working. Almost all the seven sites required a user name and Last.FM and Delicious even recommended an installation of some software to improve your experience with their websites. Both of these installations were straight forward and easy, and only with use did I create an informed decision that whilst Last.FMs in-the-background running meant that I could interact with it if I wanted, but that on the most part it did its job unnoticed. The delicious add-on, on the other hand, became a large annoyance, due to the size and rare use of the buttons.
In regards to names, the nature of Facebook, being meant to locate university and high school friends that you have lost contact with, gives users more inclination to use their correct name, where as Last.FM where the focus is on music and what style your into, gives to more of nickname social networking, as people wish to represent themselves in the genre they love the most. The other five, from my limited experience, have a combination of both those who look to redefine themselves and also those who have no wish to hide themselves. There has always been concerns that people can change their identity and stalk others or worse. This makes aliases problematic and whilst Facebook has primarily peoples’ real names, it could be easy to use an alias.
Finding people was the hardest part of the whole learners experience. Because without physically asking friends if they connected to a site and what their username is, then the user is completely reliant on the sites search engine. Which, due to aliases, makes it hard to find people if they are not using their real names. Another interesting thing I discovered was that due to the shear amount of users on some of these sites, there can sometimes be multiple people with the same name if it’s a common name, e.g. “John Smith”.
Out of all the sites, Blogger by far had the most annoying navigation, and to make matters worse I could not find a searcher for people or blogs, but only by clicking my profiles interests would it do a search. Google calendars has a potentially useful and also annoying way to find people as have to know the persons email address, and as people nowadays have multiple email accounts for standard emails, work emails, and with different webpages requiring gmail, hotmail or yahoo accounts then it becomes hard to keep track of what people would be using for what purposes. In Delicious you must know username, or search for a webpage and add them via a bookmark of theirs, there is no people search. Twitter searches for people using their emails and if they don’t have an account it will send them an email inviting them to join.
Unlike the above examples of finding people, Flickr had both a person and interest scan that worked well. The only issue with the results was aliases, and the issue of multiple people with the same name. Both Facebook and Last.FM had a unique and interesting method that worked exceptionally well on Facebook and just didn’t work at all on Last.FM, it was using an existing email accounts address book to search for people you know on their site. Last.FMs version of this just returned me with errors, compared to their useful group search, which is primarily used for band groups to communicate on all things about the band. I found this one of the most useful tools out of all the sites as bands put their tour dates, album release dates etc. and I can get this information now directly from the bands.
After using all the search facilities on all the sites, I ended up with a grand total of several bands in Last.FM, the comp3505 groups and related people, and one other person; a friend who I met in my first year at uni and had lost contact with. Using Facebook I had found that he had an account and so I added to my friends list. And so after almost 2 years, we caught up again. Both of us still use msn messenger but never at the same time it would seem and we both have been to busy with everything else to keep in contact, so now we communicate via Facebook.
Multiple accounts: some Google, some Yahoo, some usernames, some emails. With so many accounts and passwords it gets to a point where without aid, it still can take a few times to get the right combination to get into a site. Although most internet explorers can record some usernames and passwords, when users login from multiple locations the problem still arises.
For users it is important for the experience to go smoothly for them to continue using the social network. Whilst most users find these sites easy to use, the new users without a support network of friends who already use these sites, need easy ways of starting up, remembering all of the numerous usernames and passwords, and finding friends. While many of these sites offer some of these areas, none prove all areas which are vital to ensuring the retention of new users.
6 comments:
I couldn't agree more with the poor navigation aspect of Blogger! And yes, multiple email addresses and usernames can become confusing. The article may have benefited from some suggestions on possible solutions/workarounds to this problem and others that you mentioned (such as searching for friends without knowing their alias name/s, etc). All in all it was a well-composed read.
I agree with you as far as the aliases and so forth... saying that.. i am known as "Damian of the dead" but still my name is part of it... nothing worse then people who have an alias you don't know... I know some one who had a face book but I still had to call them because I couldn't decipher what their user name was... so frustrating... people should take that into consideration when signing up...
I, too, rarely used my Delicious buttons, considering the link would never work and i would repeatedly refresh the page only to discover that it's a complete waste of time. That's why the good old Favourites button comes in handy. Simple, and it actually works. You said that blogger was hard to navigate, i wouldn't agree more, but I also found Facebook has the same problem and is overly congested. It's good to see you have discussed something a little different, but still very important aspects none the less(eg alias') Good work.
I like how you have talked more about the users (aliases, finding people) and your experiences in using the programs rather than just a brief of how each one works. A well written and insightful post.
Tyson 40969662
I agree with most of your points in this article. I am interested with you talking about the identity which I also discussed in my reflection. Using a real identity in the web might not be a smart thing to do. With the interface of an application is also very concerning with most net users. Which I agree with you that, using a functioning interface would be nice.
Focus isn't very focused - skims across too many applications. Would've benefited from some external sources to support/inform your reflection, there is enough out there dealing with identity/first time users. Reads more like a review, than a reflection of use. The problem of locating people is an interesting one - especially given the issue of identity - would have been good to go into more detail on this.
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