Social Networking, Its The New Black.

Social Networking, it’s The New Black.

Welcome to the internet. We require your personal details. Please deposit your email, phone number, photos, hobbies, interests, favourite movies, music tastes and journals. The internet is no longer a place for anonymity, every person you’ve ever emailed wants to be your friend. Do tell us what music you’re currently listening to. Also, if you’re taking your dog to the vet, make sure you tell us. We want to know. We want all your details. All your details are belong to us.

Social networking is the new thing to do. It’s the new black. Everyone is doing it; everyone’s information is out there. But how safe or secure is that information? How much is really accessible? What can be done with it?

I will also be addressing which systems worked well, what didn’t, why they didn’t and what the general outcome of the system was. I will be reviewing the main social networking utilities I have come into contact with. These utilities are Facebook, del.icio.us, blogger, last.fm and flickr.

Reviews.

Facebook.
The ultimate stalking utility.

Facebook began in February 2004, and I signed up for it around six months ago prior to undertaking COMP3505. Boasting 67 million current users worldwide, its popularity has exploded in the last few years with huge influxes of members, urged to join by other members. Facebook also has 14 million photos uploaded daily, making it the most popular website for uploading photos (1).

Facebook is obviously popular. Popular enough to have three times the Australian population signed up. Popularity has its upsides, all your friends are there, and that’s the point, right? Well that also means that Facebook also has a list of 67 million names, email address and more than likely a list of hobbies, interests and a photo of each member.

I think that Facebook is fairly cool; it’s interesting to find out who knows who through the viewing of mutual friends. At first it can be difficult to figure out; it took me a month to figure out how to get to the ‘home’ menu. It also has separate menus for photos, events, groups and the applications you have added. It is well segmented, and if you’re looking for an in-depth social networking utility, Facebook is a good one to try out.

On the flipside, Facebook has ‘applications’, for example a user can add “PetrolHead”, a motorcar racing simulation where you can ‘race’ your friends and earn points. The applications side of Facebook is by far the worst use of the program possible. I hate it. Every person on Facebook has that one friend who wants to add you to every single application they come into contact with, and continue to invite you for weeks and weeks. It is beyond infuriating. Though there is light at the end of the tunnel, Facebook have recently allowed the option to ‘Block Application’, which blocks users from receiving the invites for that certain program.

Another gripe I have with Facebook is its ‘mini-feed’. It is a Facebook oriented RSS feed basically, listing who has befriended who, who added photos, who’s doing what. It also lists whether a person has changed their relationship status. If a friend of yours is listed in a relationship and they change their status, Facebook labels them as ‘no longer in a relationship’. I find this segment of the mini-feed incredibly invasive, as some folk just don’t like their relationship status being public news.

Facebook is exceptionally popular with the 15-30 year old demographic, fairly easy to use once you get the hang of it, a great networking program but the applications are a real pain.

Del.icio.us
Underrated bookmarking sharer.

I had never used del.icio.us pre-COMP3505, as I never quite understood the concept and had never visited the website. I did know of it though, occasionally one can find the del.icio.us logo on the bottom of webpages, similar to digg.

Del.icio.us was launched in September 2003 and has three million users with over 100 million bookmarked URLs (3). Del.icio.us was bought by Yahoo in December 2005, and although it only has three million users, del.icio.us archives a fairly extensive browsing history for each user.

I love de.icio.us. It’s great. But not everybody agrees. Some people think it’s useless and boring. After extensive pondering I have figured out why certain users dislike del.icio.us.

1. There are no flash games.
2. It's text only.
3. You have to use the internet for something other than Facebook/email.
   

If you have a problem with one of these three criteria, chances are you’re not going to find it interesting that I bookmarked a 144ft tall Russian Wooden Skyscraper, or an article on biohomes suspended in trees. If you don’t use the internet to find interesting stuff, you’re not going to find del.icio.us interesting.

Perhaps if del.icio.us provided a friend finding search option others could be more persuaded to use del.icio.us, but I still believe that users who are interested in the internet as a source of entertainment rather than knowledge won’t properly appreciate del.icio.us. Then again, there may be people who bookmark flash games, have a look, I recommend it.

Blogger.
We’re going to need more monkeys.

Blogger was launched in 1999 by Pyra Labs and was one of the earliest dedicated blog-publishing tools. Blogger was later purchased by Google in 2003.

If you like blogging, Blogger is your thing. It’s easy to publish, post, share, join, read and is generally user friendly. The simplicity of joining other blogging groups and following other bloggers is great and user friendly. The editing and deletion of posts can be somewhat confusing though.

In terms of personal information, Blogging can be incredibly dangerous. Blogs can be filled with political views, personal events and personal information. One can still be anonymous on a blog, but it isn’t hard for personal information about an anonymous poster to be discovered. Blogging can also get you into political strife, as several activists have found out from overbearing governments.

I’m personally not a big fan, but as an easy and social blogging platform, Blogger is great.

Last.fm
And the award for worst web design ever goes to...

Last.fm records all your music playing habits, from your most recent played songs to your all time favourites. With the lists of music you listen to, it can generate recommendations, which can always be purchased on Amazon.com, or listen to sample tracks on the Last.fm website. Last.fm was purchased in 2007 by CBS Interactive, the advertising division of the CBS Corporation.

I flat out hate this website. Its design and interface is confusing, disorientating, difficult to navigate and generally infuriating.

The last.fm audio scribbler is great for RSS feeding what music you’re listening to or suggesting similar artists, but this is as far as my appreciation for this website goes.

It may have some personal information of mine, but I wouldn’t know because you need a degree in nuclear physics to navigate your dashboard.

In a league of its own.

Flickr
Quality not quantity.

Flickr was launched in 2004 by Ludicorp, which was then acquired by Yahoo in June 2005. Flickr stores basic amounts of personal information, but also stores your images, which can then lead to some nasty copyright issues.

Flickr is a photo hosting and sharing system that currently hosts two billion images. Similar to del.icio.us, flickr organises photos via tags relevant to the photos content. Photos can also be organised via sets or groups of photos that fall under the same heading.

Photos posted on Flickr are released under a creative commons licence, where artists only need be attributed credit. This caused a stir when Virgin Mobile used a creative commons photo, but the subject was not aware their photo had been uploaded by the artist (2).

By comparison, Facebook has 14 million photos uploaded daily, where as flickr maxes out at 5 million a day. Flickr is known as a service widely used by bloggers as opposed to teenage girls uploading 60 photos at a time of their latest party. The substance of imagery on flickr could also be assumed as far greater.

I’m not a big photographer or fan of having my photograph taken, so I have had little use for flickr except for an initial uploading of an image of myself consuming a brewed beverage. That process was straightforward and simple.

Privacy Issues.

Google is known as a key player in the browser advertising industry. Their AdSense technology scans pages and information for high-value keywords, which then regurgitates advertising material relevant to your keywords. I recall when I first got a Gmail account, having ads about ‘get your exgirlfriend back’ popup in the sidebar when a friend of mine had mentioned their girlfriend.

Out of the five reviewed social networking utilities, two are owned by Yahoo, one by Google, one by CBS Interactive and Facebook is the only privately owned social networking utility reviewed. With giant internet search engines owning three out of five utilities, one wonders what information is available to advertising firms.

A quick Google search of my internet tagname ‘NotoriousTetris’ reveals 44 results, ranging from my Twitter account, to my MySpace, Steam Stats, various message boards I’ve posted on from up to 3 years prior. I was also picked up in Natasha Spillane’s twitter as were my Twitter updates on a website called buzztter.com (which I have never heard of). My tastes in music were available via Last.fm in several languages as were my forgotten accounts at LiveJournal and DeviantArt. (4).

I started googling names and terms that could be linked to me, my search results were as follows:
Lex Hyde : Facebook
NotoriousTetris: Twitter, MySpace, Steam, Message Boards, Last.FM, Live Journal, Deviant Art.
S4119580 : Located a word document from MMDS1802, tower of Babel assignment.

Surprisingly, Yahoo yielded no entry as to my Facebook, did not find the word document, only linked to Doug Wilson’s Twitter page and found more game related websites than Google did. Interestingly the University must have at least partial listings in the Google search engine as it yielded results to a long defunct email listing.

Until recently (February 2008,(5)) Facebook only allowed the de-activation of user accounts, meaning the data and personal details remained on their servers without deletion. Even now with the revision of its policy, it is possible for backups to remain on Facebook servers (6).

Facebook’s issues with privacy do not end there, applications such as Facebook Beacon have caused considerable controversy. This application sends data from external websites to Facebook to allow targeted advertising and allowing users to share their activities with friends. It later came to light that Beacon tracked users that had logged out and even users that had opted out of the application all together (7).

With such large amounts of intertwining information available it is not hard to track down people via other people. I was not able to locate my Twitter via Yahoo, but I was able to locate Doug’s, which then lead me to mine. Everyone’s information out there, whether you like it or not, and it’s readily available to anyone who can use a search engine.

Conclusion.

This concludes our journey into Social Networking on the Internet. It is incredibly popular, the 15-30 year old demographic are signing up at astounding rates and everyone’s personal and private information is out in the open for all to see. All your details truly are belong to us.

References:

(1) Statistics. Facebook. Retrieved on 25-03-2008.

(2) "Use My Photo? Not Without Permission.", New York Times. Retrieved on 25-03-2008.

(3) Exclusive: Screen Shots And Feature Overview of Delicious 2.0 Preview

(4) http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Notorioustetris

(5) Privacy and Security. Facebook. Retrieved on 25-03-2008.

(6) On Facebook Forever? Retrieved on 25-03-2008.

(7) Facebook's Beacon More Intrusive Than Previously Thought. Retrieved on 25-03-2008.