By Gabriel 41195918
Introduction
In social mobile computing we were asked to join five social web based tools spacing from social components that focus around photos all to way to music each had a niche to exploit. Many not all included when signing up for them a category that asks you to state why you are joining the certain software and the majority had a list that included “Here to meet people” which make sense considering that it is a social networking tool but does the system hinder or help your chances to meet brand new people.
The article will focus on how these social networks are made to stimulate the interaction between members but how the very system actually makes it harder for their users to meet new people. Even do it is possible to meet new people there are many things that stop us.
Background
Facebook is the second biggest social network on the web the major focus of facebook is its ability to share photos of your friends and yourself. It also has an assortment of annoying add on applications which clutter some peoples facebook pages such as “who’s interested in you” or Build an Army application. There are some useful add on applications like the twitter application which links your twitter updates with your facebook. The other major plus facebook gives is the ability to tag people in photos that have a facebook account as well.
This could either be pro or a con but unlike Myspace, Facebook cannot have customised buttons or backgrounds which is less creative but a recent online survey has found that most customised pages are annoying more than helpful.
But facebook has one thing which it is famous for and that is wasting so much time you could literally spend 5 hours their and feel like, OMG I really just spent 5 hours looking at pictures of my friends drunk WOW.
Twitter is either the best application on the net or the most loathe social network on the net. Twitter’s social contribution can be in two different dose’s one can be very mild which is just online updates which you can only see online while your logged in. The other opens a world of love and hate by turning on mobile phone notifications, which any friends you have enabled to receive updates from well be sent to your mobile.
I actually was apart of twitter before this course and had three followings and 2 followers and it was quite easily the most boring social software on the net but as soon as you get your friends on, it especially the ones that like send posts at 2 and 3 in the morning your phones becomes a beacon of popularity.
Last . FM is properly the most underrated and most unknown best music social network on the web. As the user sets up the account it uploads your music players files from your music player and shows stats like most played, favourite Artist, Favourite song and most importantly it shows the user similar artist and songs to your likes. So the user can explore new artist and it also shows you who else listens to the artist as well. Last FM has some cons like layout problems, which could have been easily fixed with some HCI techniques and structures. And it also has some problems with adding friends, which is big problem for social networking sites.
Google Calender is the stalkers application of choice. Google calendar is really good idea cause it offers a lot benefits with people who need to work off each other timetables and need to organise certain events. This is great for companies or lecturer’s to post up one set of times that will be available easily and quickly.
There are a few down sides, for the user to be able to join certain networks the user has to open their calendar to the public which means that anyone can search your name and find your timetable and see what you are doing which is quite scary.
Myspace is the most popular social networking site in the world with over 229 million accounts but faces strong competition from facebook. Myspace is essentially a page with photos and likes and music of your choosing. With the main component of it being the ability to comment on people’s pages and adding gratuities photos of one self, holding the camera.
From my own experiences I find some girls expect you to ask them for their myspace page instead of there numbers at clubs and when first meeting new people which is also insight to our changing times but also how easy and quick it is to obtain one.
One of the greatest things about myspace is the ability to customise the background the buttons and the layout which helps distinguish one page from another and gives the user more freedom on how they want to portray themselves to others.
Focus
The focus of this article will revolve around the ways users interact with these social networks but focusing more how they experience adding friends and how they try to meet legitimate new people. Which is what I will focus on my reflection and go into depth on why the biggest social networks are harder to meet people while the smaller less specific ones make it easier for their user to meet new people. While exploring why this is so, and what, makes it harder for facebook and Myspace to add people.
Reflection
red= facebook, Blue=Myspace chart of usage
After reading the background description a new user might be thinking, “but wait they actually seem very easy to meet new people”. Wrong. The only social network that actually makes it easy to find and meet people is goggle calendar and Google calendar wasn’t really designed to do that. There are 2 reason why Google calendar is easy to meet people 1) you can search for people’s, groups and networks on Google search engine itself. 2) To add some one to your calendar it is as simple as adding a group or network and the calendar owner doesn’t even need to accept you so the user can view their calendar.
Google Calender even do it is social networking tool is not meant for social interaction like facebook or myspace. Google Calender gets its ease of accessibility from its maker Google which probably the most well known entity on the world wide web which it even rivals Microsoft.
On the other hand we have a social network like facebook whose whole system is set to share photos with friends (not really more like acquaintance’s). Facebook make it really easy to add existing friends through other programs such as MSN messenger, AOL and Yahoo messenger by importing your E-mail list. This is great for people who you already know and would like to keep in touch with but it does nothing for a user who wants to meet new people. Facebook also has a friends search which lets your search for your known friends but it requires you to know their names which makes them not new.
The other option is to look at your friends, friends and add them but the problem with that is 1) they might not want to meet you 2) After sending your request for a friend they have the ability to decline your invitation 3) you’re a complete stranger with them and have no reason to be talking to them apart from becoming friends.
Myspace also has similar protocol to adding friends, which has the same problems as facebook making it just as bad at meeting new people. Facebook has a slight advantaged it has applications which entice meetings between people the only problem with this it only affects your friends not everyone. Facebook also has networks which allow interaction with complete ransdoms which is essentially what meeting new people is, down side to this is that the user still has to go through the adding friends protocol.
Twitter is a whole new can of worms when it comes to dealing with social networks. Twitter wasn’t real designed for one on one interaction because every little post is viewable to everybody who is following you, which is fine when the user wants to send a mass message. Twitter does have one redeeming quality, the user can go in the public timelines and see everyone’s (The whole world) post of the last minute and if they like a post enough the user can easily follow them and get all their updates without the person confirming anything.
Twitter essentially allows anybody to get to know anybody and if they decided to follow the user then in this case meeting new people can be achieved much easier than other application, which is funny because the interaction between users is much simpler and more restricted.
Last Fm is weird because its main focus is the contribution of every users musical taste and its bonds with everyone and other similar musicians. Last Fm has an interesting set up were it allows you to see who else likes your type of music and lets user’s interact on a message board. Features like these make them very social and centre around a certain theme of interested music, which is always good for meeting people. The down side is Last Fm is essentially more about the music then it is about meeting new people even Last Fm makes it quite easier than Facebook and Myspace to meet and find interests with new people.
After giving an example to adding friends using all 5 social networks it become apparent that the smaller and more niche the social networks are the easier it is to meet new people why? The reason for this is a contribution factors first of all Facebook and myspace with its enormous amounts of users need to provide a larger amount of security for it users because of the sheer amount of people. Another reason is because when a social network is smaller and more of a niche application its is easy to maintain and easier to design for because they are not a lot of clutters with trying do everything possible under the sun like facebook with all its application and myspace with all its different type of advertisement.
Which leads most users of these applications to a contradiction as to why make facebook and myspace so much harder to meet new people compared to twitter or Last Fm. Isn’t one of the main purposes of facebook and myspace to meet people, but they are one of hardest to meet new people.
Conclusion
In conclusion it becomes clear that as a Social network becomes harder to meet people as it grows. One in the amount of people using the social network and two the amount of add-on application and extra information that is added to the user’s main page. All these factors severely increase the chances of not meeting new people in one way of another. Another interesting observation that came from this was that the more niche the social network the easier it is to create connections between new people because it makes everyone focus on one interest in a much more confined area. In closing I found doing this reflection quite interesting because most people would assume that the bigger the network the easier it is to meet new friends.
Resources
http://www.google.com/trends?q=myspace%2C+facebook
The article will focus on how these social networks are made to stimulate the interaction between members but how the very system actually makes it harder for their users to meet new people. Even do it is possible to meet new people there are many things that stop us.
Background
Facebook is the second biggest social network on the web the major focus of facebook is its ability to share photos of your friends and yourself. It also has an assortment of annoying add on applications which clutter some peoples facebook pages such as “who’s interested in you” or Build an Army application. There are some useful add on applications like the twitter application which links your twitter updates with your facebook. The other major plus facebook gives is the ability to tag people in photos that have a facebook account as well.
This could either be pro or a con but unlike Myspace, Facebook cannot have customised buttons or backgrounds which is less creative but a recent online survey has found that most customised pages are annoying more than helpful.
But facebook has one thing which it is famous for and that is wasting so much time you could literally spend 5 hours their and feel like, OMG I really just spent 5 hours looking at pictures of my friends drunk WOW.
Twitter is either the best application on the net or the most loathe social network on the net. Twitter’s social contribution can be in two different dose’s one can be very mild which is just online updates which you can only see online while your logged in. The other opens a world of love and hate by turning on mobile phone notifications, which any friends you have enabled to receive updates from well be sent to your mobile.
I actually was apart of twitter before this course and had three followings and 2 followers and it was quite easily the most boring social software on the net but as soon as you get your friends on, it especially the ones that like send posts at 2 and 3 in the morning your phones becomes a beacon of popularity.
Last . FM is properly the most underrated and most unknown best music social network on the web. As the user sets up the account it uploads your music players files from your music player and shows stats like most played, favourite Artist, Favourite song and most importantly it shows the user similar artist and songs to your likes. So the user can explore new artist and it also shows you who else listens to the artist as well. Last FM has some cons like layout problems, which could have been easily fixed with some HCI techniques and structures. And it also has some problems with adding friends, which is big problem for social networking sites.
Google Calender is the stalkers application of choice. Google calendar is really good idea cause it offers a lot benefits with people who need to work off each other timetables and need to organise certain events. This is great for companies or lecturer’s to post up one set of times that will be available easily and quickly.
There are a few down sides, for the user to be able to join certain networks the user has to open their calendar to the public which means that anyone can search your name and find your timetable and see what you are doing which is quite scary.
Myspace is the most popular social networking site in the world with over 229 million accounts but faces strong competition from facebook. Myspace is essentially a page with photos and likes and music of your choosing. With the main component of it being the ability to comment on people’s pages and adding gratuities photos of one self, holding the camera.
From my own experiences I find some girls expect you to ask them for their myspace page instead of there numbers at clubs and when first meeting new people which is also insight to our changing times but also how easy and quick it is to obtain one.
One of the greatest things about myspace is the ability to customise the background the buttons and the layout which helps distinguish one page from another and gives the user more freedom on how they want to portray themselves to others.
Focus
The focus of this article will revolve around the ways users interact with these social networks but focusing more how they experience adding friends and how they try to meet legitimate new people. Which is what I will focus on my reflection and go into depth on why the biggest social networks are harder to meet people while the smaller less specific ones make it easier for their user to meet new people. While exploring why this is so, and what, makes it harder for facebook and Myspace to add people.
Reflection
red= facebook, Blue=Myspace chart of usageAfter reading the background description a new user might be thinking, “but wait they actually seem very easy to meet new people”. Wrong. The only social network that actually makes it easy to find and meet people is goggle calendar and Google calendar wasn’t really designed to do that. There are 2 reason why Google calendar is easy to meet people 1) you can search for people’s, groups and networks on Google search engine itself. 2) To add some one to your calendar it is as simple as adding a group or network and the calendar owner doesn’t even need to accept you so the user can view their calendar.
Google Calender even do it is social networking tool is not meant for social interaction like facebook or myspace. Google Calender gets its ease of accessibility from its maker Google which probably the most well known entity on the world wide web which it even rivals Microsoft.
On the other hand we have a social network like facebook whose whole system is set to share photos with friends (not really more like acquaintance’s). Facebook make it really easy to add existing friends through other programs such as MSN messenger, AOL and Yahoo messenger by importing your E-mail list. This is great for people who you already know and would like to keep in touch with but it does nothing for a user who wants to meet new people. Facebook also has a friends search which lets your search for your known friends but it requires you to know their names which makes them not new.
The other option is to look at your friends, friends and add them but the problem with that is 1) they might not want to meet you 2) After sending your request for a friend they have the ability to decline your invitation 3) you’re a complete stranger with them and have no reason to be talking to them apart from becoming friends.
Myspace also has similar protocol to adding friends, which has the same problems as facebook making it just as bad at meeting new people. Facebook has a slight advantaged it has applications which entice meetings between people the only problem with this it only affects your friends not everyone. Facebook also has networks which allow interaction with complete ransdoms which is essentially what meeting new people is, down side to this is that the user still has to go through the adding friends protocol.
Twitter is a whole new can of worms when it comes to dealing with social networks. Twitter wasn’t real designed for one on one interaction because every little post is viewable to everybody who is following you, which is fine when the user wants to send a mass message. Twitter does have one redeeming quality, the user can go in the public timelines and see everyone’s (The whole world) post of the last minute and if they like a post enough the user can easily follow them and get all their updates without the person confirming anything.
Twitter essentially allows anybody to get to know anybody and if they decided to follow the user then in this case meeting new people can be achieved much easier than other application, which is funny because the interaction between users is much simpler and more restricted.
Last Fm is weird because its main focus is the contribution of every users musical taste and its bonds with everyone and other similar musicians. Last Fm has an interesting set up were it allows you to see who else likes your type of music and lets user’s interact on a message board. Features like these make them very social and centre around a certain theme of interested music, which is always good for meeting people. The down side is Last Fm is essentially more about the music then it is about meeting new people even Last Fm makes it quite easier than Facebook and Myspace to meet and find interests with new people.
After giving an example to adding friends using all 5 social networks it become apparent that the smaller and more niche the social networks are the easier it is to meet new people why? The reason for this is a contribution factors first of all Facebook and myspace with its enormous amounts of users need to provide a larger amount of security for it users because of the sheer amount of people. Another reason is because when a social network is smaller and more of a niche application its is easy to maintain and easier to design for because they are not a lot of clutters with trying do everything possible under the sun like facebook with all its application and myspace with all its different type of advertisement.
Which leads most users of these applications to a contradiction as to why make facebook and myspace so much harder to meet new people compared to twitter or Last Fm. Isn’t one of the main purposes of facebook and myspace to meet people, but they are one of hardest to meet new people.
Conclusion
In conclusion it becomes clear that as a Social network becomes harder to meet people as it grows. One in the amount of people using the social network and two the amount of add-on application and extra information that is added to the user’s main page. All these factors severely increase the chances of not meeting new people in one way of another. Another interesting observation that came from this was that the more niche the social network the easier it is to create connections between new people because it makes everyone focus on one interest in a much more confined area. In closing I found doing this reflection quite interesting because most people would assume that the bigger the network the easier it is to meet new friends.
Resources
http://www.google.com/trends?q=myspace%2C+facebook
3 comments:
Very nice use of the Google Trends chart - another underrated webapp by the Goog!
you've some how managed to show that social networking sites suck at social networking. right on!
Nice Reflection. I agree on your comment on how LastF.M is very underated. If it came down to it I could scrobble for hours. It's cool how LastF.M lets you downlaod free weekly mp3's. You can do this by going to the "music" tab and then clicking on "free downloads".
Post a Comment