reflections

Fadhil Yulfa - 41792764

Introduction

Nowadays social networking has a big role in world of social interactions. The way people interact with each other has suddenly changed because the way social networking grows.  Now people used social networking not only for meet new people or send messages but people can also cerate and sharing photo albums or videos, listen to your favourite music, join interesting groups and probably just to find old friends [1].

 

Background

Each social networking site has different characteristic and in the past few weeks I have try to explore some of it.

o   Flickr - online photos and video management and sharing application.

o   Twitter - Micro-blogging.

o   Last.fm - music service that learns what user likes.

o   Delicios - Social bookmarking.

o   Blogger - Blogging.

o   Friendfeed - Social networking.

o   Yahoo pipes - Piping RSS feed.

In this article I will focus on Flickr, Twitter, and Last.fm that I have experience more.

Focus

In this article will focus on what kind of social interaction that can we get from those social networks? And can those social networks applications lead to positive out come just by using it? This aspect that I think more

 

Reflections

Flickr is an online photo and video sharing own by Yahoo Company and only people with Yahoo Mail ID can use Flickr. Users can upload and share their pictures. Additionally, users also can interact with their picture by describing the picture, giving notes to the picture so user and user’s contacts can leave messages directly in the photo, adding the picture to a map this feature give information to other user where the picture was taken so user can find other user that taking a picture nearby them. Users can also organize the pictures by using Set feature, tagging to classify the picture and even user can edit their picture in Flickr though Picnik application.

In Flickr user can interact with each other by joining a group that have common interest. However, group is not always available for all users. For example, there are groups that are   set to be public, some are public invite only, and the others are private. If user cannot find a group that interest them, they can easily create a new group.  In addition, users can also adding other user profile, so they can update information about what that user shares. For example, you can add your friend or family so you can update everything that your friends/families share.

With that entire application a user can also promote their products to other users. By uploading the photos or video of their product, they can interact with the customer and customer can also interact with other customer [2]. For example, there are group that share information about Macintosh [3]. Another example, by adding Last.fm profile at Flickr we can see their prototypes or their latest technology and customer can comment on their picture or video so group’s administrator can see all the responses [4].

Twitter is a service for people to communicate and to keep in touch through the exchange of the personal message just by simply answering a question “What are you doing?” . To begin, users need to find a follower or they can follow another users. They can search and invite people from their email contacts or they can also follow other users that are suggested by Twitter. Users can see the update of the entire personal message from all Twitter users with feature “Everyone” and they can also follow someone that they think interesting. By updating their personal message sometimes users can find an interesting message and may be the follower can send a personal message that is specified to a particular user. They also can send a direct message to a specific user.

Twitter becomes more interesting is because the application that support them. For example, Nowadays, people can use Twitter through their mobile phones so they can update their personal message everywhere and anywhere they want. These applications that Twitter support has help a persons live. By sending one word message to Twitter by mobile phone a graduate student was save and set free from jail in Egypt [5].

Las.fm is social networking similar to Myspace and Facebook but its more focus on music. It works base on what kind of music that users like. Users can download an application that they provide to their user that called Audioscrobbler. This application helps Last.fm to know more about their user taste of music. So it will be easier for them to recommend more music. This information can be use by Flickr to

In Last.fm user can search for friends that they already know or n the feature “Neighbours” they can also search friends that have high musical compatibility. Users can interact with each other at user profile, musician profile, by joining a group that have same interest with them and they can also they can interact with each other at a specific event page. From all of this, they can find new music, information about the musician, and information about ticket concert. Users can also used Last.fm to promote their band so other user can listen to your songs. In this case Last.fm also can recommend your band if you band have similar taste with other band [6].

In conclusion, each type of social networking software have different characteristic but have same purpose which is to gather people and encourage them to interact with each others. With this social networking software, user not only can meet new people but also they can use this to advertise their products, ask favour to other, and to share information.

References

[1] Roeder, Linda. "Social Networking: Reasons to Join a Social Network." Personal Web Pages and Social Networking - Create and Design Your Own Personal Website or Social Networking Site. 01 Apr. 2009 .

[2] Worsham, Sarah. "Using Flickr to Socialize Your Products | Practical eCommerce." Resources for Online Business Owners | Practical eCommerce. 02 Apr. 2009 .

[3] "Flickr: Macintosh." Welcome to Flickr - Photo Sharing. Ed. Flickr. 02 Apr. 2009 .

[4] "Flickr: last.fm's Photostream." Welcome to Flickr - Photo Sharing. Ed. Flickr. 02 Apr. 2009 .

[5] Simon, Mallory. "Student 'Twitters' his way out of Egyptian jail - CNN.com." CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. 03 Apr. 2009 .

[6]"Using Last.fm to promote your band in 6 easy steps -." Jimmy Shelter - Giglog. 03 Apr. 2009 .