Online Social

Online Social
SNetworks,
1
Virtual Communities,
Enterprises,
and Information
Professionals
ii
Most organizations.. ours included .. are just beginning to experiment with meaningful socialnetworking. What will it take for most of us to make the transitionfrom business-as-usual ... to busi-
ness in a wired-in world of online social networking where our personal, professional,and corporate online reputationsare criticalto success? Firstand foremost... I believe it will take the unique
knowledge ... experience ... and vision of information professionals like you.
Janice LaChance
Chief Executive Officer
Special Libraries Association
B
uilding on its 10,000,000th
new member, the businesscentered, online social network Linkedln adds more than 10 new
members every minute1; MySpace
adds more than 150 new members
b
Mike Reid
resident, Sales and
usiness Development
gnition Technologies, Inc.
and
Christian Gray
Senior Account Executive
Safari Books Online, LLC
www.irnfotoday.com/sea rc her
every minute. 2 "This is a revolutionary new approach to knowledge
exchange. With these tools, we
have the benefit of access to
everyone's brain working on a
problem," says Charles Chaney,
president and CEO of Biomedical
Engineering Central [http://www.
bmecentral.com]. Online social networking software allows users to discover, extend, manage, and leverage their personal
networks online. As defined by Microsoft's Social Computing Group, a virtual community is "a gathering of
people in an online space where individuals come
together to connect, interact, and get to know each
other better over time." We will use these definitions •'
July/August 2007
I 33
Online Social Networks, Virtual Communities, Enterprises, and Information Professionals
Complexity and Social Networks Blog
This figure by Lazer, D./Mergel, I./Friedman, A.(2006) plots the citation patterns of
social network papers published in 2005 in the American Journalof Sociology (AJS)
and the American SociologicalReview (ASR). The squares correspond to the cited
papers, where only papers cited at least twice are shown. The black squares are
from the social sciences, and pink squares from mathematics and physics. Notably,
22 percent of the citations listed are from mathematics and physics. Further, eight
out of eleven of these papers cite work from mathematics and physics, where
Watts and Strogatz 1998 and Watts 1999 are the most cited (six) works.
here. We will focus on the use of these tools for professionals working in organizations and institutions. We
will not focus on consumer-oriented social networking
services such as YouTube and MySpace, though the
impact and interaction between consumer use of these
new tools does affect enterprise use.
This article is the first in a series of three that will
explore the history and dramatic growth of online social
networks and the implications of that growth for information professionals. In this "Past and Present" contribution, we intend to set the stage for the series, to explain
the phenomenon and its historical underpinnings, and
to define terms. The second article, entitled "Stories," will
include true stories about organizations and individuals who have deployed or used social networking software or virtual communities; the third, "Applications,"
will survey leading companies and recommend tools
and processes for information professionals.
Information Professionals:
Ideal Champions
The field of social networks and virtual communi-
ties is new, relatively unstructured, and very dynamic.
34 I
SEARCHER: The Magazine for Database Professionals
Organizations everywhere are struggling to understand
and benefit from it. These attributes make this new
field an ideal environment for an information professional to ply his or her trade. If information professionals embrace the burgeoning field of online social networking and virtual community building for their
organizations, the authors believe they will be in a
unique position to bring order to chaos. By applying
traditional skills of finding, evaluating, organizing, and
applying information to meet organization needs - in
this case, people-centric information - the resulting
personal and professional benefits for the information
professional could include the following:
"* Being viewed as a causal force delivering economic
value to the organization
"* Being viewed as the driver for properly applying the
new technologies
"• Stronger personal marketability and branding inside
and outside the organization
"* A positive new employer-independent online reputation
"* Learning a set of highly transferable new skills
For many information professionals, career survival
means continually finding new ways to add value to
the organization and realizing a more direct impact on
strategic goals and the bottom line. As noted by Kim
Dority in her recent book, Rethinking Information
Work (Libraries Unlimited, 2006), "porting existing skill
sets into new opportunities" is critical to a resilient
information career. Social networking software offers
just that.
'Only Connect'
When E.M. Forster wrote those famous words, who
knew quite how willing we'd be to follow his direction?
As of March 2007, more than 1.1 billion (nearly 17 percent) of the total 6.5 billion humans spread over the
globe were connected via the Internet.3 In North America, nearly 70 percent of the population is connected,
more than half through high-speed, broadband connections. This relatively new global Internet connection offers inexpensive support for audio, video, or textual communication. It has opened up new networks
where far-away strangers can become close friends,
where families and friends can share common experiences though far apart, and where colleagues can work
on teams with people they've never seen.
And these days, it's all about connections. More
Americans have used the Internet to reach out to an
online group than have used it to read news, search for
health guidance, or buy something, according to a Pew
4
Internet &American Life Report.
Online Social Networks, Virtual Communities, Enterprises, and Information Professionals
The Entrepreneurs Are Coming
A rapidly growing group of software entrepreneurs has
emerged to take advantage of this drive to connect us,
creating applications designed to enrich our business
and personal relationships. According to Christopher
Carfi of Cerado 5, when properly applied to online social
networks and virtual communities, here are some of what
these new technologies enable organizations to do:
"• Increasecustomer satisfactionvia a better CRM focus that includes an authentic human face.
"* Allow customers to connect with experts with deep
knowledge in areas of interest.
"* Empower their employees to find experts within
their own organization.
"• Easepost-acquisitionintegrationby eliminating inevitable "us versus them" feelings.
"• Provide the "whole product"to fully meet a customer's needs.
"• Understand and visualize real communication
paths within an organization.
"* Extend the shelf life of conferences with an online
network of attendees.
"• Share knowledge with user-desired "demand pull"
technologies such as RSS.
"* Pull together the "all-starteam" idealfor this customer.
"* Differentiate the service with the brandof "you."
Different people use different services for different
purposes. For example, college kids connect at Facebook; postcollege 20-somethings find dates on Friendster or Xanga, to name only two of many services. The
self-expressive types emote at Livejournal. The careerminded build online reputations at Linkedln. Even
video games now have social networking features. Sony
unveiled its new online social network for the PlayStation3 console at the Game Developers Conference in
March. Games connected with social nets are one way
Sony hopes to grow its market. Nintendo's Wii has
already followed Microsoft's Xbox Live and Xbox 360 by
adding online social functions as well.
A Brief History of Social Networks
Online social networks and the software programs
behind them are not new. The term "social software"
has become relatively popular within the last few years.
However, the main ideas of social software date back
(Text continued on Daze 40)
Classifying Social Software
An Overview
The social software landscape is important to both individuals and organizations. David Teten, author of The Virtual Handshake
[http://www.thevirtualhandshake.com], created the distinctions and subgroups defined and updated below. Some software,
e.g., blog software, is used by both businesses and individuals.
r
The Individuial
The Enterprise
Real-time communications:
AIM, Chat, VoIP, SMS, ICQ, Skype, IRC, Net2Phone
Relationship capital management software:
Contact Network, Spoke Software, VisiblePath, Interface
Software, Leverage Software
Contact data management:
GoodContacts, Plaxo
Social network analysis & knowledge management:
Tacit, Entopia
Blog software, RSS, and services companies:
I Job referral networks:
Six Apart, Technorati, Urchin, Feedburner, Newsgator, Pheedo Accolo, Jobster, H3.com
Business-focused social network services:
LinkedIn, OpenBC/Xing, Ecademy, Ryze, ZeroDegrees
Blog software:
RSS
Event and meeting facilitation:
Meetup, Evite, Cvent
Biographic analysis & people search:
Zoominfo, Spokesoftware, Jigsaw, Linkedln
Tagging, social bookmarking and folksonomy tools:
Enterprise social network software:
43things, del.icio.us
IBM, Connectbeam, Haystack/Credo
Wiki software:
Social Text, Wikia, JotSpot (acquired by Google), Twiki
www.infotoday.com/sea rcher
July/August 2007
I 35
!e
De
iS.
W
2S
Name
DescrIptIon/Focus
User count 7
Registration
MySpace
General
162,400,000
Open
orkut
Owned byGoogle
46,423,762
Open (Google Iogin)
2
Google Video
Classmates
School, college, work, and the military
40,000,000
Open
3
YouTube
4
Xanga
Blogs and "metro" areas
40,000,000
Open
4
MySpace
5
Windows LiveSpaces
Blogging (formerly MSNSpaces)
30,000,000
Open (Windows Live I0)
5
Orkut
6
Friend
ster
General
Open
Video sharing and Webcam chat
6
7
8
MySpace Video
Broadcaster
29,100,000
26,000,000
-Open
-
2
Reunion
25,000,000
rLocating friends and family
9
Bebo
Schools and colleges
10
BlackPlanet
African-Americans
Facebook
College/bigh school students
Google Personalized Homepage
i Open
22,000,000
; Most Trafficked
-Open
-
9
16,000,000
Open
10
16,000,000
Open
11
15,000,000
Open
12
15,000,000
Open
13
14,000,000
Open
14
12,000,000
Open
15
10,921,263
Opus (OpenlD)
16
10,000,000
Open
17
8,500,000
Open
18
8,000,000
7,000,000
6,900,000
Invite-only
Open to people 18and lder
Open
' 19
120
21
5,900,000
Open
122
Flickr
Facebook
hi5
Friendster
Xanga
12
Cyworld
Young
South Koreans
13
Last
Music
14
Facebox
European young adults 114-241
15
Friends Reunited
Scbool,
college, work, sport, andstreets
16
LiveJournal
Blogging
17
Piczo
Teenagers, Canadians, photo-sharing
18
Linkedln
Business
19
Mixi
Japan
20
WAYN
Travel, lifestyle
21
Care2
Green living and activism
22
Faceparty
British teens and 20-somethings
23
Gaia Online
Anime and games
5,000,000
Open
23
TripAdvisor
24
Passado
General
4,700,000
Open
24
Last.fm
25
Yahoo! 3600
Yahoo!
_Linked
-_ -_to..
.
..
. .IlOs
......
...
4,700,000
Open to people 18 and older
25
StumbleUpon
26
Bolt
Genenal
(music and video)
4,000,000
Open
26
Multiply
27
Flickr
Photo-sharing
4,000,000
Open (Yahbol login)
27
MyBIogLog
28
eSPIN
General
3,800,000
Open
28
Netvibes
29
MiGente
Lati nus
3,600,000
Open
29
Slide.com
30
Multiply
Real-world relationsbips
3,000,000
Open
30
Reddit
31
Hlyves
General; focus on students and Dutch speakers
2,311,790
Open
31
MP3.com
32
TagWorld
General
(tagging)
1,850,692
Open
32
Kodak Gallery
33
CarDouma
in
Carenthusiasts
1,600,000
Open
33
StumbleVideo
34
Greatestlournal
Blogs, based on LiveJournal
1,514,865
Open
34
Veoh
35
myGamma
Cell phones
1,510,000
Open
35
iFilm
36
iWiW
Hungary
1,500,000
Invite only
36
Vox
37
LunarStorm
Sweden
1,200,000
Open
37
Shutterfly
38
Stumbleupon
Websurfing
1,200,000
Open
38
Pandora
39
Fotki
Pbuto-sharing
1,000,000
Open
39
Meetup
40
IMVU
3-D chat software
1,000,000
Open
40
Yelp
41
1Studivz
University students, mostly in the
German-speaking countries
1,000,000
Open
41
Photo.net
-....
-I...
............
Digg
Webshots
del.icio.us
Bebo
DailyMotion
Metacafe
-.
1..
..
....
..;.....
.....
...........
.................
.•.a.tn....
.. .....----------...
.. .. ..... .
....
ImageShack
Linkedln
Facebox
Tagged
Piczo
.
42
i XING
Business
I,UUU,UUU
Colleges
1,000,000
Nexopia
Canada
myYearbook
General
Blurty
bsed on LiveJournal
Bloags,
RateltAll
43 xvc1a
44
45
46
47
48
1Grono
11iL
uonnecr
uperl
i Open
43
PureVolume
989,000
Open
44
RockYou
950,000
Open
45
Etsy
947,169
Open
46
Twitter
Consumer ratings + social networking
900,000
Open
47
Rewver
Poland
830,000
Invite-only
48
Flixster
Teens and colleges
800,000
Open
49
vSocial
49
The Student Center
50
Vampire Freaks
Gothic industrial culture
766,000
Open
50
Grouper
51
Graduates
School, college, andwork
650,000
Open
51
ITtoolbox
52
43 Thiogs
Tagging
53
Tribe
General
602,876
Open
53
Blinklist
54
Playahead
Swedish teenagers
530,000
Open
54
Upcoming.org
5
Sconex. .
American high schools
500,000
55
Blip.tv
56
DeadJournal
iLike
57
GoPets
58
IRC-Galleria
59
627,000
.........
..........
)....
...
..1
.81.6...... . Open ...................
............
..........
.....
.....
. 52
FDark blogs, based on Liveeournal
1Ruckus
1Open
Stickam
490,310
Byinvite orpayment (OpenID)
56
Virtual pets
400,000
A non
Fp,
57
Zwinky
Finland
400,000
Open
58
Pageflakes
Music
400,000
College students only
59
Ma.gnolia
60
Threadless
Custom T-shirts
364,474
Open
60
Tagworld
61
Flirtomatic
Flirting/dating
265,000
Open to people 18 and older
61
StupidVideos
162
Ryze
Business
250,000
i Open
62
LibraryThing
163
DontStayIn
Clubbing (primarily U.K.)
235,000
1Open
63
Zlio
64
aSmallWorld
European jet set and social elite
150,000
64
MerchantCircle
65
ITakingITGlobal
Social action
116,000
65
Dogster/Catster
66
Ecademy
Business
100,000
Open
0 0
Open
67
Geni
Families, genealogy
100,000
Open
68
Phrasebase
Foreigo languages (education)
69
ProfileHeaven
British teens
70
1Travellerspoint
Travel
71
I Blue Dot
Invite-only
U66_ _ Kaboodle
67
Eventful
68
Jamendo
100,000
iOpen
69
Jamendo
90,000
0pen
70
Jumpcut
Link-sharing
80,000
Open
71
StyleHive
General
67,000
Open
.......VideoSift
72-•......
&
72
-i
73
MEETin
......-...
..........
Doostang
Careers
53,000
Invite-only
73
Zooomr
74
Zaadz
Social consciousness
36,467
Open
74
ThisNext
75
cons-um-ating
Consumeetings
21,000
75
Cam
pusBug
76
VietSac
Vietnamese
20,000
Open
76
Videalug
77
!1Sportsvite
18,000
Open
77
Protopage
i
1Recreational spurts
FOpen
78
FrOhstOckstreff
General
11,600
Open
78
Fanpop
79
Advogato
Freesoftware and open source developers
11,000
Open
79
Ziki
80
Amiworthit
80
YourMinis
81
...
....
.....
-
-------
i Open to students but approval-based
Mutually good-looking students
100
Dandelife
Collective narratives or "shared biographies"
Unknown
Open
81
Wists
82
Delhii
Mongolia
Unknown
Open
82
BubbleShare
83
Dodgeball
Mobile location-based service, owned byGoogle
Unknown
Open
83
Wadja
84
Gazzag
General
Unknown
Open
84
MOG
85
Hi5
General
Unknown
Open
85
Traifire
86
imeem
Instant messaging
Unknown
Open
86
Gotuit
Football (soccer)
Unknown
Open
87
Unknown
Open
87
p Joga
Bonito
1
i
88
MOG
I
89
90
Twitter
o
1 Update friends with your status through SMS,IM,Web interfaces
Blogging
91
92
Music
{..-WebBiographies
_Genealogy,
.. . e..d S
.. at. biography
s ad l. s9...-...
...-------... .. ............................
. ... ni
Yelp
----1
United States adults
.
.. . .
. .. ..........................
.
:UUnknown
Unknown
629,603,368
88
Open
Open
. .-n-o
. .
. .....................
n--O.... ....-Open
.. .e-..
. .. . ..Unknown
Unknown
•m
Open
. . .. ...... .........
CastPost
I
Minti
89
CafeMom
90
Twango
91
ComicSpace
Online Social Networks, Virtual Communities, Enterprises, and Information Professionals
Social Networking Timeline 7
1971 .invens Ra. Toinso
email connctingto cmputes
outside a single enterprise.
2001
-984
Frt group cat programni
1973
2000
197SFirs maiing ist,caledMsgGrou~p, started by DOD
1978
First Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) for multiusr gaming
1979
USENET newsgroups crated
1984
Birth oft~he Fido network of Bulletin Board Systems
1985
Whole Earth 'LetrniLin
1988
Internet Relay Chat ORD) invented
1991
Tim Berner-ee posts "Word-Wid
2002
Web:Executive.
Summary" to USENET Group.
2003
"Gophr" t
-9
-. -.-..........
.....................
"net
first simplnu-iven
ie
tInter-
resources, launches. 1
..
1992
Bernr~s-Lee creates his "What's New?" page, argualy
the first blo~g.
1993
Howard Rheingold publishes TheW
Virtal ComuiltY
Mosaic Web browser is released.
1994
1995
"'Christis coming"is the~ first spam n~ USNT
Ward Cunningham launches the first wiki
AltaVista, the first fullI Web search egie
1996
, l'taunches
ICQ: first peer-to-peer instant m~essaging ap~pears
190
~~V~rS2004
CX)
~
1997
April 1,000,000Web servers
2005
2006
2007
1998
1999
38 I
SEARCHER: The Magazine for Database Professionals
Online Social Networks, Virtual Communities, Enterprises, and Information Professionals
Online Social Networking in the News
With all the talk of dot-com-like bubbles and social network aggregators, it remains clear that online social
networks and virtual communities are not passing fads. Employees from the biggest cyber companies on
Earth are leaving to follow their online social network dreams. Social network companies are doing deals
with other social network companies, and the deals make sound business sense!
w,ww.infotoday.com/sea rchner
July/August 2007
I 39
Online Social Networks, Virtual Communities, Enterprises, and Information Professionals
(Text continued from page 35)
to Vannevar Bush's ideas about "memex" in 1945 and
have journeyed from then bearing such terms such as
Augmentation and Groupware in the '60s, '70s, '80s,
and '90s. (Much of the following section comes from
All About the Internet:A BriefHistoryof the Internet by
Barry M. Leiner, Vinton G. Cerf, David D. Clark, Robert
E. Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock, Daniel C. Lynch, Jon Postel, Larry G. Roberts, and Stephen Wolff [http: / /www.
isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml].)
In 1965, while working with Thomas Merrill, Lawrence G. Roberts connected a TX-2 computer in Massachusetts to a Q-32 in California using a low-speed,
dial-up telephone line to create the first small widearea computer network ever built. Although not exactly
equal to Alexander Graham Bell asking his Watson to
"come here," it did represent an important new con-
40 1
SEARCHER: The Magazine for Database Professionals
nection. Yesterday's invention, the telephone, let individuals speak to each other remotely. Today's Internetconnected computer lets us speak, share data and
video, watch television, play games, do business, and
make friends.
The first online social networks were called Usenet
newsgroups. Usenet (USEr NETwork) is a global
Internet discussion system designed and built by
Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and
Jim Ellis in 1979. Users read and post email-like messages (called "articles") to a number of distributed
newsgroups, according to categories that resemble
bulletin board systems in most respects. Usenet was
the initial Internet community. It was the place where
Tim Berners-Lee announced the launch of the World
Wide Web and where Marc Andreesen announced the
(Textcontinued on page 42)
Online Social Networks, Virtual Communities, Enterprises, and Information Professionals
Glossary
www.infotoday.com/searcher
July/August 2007
I 41
Online Social Networks, Virtual Communities, Enterprises, and Information Professionals
Top 10 Social Networking Sites* for April 2006 (U.S., Home and Work)
Apr-05 UA (000)
8,210
10,301
11,672
N/A
12,352
11,236
8,262
1,857
5,065
5,202
Apr-06 UA (000)
38,359
18,508
12,865
12,505
10,570
9,590
9,165
7,165
6,711
6,631
YOY Growth
367%
80%
10%
N/A
-14%
-15%
11%
286%
32%
27%
Source: Nwesen//NetRatings, May 2006
"Note:This is a custom categoryand does not appearin fielsen/lAetRatings'syndicatedservice-
(Text continued from page 40)
creation of the Mosaic browser and the introduction
of the image tag, which opened the Web into its role
as a graphical medium.
Web-based archiving of Usenet posts began in 1995
at Deja News with a very large, searchable database. In
2001, Google acquired this database. AOL announced
that it would discontinue its integrated Usenet service
in early 2005, citing the growing popularity of blogs,
chat forums, and online conferencing. The AOL community had a tremendous role in popularizing Usenet
some 11 years earlier, with all of its positive and negative aspects. Google and Yahoo! Groups, especially
with their new interfaces, have picked up the torch.
The Science of Social Networks
Albert-Laszlo Barabasi (called the nation's foremost expert in the new science of networks) added
the following subtitle to his book, Linked--How
Everything Is Connected to Everything Else andWhat
It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life.
According to Barabasi, cocktail parties, terrorist
cells, ancient bacteria, and international conglomerates are all networks. A network is nothing more
than a collection of objects connected to each other
in some fashion.
Information professionals are masters of their networks too. They may belong to a library association, a
knowledge management team, or a group formed to
create a better corporate intranet. They are usually con-
42 I
SEARCHER: The Magazine for Database Professionals
tent wizards, all-knowing information gurus familiar
with everything from Dialog Bluesheets toWeb-created
content to the world of primary and secondary publishers. They connect people and content.
Barabasi makes the point that networks from fields
as diverse as ecology, molecular biology, computer science, and quantum physics have common characteristics and that these characteristics can inform us about
any network, including online social networks and virtual communities. Two of these characteristics are clustering and power laws. The world is highly clustered.
For example, many scientific papers are written by
three or more authors. Power Laws say that most network nodes have only a few links and that highly connected hubs hold a network together. Social networks
are based on people defined as "connectors" by author
Malcolm Gladwell. Says Gladwell: "Sprinkled among
every walk of life, are a handful of people with a truly
extraordinary knack of making friends and acquaintances. These people are connectors." They bring the
most value to the social network.
Online Social Network Growth
Social networking sites are attracting one out of
every 20 Web visits14 . In the month of September 2006,
one out of every 20 U.S. Internet visits landed on one
of the top 20 social networking Web sites, nearly double the share of visits compared with a year ago, according to a new study released by HitWise. Out of the 20
sites, MySpace is the undisputed leader, receiving 82
Online Social Networks, Virtual Communities, Enterprises, and Information Professionals
percent of those visits. Not too much surprise there.
Other social networking sites with above-average
growth in market share of visits include Bolt, Bebo,
Orkut, and Gaia Online. The chart at left shows the
entire list of the top 10 sites in the study.
Our Next Article
The next article is all about true stories like this one:
TheyPracticeWhat TheyPreacirNew Linkedln CEO
found and background-checked usingLinkedln
In a search for their new CEO, the founders and HR
people at the largest, business-centered, online social
networking company decided to take their own medicine. Using LinkedIn, they checked references for a top
candidate for the CEO position by conducting 26 blind
reference checks on Dan Nye. "Since he was in our network, we could see what others were saying about him,
but we could go deeper by running a very easy search to
find people who were not Dan Nye recommenders, but
who worked in the companies at the same time Dan Nye
was there. This waywe could determine his true impact.
We searched by date range during the time Dan had that
particular job. We placed calls to just the A-list' senior
managers whose feedback we felt we could trust. All of
5
Dan Nye's references were stellar. So we hired him."' .
We Want to Hear from You!
If you have a compelling story, please share it with us.
Have you reconnected with old friends using a social network?
Found a job? Found someone who helped you excel in your current job? Reminded your references for a future job about how
great you were? Did you get help on an impossible project from
a stranger in an online social network? Did online social networking help you sleep at night after you suddenly lost a loved one?
Could you prepare for a meeting with an important person using
these tools? Email us your success stories, your favorite sites, or
your recommended software: mike.reid@cognition.com or cgray@
safarijv.com.
The authors have spent a combined total of 25 years
selling content, technology, and services to information
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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
TITLE: Online Social Networks, Virtual Communities,
Enterprises, and Information Professionals: Part 1. Past
and Present
SOURCE: Searcher 15 no7 Jl/Ag 2007
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