" ImAgInAtIoN iS MoRe ImPoRtaNt ThAn KnOwLeDgE "
Albert Einstein

lundi 31 mai 2010

COM 459 = SNS research Summary

The study on Social Network Site conducted by Danah Boyd and Nicole Ellison, was a very interesting document. It was interesting to really learn more about the nature of those SNS and there History. I don't know most of the SNS that are disussed in the text except for the most popular one's like facebook, Myspace and Twitter. SNS really grew up and devellop through the years, from the first SNS "six degrees" launched in 1997 till today's Facebook interface. Through its development SNS's had to face failures. Six degrees attracted millions of people in 1997 but soon closed out, the developpers of the SNS think that Six degrees was simply ahead of its time.
From 97 to 01 multiple other SNS started appearing, among them we could count : AsianAvenue, Black planet, Cyworld and Lunar storm. I did not know any of those website before, but what is interesting about them is that most of them failed to become popular at some places of the world but skyrocked in other locations. Some of those were at first instant messaging platforms that were then refashioned as SNS's. In 2002 SNS's took a step forward with Friendster, at first the SNS platform popularity surged but the site didn't handle the fast growth of users and pretty soon
Frienster was running towards a chaotic failure. Friendster was able to offer good privacy settings to its user and quickly Bosses, old classmate and close friend were all mixed together in the same network. Which eventually became problematic for users.
Just as Friendster was falling apart in the US, its popularity Skyrocked in some asian countries and Friendster stayed up in the rankings, untill Myspace came along.
What basically happened through the years is that SNS's developpers continually learned from the mistakes made in the previous SNS's to create better interfaces.
Myspace opened new Horizons after friendster, by allowing more freedom to the user in the design of there page. Instead of forbidding stuff Myspace modified there policies to innovate. For example they opened the door to a new public, highschool and college kids.
Developpers started to listen more to the User, and built upon there desires. SNS's started to look more and like websites where people could meet with there actual friends rather than meet new people.
In 2004 appeared Facebook, the original SNS was created in Harvard and was only accessible to people with Harvard logins. But soon Facebook opened its doors to other Universities and highschools untill Facebook finnally gave access to everyone. While alongside other SNS specialised themselves in certains areas or interests, or restricted there access to keep more privacy, like a Small World and Beautiful People.

Today Facebook dominates the Web pretty evidently and SNS's have become a very broad field of research, since everyone lifes in "stuck on the web". How much influence and effects will this new trend of communication have to our human lives, jobs relationships? that is the question.

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