Social networking

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Social networking

• Nigel Gibson
• AL Conference 07/06/08

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What are we going to do?
I X

• Well look at what we might mean by social
  networks
• Well look at the topography of online social
  networks
• Ill offer a fast pass over some current
  technologies and SociaLearn
• Well have a chat about all this stuff

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Before we start

• Do you read Wikipedia?
• Do you use Amazon?
• Do you use IMDB?
• Do you edit Wikipedia?
• Do you offer reviews on Amazon?
• Do you offer reviews on IMDB?

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In the beginning

• As a basic unit a family is a social network

• And its part of a wider network

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So

• The relationships might be through work,
  childrens school or activities, wider family,
  neighbours
• We might not know all the people a partner or
  child or parent knows
• This means we can access different networks
  through our closest network

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A network

• My friends

Me

• . all have friends

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Me
You get the idea
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People

• So you have friends and they have friends
• You might know some and you might not know others
  but they are FOAF
• Friends of a friend

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Online social networking
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Primordial soup

• In the beginning there was ARPA net (1969)
• And CYCLADES (Early 70s)
• And ALOHANet (1970)(My favourite)
• And other local and national networks
• And, finally, The Internet linked them all
  together into a network of networks (from 1974)
• And what drove all these developments was people
  wanting to talk to each other

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Online

• One of the first viable online communities was
  The WELL (the Whole Earth Lectronic Link)
  established in 1985 and still going strong
• Started in the Bay area of San Franscisco on a
  bulletin board
• They engineered the start by charging
  membership but inviting interesting people to
  join for free

• Then, in 1991, the web arrived

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The kids are alright

• Fast forward because the birth and development of
  the WWW is a whole different story
• As of 31 March 2008, 1.407 billion people use the
  Internet according to Internet World Stats
• Friends Reunited - launched 2000, sold in 2005
  for 120M with 15M users
• MySpace started in 2002 - 110 million members
• 15 million people use Geni.com to build their
  family tree
• Other SNS include Bebo, Hi5 and FaceParty

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http//xkcd.com/256/
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Blogs

• As soon as people could write to the Internet
  some started keeping online journals
• This became more widespread as the web made
  setting up and keeping a blog a simple task a
  blog is a web log
• Some are influential in specific areas
  frequently American politics

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FaceBook

• Originally started so that US college graduates
  could keep in touch
• 70 million users

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So people are talking

• And sharing things
• Flickr to share photos
• YouTube to share videos
• Slideshare to share presentations
• Share bookmarks on Del.icio.us
• We can aggregate what we are doing on FriendFeed
• And in doing so we create networks

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Instant

• Twitter is a microblogging site
• Messages (tweets) limited to 140 characters
• Can be sent from mobile devices
• Delivered in real time
• Can be distributed to other applications
• Find and follow friends and friends of friends

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So what is it all for?

• We manage who we talk and listen to
• Some of my FOAFs are very smart indeed
• I can access a network of experts
• Relationships of trust
• Hive mentality, synergy, power of collaboration
• About psychogeography

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So what is it all for?
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Someone can answer my question
Me
Me
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Why do people contribute?

• Gift economy not a new idea, dates back to the
  Stone Age
• Reciprocal altruism
• By contributing we create capital we increase
  the chances of being helped if they have a
  question
• We add value to the global commons

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SociaLearn assumption

• There is a major shift in society and education
  driven by the possibilities new technologies
  create for creating and sharing content and for
  social networking
• NB This is a dialogue about futures not a
  prediction
• SociaLearn suggests that instead of a VLE well
  create personal learning environments

http//www.open.ac.uk/blogs/socialearn/index.php
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Image by M Weller and taken from presentation,
SocialLearn on SociaLearn site
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To quote a good book
Image from http//is.gd/rH1
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Summary

• we can use the web as passive consumers or
• we can become activists and
• contribute but
• whatever we do
• we can still turn it all off

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(No Transcript)
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If you want to try

• Take a look round
• Find somewhere you feel comfortable
• Blogger
• Wikipedia
• Twitter
• Watch what others are doing
• Dip your toe in the water

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• Any questions?