SOCIAL NETWORKING & DESIGN
Sarah Mowbray
Textiles
Summary Definition
Social Networking is the 21st Century way of connecting with people. Even though we connect with people everyday, such as in the work-place or at School/College and University, on-line is now the most popular way of socialising. There is thousands of people on-line everyday looking to meet and engage with new people from all around the world. Social Networking enables users to create there own profile, which can lead to new and familiar people finding you. Once you have created your profile you can then find friends and share hobbies, interests, photos, videos, links to favourite websites, games and much more. These sites are also used by people who want to make themselves known to important and influential people within their chosen career path. This may not have been possible without the help of social networking. At present, my research shows that the most popular site used is Facebook.
“Facebook has grown to become one of the most visited websites in the world, with over 400 million users to date.” (Prescott, L., 2009)
Image taken from;
http://www.7thfloor.it/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/social-network.jpg
History
Social Networking made its first appearance through BBS, AOL and CompuServe. The Bulletin Board System (BBS), was an online meeting place that allowed users to communicate through a centralised system, enabling them to download files and post messages on to the bulletin board. BBS continued to grow throughout the 1980’s and the 1990’s at which point the internet was becoming more powerful. Even though the internet and social networking was about to change enormously, some services such as Tom Jennings’ FidoNet, linked many BBSes together into worldwide computer networks which managed to survive the internet revolution (Nickson, C., 2009) The BBS may have disappeared from today’s social networking, but it is not lost and it will never be forgotten.
In the 1970’s, a service called CompuServe evolved from being a business orientated communication solution, to a public phenomenon in the late 1980’s. CompuServe allowed its users to access news and events and also share files with other members. Instead of just being able to send messages, CompuServe had something new and exciting; Discussion Forums. These discussion forums allowed people to chat with random other people, about absolutely anything!
“Those forums proved tremendously popular and paved the way for the modern iterations we know today.” (Nickson, C., 2009)
However, the massive growth in social networking today is most likely because of the very well known AOL (America Online). (Nickson, C., 2009) AOL took a huge leap into the social network community. Users were able to search for friends and also create member communities. From the influence of AOL, many other sites started to appear. In 1997, ClassMates.com and SixDegrees.com were launched. SixDegrees.com. is the first site to allow its users to create profiles, invite friends, start group communities and surf other people’s profiles. From here, the world of social networking became a globalisation. In 2002 onwards Friendster, LinkedIn, MySpace, Flixster, Bebo and Goodreads (to name a few), emerged and thousands of people started to join. In 2004 however, was the launch of Facebook.
Facebook was founded in February 2004 by a Harvard Psychology student. Marc Zuckerburg created Facebook as a way for other Harvard Students to meet new people and to keep up with the news and events around campus. As Facebook became more popular around the University, it soon became accessible to other Universities such as Columbia, Yale and Stanford.
“According to an internal survey completed in September 2005 more than 85% of students of the enlisted universities had a Facebook account and at least 50% of them were accessing the website daily.” (Montefusco, A., 2010)
Facebook allows its user to create in-depth profiles with features to add hundreds of photos and videos. Users can also list their interests, hobbies, family members, current location and schools/colleges and/or Universities attended. Members can use the features to find friends, surf their friends profiles, leave comments, and use the chat box to have one on one conversations. Facebook has become a phenomenon over the past few years with millions of people using it everyday.
“By 2009, our parents joined, our long lost cousins joined, and we had to debate how to handle at least one friend request from someone who was mean to us in high school.” (Prescott, L. 2010)
Social Networking & Design
As a fellow user of social networking and a growing Textile Designer, I have found many advantages of using these social networking sites. People can use the sites to post their work on their profile and write up explanations, thought processes etc. for the world to see. This is an excellent way of making yourself known in the design world. Not only is there Facebook that is used worldwide, but also, especially for designers, is other things like Blogger, WordPress and Twitter. These sites are especially designed to post work on to and enable you to connect with existing designers and artists.
Other area that can be looked at within social networking & design, are the actual design aspects of these sites and how they represent good design and bad design.
An example of good design; If you are surfing the web, looking up sites or trying to find a specific designer, once you have found what you are looking for, you can directly post the link on to your social network profile. This saves time writing down exactly where you found the designer or website and it also gives other people a chance to see the link on your profile and experience it themselves. It may even be a video from youtube.com of how to do a specific technique or how to learn a specific skill. This shows how connections can be made between possible clients or employers.
“The idea is that when you're reading or watching something that you think is cool, you don't have to copy and paste the URL back into Facebook in order to share the link with your friends. Instead, with one click you get to check out a preview, choose how you want to share it, and then distribute it. You can share content with anyone, even people who aren't on Facebook yet.” (Hughes, C., 2006)
An example of bad design; unfortunately, not everyone uses these sites for the reasons they were designed for. Facebook especially, cannot stop someone abusing the site if they have used false personal details. This is an example of how these social networking sites can be dangerous, especially to the younger generation. People can form private illegal groups to share illegal data.
“A convicted sex offender who set up a host of Facebook accounts to share up to 100,000 indecent images has been jailed for four years” (Williams, D., 2010)
“Investigators from the UK-based Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre found Ian Green had established three private Facebook groups to share the illegal content.” (Williams, D., 2010)
Overall, social networking, when used responsibly, can be an exciting way to connect with the world and open up opportunities that would not otherwise be possible.
Bibliography
Internet
Hughes, C. 2006. Facebook Share, available at;
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=2215537130
Montefusco, A. 2010. The History of Facebook, available at;
http://www.suite101.com/content/history-of-facebook-9217306
Nickson, C. 2009. The History of Social Networking, available at;
http://www.digitaltrends.com/features/the-history-of-social-networking
Prescott, L. 2009. (Principal, Research-Write) Social Networking By The Numbers, available at;
http://www.research-write.com/2010/social-networking-by-the-numbers.html
Williams, D. 2010. Facebook User Jailed For Child Porn Network, available at;
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Facebook-User-Jailed-For-Child-Porn-Network-Convicted-Sex-Offender-Ian-Green-Shared-100000-Images/Article/201008415707474?lid=ARTICLE_15707474_FacebookUserJailedForChildPornNetwork:ConvictedSexOffenderIanGreenShared100,000Images&lpos=searchresults
http://www.whatissocialnetworking.com/
Books
Magid, L. 2007. Collier, A. 2007. (publication unknown) MySpace, a parent’s guide – Safe online networking for young kids.
