Social Network

Social Network Priyanka Agrawal

Abstract • Social Networks to keep in touch with friends, family and community • Newer Web 2.0 technologies encourage Social Networking • Security and privacy, market and technological factors to be considered while developing social networks.

Introduction • Web 2.0 focuses on openness, read-write paradigms encouraging Social Networking • Globalization – a concept by Barry Wellman, the capacity of the Internet to expand users and bind them more deeply • The nature of Social Network sites due to on-line, interactive and relatively open environment introduces various privacy and security risks

Nature of Social Networks • Social Structure made of nodes that are tied by one or more specific types of relations • • • • •

Classmates.com, first social networking website in 1995 LinkedIn towards business professionals Ancestry.com and Geni.com to find family tree “MySpace” most popular social networking site Facebook and Orkut, geared towards teens and young

Nature of Social Networks

Nature of Social Networks – Cont..

Nature of Social Networks – Cont..

Privacy Implications • The lack of face to face communication provides a false sense of security • Protecting personal information & Fair representation online is an important cautionary measure eg., ebay • On-line identity presented correctly or misrepresented and its implications is an interesting question • Privacy issues like blogs, online social networks by end user Eg., FOAF can expose private information, LinkedIn, Myspace • Instances that revealed classified information because of easily viewable and carelessly posted resulting lawsuits and heavy financial damages

Privacy Implications – Cont.. • Limiting access by limited audience • Posted content and control consequences associated with Privacy breaches for user • Security profiles determine level and extent of privacy flexibility eg., orkut • Future Social Network should have security profiles with privacy settings for all Permutations and Communications • Privacy Warning Server generates warnings for end users and make them aware of any privacy loopholes

Security Considerations for Online Communities 1. Abuse, Inappropriate content, Identity theft and other threats • Problems: Child abuse, nudity and harassment • On-line harassment or cyber stalking can range from annoying to deadly • Identity theft is major problem eg., register on MySpace and pass on comments • Flexibility to post inappropriate videos on YouTube

• Setting limits, choosing audience and controlling contents for safety • Defining different levels of access is an important element

Security Considerations for Online Communities 2. Legal Issues • Service account legalities, material legalities, contract issues with the provider, copyright and trademark issues, third party issues , different liabilities eg., Two criminals meet on Myspace and plan robbery. Who is liable for such an act? • Trademark and copyright issues on content posted on websites

Security Considerations for Online Communities 3. Technological Issues • Web 2.0 can create vulnerabilities like RSS, Trackback, Pingback, Tagging etc • A malicious advertiser creates an inappropriate tag at a page to promote his business • VoIP framework can launch attacks like SYN attack etc

Network Considerations for Online Communities 1. Boundedness The proportion of network member ties that stay within boundaries of the social network. Eg. Health related Social Networks Marketing Social Networks •

Ensure relationships between nodes to evolve with boundedness desired

Network Considerations for Online Communities 2. Density Proportion of all possible ties that actually exist eg. Organizational teams should be denser than one

• IT designers should create desired density, like online messaging for dense networks and offline messaging for sparse networks

Network Considerations for Online Communities 3. Exclusivity people interact primarily one to one or are their individual contacts available to a wider set of persons eg., chain partners C2C ecommerce 4. Social Control External sources create, constrain and manages a person’s contacts and exchanges. eg., Intra-organizational teams Inter-organizational teams

Network Considerations for Online Communities 5. Network Externality Extent to which a network is useful eg., MySpace

• Developers make sure the frameworks enable more and more usefulness

Network Considerations for Online Communities 6. Range Large and diverse population with its boundaries eg., School • Network designs should address these ranges

Network Considerations for Online Communities 7. Strength of Ties • Probably linear combination of the amount of time, emotional intensity, the intimacy and reciprocal services • Network of friends should ensure provision of reciprocal services and emotional interaction • LinkedIn should be designed accordingly

Network Considerations for Online Communities 8. Network Centralization Less centralized network has lesser chances of failure • Evenly distributed nodes are better in failure scenarios

9. Degree Centrality quality of connections and not their quantity

Network Considerations for Online Communities 10. Between Centrality • Node with high between's has great influence over what flows and has more power • Networks should be designed as minimum number of nodes in central positions • Shorter global path benefits the entire network

Market and Technological Considerations 1. Market Considerations • Applications: Emergency purposes such as campus emergency • The key is to find right stakeholders and carry out requirement analysis • Vertical social networks for richer interactions eg., pharmaceutical industry LinkedIn

Market and Technological Considerations 2. Technology Considerations • Web 2.0: self evolution, collaboration and participation Eg., BigAdda.com by Reliance Corp

• AJAX trend for rich user interfaces • Such technologies are important consideration for faster transaction processing and help rich user interfaces

Market and Technological Considerations

Market and Technological Considerations

Visualization of Networks • Visual representation of social networks is important to understand the network data and convey the result of the analysis. • Various new methods have been developed in order to display network data in more intuitive format (e.g. Sociomapping).

Method: Sociomapping • Method developed for processing and visualization of relational data • Spatial orientation and movement detection • Principle: transform relational data into visual format • Applications: groups and populations

Sociomapping – Small Systems • • • • •

Social distance Psychological distance Communication distance Other relation measures Variable coded in Height of subject includes social status, performance, indicators of subject, average communication frequency etc

Sociomapping – Large Systems • • • •

Political research Marketing research Customer segmentation And other research concerned with preferences and/or attitudes

• Broader scope of Application: Historical events analysis, Internet community tools, Literature analysis, Military units and human spaceflight crews analysis, Sport analysis and forecast, Politics analysis and forecast, team building and team analysis

Tool: Team Profile Analyzer • Tool for psychologists, consultants, managers and HR specialists • Enables integration of information about team from personality, performance or knowledge tests and biographical data • Team analysis and development; team coaching, team building, recruitment etc

Main Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network_analysis_softwa re

Social Network Tools • For scholarly research tools like UCINet, Pajek , ORA, the statnet suite of packages in R, and GUESS are popular. • Business oriented social network tools include iPoint , NetMiner, InFlow, Keyhubs, Sentinel Visualizer , KXEN Social Network, NodeXL. For large networks with millions of nodes, try Sonamine. For mobile telecoms Idiro SNA Plus is recommended • An open source package with GUI for Linux, Windows and Mac, is Social Networks Visualizer or SocNetV, developed in Qt/C++. • Another generic open source package for Windows, Linux and OS X with interfaces to Python and R is "igraph" • Another generic open source package with [GUI] for Windows, Linux and OS X is "Tulip" • For Mac OS X a related package installer of SocNetV is available. • For integrated egocentric data collection and visualization SocioMetrica

Conclusion • The extent to consider the technological and market factors to improve effectiveness of networks • Constantly think of introducing new features in terms of applicability, usefulness and audience • Differentiations on both dimensions determine effectiveness and efficiency • Security and privacy issues with innovation features

References