Capturing your social network on Facebook

A friend of mine, Bernie Hogan, has created a Facebook application for capturing your social network of friends on Facebook as a UCINET data file so it can be imported into social network analysis tools. It is called My Online Social Network - Phase 1. Cool! There are also other Facebook applications that show your social networks, one is Nexus, which visualizes the social network as a graph. The Nexus app is cool, it generates the graph in real time and shows clusters or subgroups that represent your close friends together. The graph showed a cluster of my U of T friends, my University of Waterloo classmates from undergrad, my friends from TorCamp and my Nokia colleagues. You can also find a friend from the friend graph, change the layout to be radial instead of a spring graph.

Very cool, so try out these apps on Facebook!

On Technorati: Facebook social network, Facebook friend graph, Nexus

MySpace now has Developer Platform

Well, it was going to happen sooner or later. MySpace now has a Developer Platform for developers to write applications into MySpace, following Facebook. It's interesting that MySpace is following Google's OpenSocial API. In fact, there are a number of companies collaborating with Google on this. But Facebook is not on this list.

It'll be interesting to see how this develops. So far, every social networking site or so creates their own API for developers, there is no unifying API. Google's OpenSocial is meant to unify this. The OpenSocial API is a wrapper to hook into other social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, and makes writing a social application easier. Ning is kind of doing something like this where you can create social apps based on templates, but it's not doing any type of development platform like I see with MySpace and Facebook.

On Technorati: MySpace, Facebook, OpenSocial

Turning real life behaviours into social features

Here's a presentation about how to turn real life behaviours into social features:

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This is a great presentation, a lot of things being obvious, but things that as designers we take for granted. If social media is to be successful and not just a way of saying "I have more friends than you do", it has got to reach the root of human behaviour.

There's an interesting article in the Guardian about how some social networking web sites (in particular the article is about Facebook) take away from the actual "social networking". Some people enjoy chatting with people online and using Facebook rather than meeting with friends face to face. Of course, I think the article does show that social networking sites need to supplement physical social networking. There are times when you can't do physical social networking due to distance and it's much easier to do it online and reach a wider audience. But, the article does show that there are opportunities in this space to improve on social networking web sites and closely examining human behaviour is something that needs to be actively researched upon in the context of creating an online presence that supplements the physical world.

Definitely opportunities for researchers and businesses, hey that's why I'm doing research in this area!

Facebook and business

Everybody knows that Facebook is the social network out there. It's not just for teens or students anymore, as Facebook has opened its platform to developers and to anyone out there. This is great that Facebook has done that because now, we have seen so many applications written for Facebook, one of the more popular ones is Scrabulous which is addictive but doesn't require both people to be online at the same time to play. Other social networking applications and companies out there are competing with Facebook, not Google. Google has not gotten close to what Facebook has done, although they are getting into the social networking game with their OpenSocial API. And then there's word that Google wants to create a social graph of all your networks. Of course the term social graph has been used before in Computer Science even though Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook has used this term.

Anyways, what am I trying to get at? Facebook IS useful and increasingly so according to Harry Chen from UMBC. He talks about why people should be using and joining Facebook. He specifies three reasons for this:

1. Interact with friends who you don’t see often
2. Gain new competitive advantages
3. Learn by playing

This means that businesses need to be getting on board which many are by tapping the social networks within Facebook by writing Facebook applications.

On Technorati: Facebook, Google, OpenSocial

Social graph - is it overhyped?

Here's a story from The Economist regarding about how the term "social graph", even though it is hot, is not really any thing new. Social graph is being mentioned everywhere on the Net because of Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and how Facebook is touting and is being given credit to the term "social graph". However, the social graph is something that has been done in Computer Science, according to Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google.

It seems that social graph is the new hot thing in Silicon Valley, and everyone is getting on the bandwagon. It'll be interesting to see if it will still remain hot for a while, or go like the dot com companies.

On Technorati: social graph, Facebook

Google hints at social network plan

I've been wondering when Google would start to think about social networking and how it could be used. So far, Yahoo has been the leader in social networking, with Flickr and Upcoming and Yahoo My Web Beta. Google's Orkut still does not compare in the same calibre with Facebook or MySpace, huge social networking web sites. However, Google is now beginning to hint how they will use social networking data in their own web search and to share the social data with others. According to Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, from this article from NY Times, Google has something up its sleeve.

Will Google be able to top Yahoo and other social networking sites like Facebook? Only time will tell.

Difference between social graph, social network web site, and social OS

Here's an article that explains what's the difference between a social graph, social network web site and social OS. An example of a social graph is the people connected to each other. AN example of a social network web site is Flickr or Twitter. An example of a social OS is Facebook, although I don't really kind of agree with that. I think of Facebook as a social network application or social network web site. It's not really an OS, because it doesn't permeate through all my computer's applications and it's not tied with Windows or Linux. All my applications I'm using do not all tie in with Facebook (at least not yet).

What do you all think about this?

Social network web sites don't really social network

This article from Washington Post describes how social networking web sites like Facebook inundate us with more connections and actually alienate us than connect us. Duncan Watts feels that these web sites fail to do what they are supposed to do, which is "network". In a sense, I believe that he is right. When you social network, you meet with someone and start connecting and talking. With present social networking sites, it's more like just for getting in touch and updating your life to others. The number of social networking web sites are ballooning and multiplying like crazy. People really want to get on the social networking bandwagon, but they don't really understand the value of social networking.

On Technorati: social network

Did you know you can be banned from Facebook?

Well, I sure didn't until I read this post. Apparently, this guy tried to upload his 4600 contacts from Gmail into Facebook to allow invites, and then he got banned for unusual activity. I guess the Facebook application thought that he was a spammer uploading that many contacts. This then really begs the question, how does an application know that activity is spam or it is legitimate?

On Technorati: Facebook, banned

Happy Canada Day!

Today is Canada's 140th birthday since Canada became a nation on July 1, 1867. Happy birthday Canada! From the Great Canadian Wish List that CBC did on Facebook, here are the top 30 wishes voted by Facebook members. The top wish is abolish abortion.

I hope everyone had a safe and happy Canada Day! We are truly blessed to live in such a diverse, multicultural, and free country that is Canada. Bonne fete Canada, vive le Canada!

Happy birthday Canada!

On Technorati: Canada Day, Great Canadian Wish List, Facebook

What is your wish this Canada Day?

This weekend is the July 1 Canada Day long weekend. CBC is holding a Great Canadian Wish list on Facebook asking Canadians what they wish for on Canada's birthday. The winning wish list will be announced by CBC.

The top 4 wishes on the list are:

1. Abolish abortion in Canada
2. I wish that Canada would remain pro-choice
3. For a spiritual revival in our nation
4. Restore traditional marriage

Vote for your favorite wish on Facebook! Please vote for #1, 3 and 4.

On Technorati: Facebook, Great Canadian Wish List, CBC

Facebook on your Rogers mobile phone!

Yes, besides having YouTube on your Rogers mobile phone through Rogers Vision, now you can get Facebook as well. Of course with Rogers Vision, you need to have a phone that supports that. This is what Rogers says about accessing Facebook on your mobile phone:

Everything you love about Facebook is now on your wireless phone. Poke, get messages, find family and friends — it's all here!

To access Facebook, launch your mobile Internet browser and click on Facebook or text FB to 4751 and we'll send you the link!

Facebook costs 5¢ per KB or as per your mobile Internet plan. Can't get enough of Facebook? Get a mobile Internet plan and browse for less. Plans start as low as $5/month for 5MB or $10/month for 10MB.

I suppose if you really need to be in contact and have to use Facebook, then this is a good service. Otherwise, you could probably just wait to get back to a computer with Internet access to use Facebook. I mean do you have to really have Facebook on your mobile. I guess if you're paying an mobile Internet plan, then it's ok.

It looks like Facebook is becoming the social network OS, and with the ability to create Facebook applications and opening up the API to developers, it does look like Facebook has the capability to become the social OS of the internet on the web. Now, since Facebook is getting into the OS and applications arena, it's going to compete with Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Facebook resisted the buyout from Yahoo, so it looks like Mark Zuckerberg has something up his sleeve with his creation.

On Technorati: Facebook, Rogers, YouTube

Facebook opens site to developers

Facebook has now opened its site to developers. What does this mean? Developers can add Facebook functionality and tools to their own web site, essentially tapping into the Facebook social network and community. I think what this will lead to is 'social mashup', adding social networking features to web sites and make web sites more 'social'. Web sites don't have to create their own social networking tools and features, when they can use Facebook. It will be interesting, perhaps there might be a logo on a web site that says "Facebook certified", or "Facebook approved", or "Facebook enabled", or "Facebook compatible". I believe this is the start of creating an open social networking platform for the web, and in essence, "socializing" the web. Perhaps, using Facebook on a web site, is a way of creating and maintaining a sense of community part of my PhD research.

On Technorati: Facebook, social web, social mashup