More than a quarter of eight to 11-year-olds in the UK have a profile on a social network!

An article in the BBC today ‘children flock to social networks’ outlines just how many children within the UK have a profile on social networking sites such as Bebo, Myspace and Facebook. The survey carried out by OFCOM, reveals some staggering figures on the takeup of these social networking sites.

 OFCOM’s survey then says “ Of 5,000 adults and 3,000 children found 49% of those aged between eight and 17 have a profile”.

 The most worrying point that I did notice was that some parents do not seem to realise that children this young require supervison of these sites, without adequate supervison they are effectively putting their children as risk. The article also points out that children should set their profile to private. Interestingly parents do not know how to set their profiles to private in the first instance.

Watch the video report - ’social networking child risk’

Kids being raised by the internet.

Though im loathe to repeat a story from our sensational newspapers today, I will anyway (and from that paragon of responsible journalistic integrity the Daily Mail too!).

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=542968&in_page_id=1766&ito=1490

 20 hours a week at the computer? I think thats probably better than 20 hours a week in front of the television. At least with social networking sites there is a degree of social interaction occurring rather than zombiefication in front of the latest “dancing celebrities making over an airport departure gate” bbc show.

Facebook: IM

As much as I hate pushing my last post down the page a bit, I’ve been searching for news to do with social networking which hasn’t been reported by BBC.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/digitalcontent/2008/03/facebook_gets_private_and_laun.html

The Guardian reports that Facebook will soon be launching its own Instant Messaging service which will be available to users quite soon. Given the current news stories circulating about the privacy of information people post on their profile pages, which have resulted in them losing their jobs and more, an IM service does appear beneficial. However, it is still difficult to say this is anymore secure as the friends you have via social networking may not be the people you believe.

Bebo acquired by AOL - $850m (£417m) in cash

Social networking site Bebo has today been acquired by Time Warner’s AOL division.   The price paid is in stark contrast to that paid by Microsoft for 1.6 % ownership of Facebook last year at a cost of $240m.

According to the BBC News “Bebo is the biggest social networking website in Britain, the Irish Republic and New Zeland”.

 For the full article go to BBC online

Facebook to be used in divorce proceedings!

Social networking sites such as Facebook, Bebo and Myspace are the latest phenomenon with millions of people enjoying catching up with old friends and making new ones.  However lawyers are predicting these sites could be used as a ‘tool’ in divorce proceedings and the first facebook divorce is not far away.

 To read the full article click HERE

Web 2.0 Technologies.

Web 2.0, the latest iteration of the internet is where users stop being passive viewers and begine to actively partake and contribute to the internet. Web 2.0 can have different meanings to different people, to some it is just a social networking site such as Bebo. To others its different technologies that combine to form a true information highway, one that flows both ways.

This includes

- Blogs

- Wikis

- Tagging

- Media sharing

- Audio/Video blogging and podcasting

- RSS

Traditional HTML was never reactive enough for Web 2.0 where the internet is used as a platform. Now, AJAX (or Asynchronous Javescript and XML) is used where when a page is loded only small amounts of information are passed back and forth from the server thus allowing a greater level of dynamic content within a webpage. For example, expanding a menu on a page would not cause the page to be reloaded over and over again. This mimics the responsiveness found in traditional desktop applications and is much more “natural” and speedier.

In competition to AJAX is Macromedias Flash which allows multimedia to be quickly downloaded and played within a page. This however requires a browser plug-in though most people already have it.

The usefullness of Flash is readily apparent, just look at YouTube.

Social Networking Business Model

In the most basic sense, a business model is the method of doing business by which a company can sustain itself — that is, generate revenue.

Social networking sites make their money in various ways. Online dating sites such as Udate and Match measure their revenues in 6 figures every month. Monster.com is profitable, in that companies pay to search for potential employees. The fact is that people pay for search when they want quality information.

Facebook still makes most of It’s money from targeted advertising… displaying relevant advertisements to users dependant on their interests. http://www.facebook.com/ads/

However as an additional income generator , you can now purchase “gifts” to send to your friends. This months featured gift is “Fresh Air” at 250,000 units for a price of $1. That’s a lot of one dollars, for something that doesn’t cost them a cent! Even worse there is many young and old that will fork out for this. I guess that’s how they generate at least a portion of their income.

Stanford University have actually created a module to teach students on how to create Facebook applications and how to analyse the information they collect from users. Its big business!

http://venturebeat.com/2007/09/10/facebook-to-take-over-stanford-classroom
Here is a video of Tom Anderson the founder of Myspace, talking about how myspace became successful. Its interesting when he describes initial marketing campaigns weren’t successful and word of mouth added most value to myspace.

Dave McClure in his blog - Master of 500 Hats, has posted an interesting Slideshare of the metrics and business models for a fictitious start up Scottish Pirates. Describing the process of acquiring new users right through to generating revenue.

Funny skit on how facebook can “take over your life”

Found this on youtube and thought it funny!

Social Implications of Social Networking

There are very serious repercussions to online social networking sites if you are not careful. Sites like Myspace and Facebook are an excellent medium to catch up with old friends and meet new people with similar interests but they can also be a hindrance to you both personally and professionally. Social Networking is a service that can be both used and abused.

One of the most important implications of social networking is that whatever you post online is a permanent record. All those photos of you partying with friends, stupid pranks captured on video, negative comments, and intimate secrets that you write have your name stamp on them. It’s commonly known that employers from all areas (not to mention potential partners and university recruiters) use these sites to get an overlook of who you are as a person.

Social networking sites can provide a great platform to meet people with common interests and to share advice. However, it can also provide an open invitation to predators, those who seek personal information for identity theft and other scams, and those thousands of companies seeking to market their products and services to you. It is important to be as careful meeting strangers online as you are meeting them everyday offline.

Another danger social networking brings to its users is time wasted. You can’t replace any of those hours spent online reading jokes, watching videos, or engaging in frivolous conversation. Spending time on your friends’ pages is never as fun as being together in person. Wasting time complaining about your bad day at university online is never as productive as actually doing your assignment.

Research from Global Secure Systems (GSS) and Infosecurity Europe 2008 suggests social networking sites - such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo - are costing UK corporations close to £6.5 billion annually in lost productivity. Which sounds an impossibly large figure, but here’s the maths:

The poll was carried out amongst 776 office workers, who admitted to spending at least 30 minutes a day visiting social networking sites whilst at work, that’s a minimum of 10 hours a month which equates to 3 weeks of every year with two respondents who were so hooked that the spend 3 hours visiting these sites everyday. The end result is potentially billions of pounds in lost productivity maintain GSS, plus the extra demand on bandwidth which is an additional cost to a business in terms of efficiency, maintenance and resources.

Social networking is not all bad however, corporate social networks such as LinkedIn can open leads to new opportunities or jobs. Facebook groups such as Microsoft with its 28,937 members allows you to network with people with the same interests opening the possibilities for research projects. Bebo, Facebook and Myspace allow you to connect, share photos and video with friends you might not see often. But it is important to be careful, keep profiles safe and private and know that all information you post is forever. If you don’t want your granny to know, don’t post it online!

DIY Social Networking.

There are a myriad of technology types utilised within the (virtual)world of social networking.

When most people think of social networking they think of Bebo or Facebook, however, this barely scratches the surface of what is out there.

Being facetious, we can describe the internet and everything that exists in that netherworld as social networking technology.

After all Tim Burners-Lee envisaged the internet as a resource where like-minded geeks (scientists) could share information with each other. Not much different from modern sites today, except in presentation and spelling.

If we take a modern site such as Bebo, we can see that rather than being a discrete system it is an amalgamation of social networking software and technologies that have evolved over the years.

For example, we have the ability to post a blog and chat with other users as well as provide other information in the form of videos, photos, etc.

However, as with many things in life, a jack of all trades is a master of none.

If you want to send messages to your friends you can do that via an instant messaging system. If you want to share files (legally of course) then you can do so via dedicated peer-to-peer and file sharing programs.

Of course, it is the functionality, features, and ease of use (as well as “coolness”) that brings in subscribers.

Perhaps one of the most interesting forms of social networking is within MMORPGs and more recently other online game genres. Here users can have a greater “virtual presence” within a virtual society and some excel here, more so than in the real world.

It is perhaps easier to think of these as not games but, as a social networking system with greater presentation (3-dimensional and real-time simulation).

In essence, social networking technology is communication technology whether discrete systems or systems that provide a gateway to the various routes of communication between internet users.

What is the result of all this technology? Information, and information is power as Robin Morgan said.

That is why if you strip away all the fancy layers of media players, photo galleries and message boards, at the heart of a social network site is a big database that stores information, updates it, adds to it and deletes it.

If you are a free spirit and feel like taking on the big names of social networking or perhaps find that unexploited niche market, here is a comparison of some social network software platforms and their capabilities –

http://www.techcrunch.com/wp-content/wlsn_comparison_chart.html