Group items tagged

"This is the Social Media Research done by Universal Mccann including 17,000 people in 29 countries."

Probably the most important reading we will do in terms of "foundations" of social networks. Take your time with it and read it closely.

"Social network sites (SNSs) are increasingly attracting the attention of academic and industry researchers intrigued by their affordances and reach. This special theme section of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication brings together scholarship on these emergent phenomena. In this introductory article, we describe features of SNSs and propose a comprehensive definition. We then present one perspective on the history of such sites, discussing key changes and developments. After briefly summarizing existing scholarship concerning SNSs, we discuss the articles in this special section and conclude with considerations for future research."

Note not only the growth of boradband but the surprising number of people who still don't have it.

"Home broadband adoption stood at 63% of adult Americans as of April 2009, up from 55% in May 2008. The latest findings of the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project mark a departure from the stagnation in home high-speed adoption rates that had prevailed from December 2007 through December 2008. During that period, Pew Internet Project surveys found that home broadband penetration remained in a narrow range between 54% and 57%."

"This paper explores key issues people experience managing personal boundaries within and across social technologies. We look in particular at email and online social networks. We offer a theoretical framework for understanding the errors in assumptions about the singularity of identity that are currently inscribed into the sharing models of social technology systems. Through a questionnaire study we examine how people facet their identities and their lives, and how these facets are expressed through use of technology. We found for more mature users family was an extremely important context for sharing online, and that email was still a preferred form of communication for private sharing across facets of life. Single, working men had the highest level of incompatible facets, and a higher level of facet incompatibility was correlated with increased worry about sharing in the context of social networks."

What types of news stories do consumers share and discuss the most? What issues do they have less interest in? What is the interplay of the various new media platforms? And how do their agendas compare with that of the mainstream press? To answer these questions, the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism has gathered a year of data on the top news stories discussed and linked to on blogs and social media pages and seven months' worth on Twitter. We also have analyzed a year of the most viewed news-related videos on YouTube. Several clear trends emerge.

"Altimeter Group conducted research, and gleaned input from 34 vendors, agencies, and experts, to determine success criteria and develop a roadmap for Facebook page best practices. We found Eight Success Criteria for Facebook page marketing, and then tested the maturity of 30 top brands across six industries."

"Altimeter has conducted a research project to find out how companies are connecting social technologies to the overall buying process as well as analyzing how they increase revenues for brands."

A recent analysis of Twitter content found that local governments in Virginia are mainly ignoring the popular microblogging website. The research study showed that only 17% of county, city and town governments had Twitter accounts. Tweets averaged at around one per day, and only five of the accounts had more than 1000 followers.

Social networks typically promise to remove "personally identifying information" before sharing this data, to protect users' privacy. But researchers from the University of Texas at Austin have found that, combined with readily available data from other online sources, this anonymized data can still reveal sensitive information about users.

Manhattan is the capital of people living by themselves. But are New Yorkers lonelier? Far from it, say a new breed of loneliness researchers, who argue that urban alienation is largely a myth.

good short blogged descriptions of a great panel at ASIST2007

Research on whether online social networks affect social capital

"Researchers at Yahoo analyzed tweets after the Chilean earthquake earlier this year and found evidence that the Twitter community works like a "collaborative filter," questioning reports that turn out to be fake and confirming those that are true."

The business models of social networks could rely on an ignorance towards privacy from their users, experts say. But recent research indicates normal Facebook users have begun altering their privacy settings to control the information people (and potentially advertisers) can see, which could affect the ability of social networks to make money.

Slides for 2010 Pearson survey on social media. "More than 80 percent of college faculty are using social media, with more than half using these tools as part of their teaching, according to a first-of-its-kind survey, "Social Media in Higher Education." The survey was conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group in collaboration with New Marketing Labs and Pearson, a global leader in education, technology and services."

Interesting research from Fred Stutzman: "By giving "real estate" to Facebook, third party sites have created a one-way mirror, allowing Facebook to peer in on what we're doing. If you're logged in to Facebook, and you visit a third party page with a social plugin, Facebook knows where you've been."

I disagree with some of his points, but well-argued and documented. From: J Comp Mediated Comm, Volume 13 Issue 2 Page 516-529, January 2008 (Full Text)

Scholars, advertisers and political activists see massive online social networks as a representation of social interactions that can be used to study the propagation of ideas, social bond dynamics and viral marketing, among others. But the linked structures of social networks do not reveal actual interactions among people. Scarcity of attention and the daily rhythms of life and work makes people default to interacting with those few that matter and that reciprocate their attention. A study of social interactions within Twitter reveals that the driver of usage is a sparse and hidden network of connections underlying the "declared" set of friends and followers.

"All too frequently, someone makes a comment about how a large number of Facebook Friends must mean a high degree of social capital. Or how we can determine who is closest to who by measuring their email messages. Or that the Dunbar number can explain the average number of Facebook friends. These are just three examples of how people mistakenly assume that 1) any social network that can be boiled down to a graph can be compared and 2) any theory of social networks is transitive to any graph representing connections between people. Such mistaken views result in broad misinterpretations of social networks and social network sites."

"Good news for worried parents: All those hours their teenagers spend socializing on the Internet are not a bad thing, according to a new study by the MacArthur Foundation. "