Bernie Hogan gave a presentation on rebuilding collapsed contexts in social media. Some key points included: 1) Individual social relationships are unique like thumbprints but distance is secondary in an age of online access. 2) Everyone has a location but no one can be everywhere, leading to paradoxes of convenience. 3) Social network analysis can help make sense of large friend lists by identifying meaningful communities within networks. Analyzing interaction patterns can provide useful context about relationships. 4) To help with information overload, social platforms need features to help users identify important communities among their contacts rather than just displaying long lists.

1. Rebuilding the Collapsed
Contexts in Social Media
Bernie Hogan, PhD
Research Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute
University of Oxford
Local Social @ Social Media Week,
February 4, 2010
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2. The particular case
of a peculiar age
Person-to-person networking does not undermine
distance. But it makes distance secondary to specific
social relationships. Each individual has their own
unique relationships. Like a thumbprint.
We live in an age of access.
To be local is to be accessible.
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3. The paradox of convenience
Everyone is somewhere, no one is everywhere
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4. Because you can never have too
many irrelevant friends
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5. A social utility?
Source: http://www.alexa.com/topsites
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6. Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/28/Facebook2007.jpg
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7. What is Facebook? Really?
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11. Reasons for friends on SNS
1. Actual friends
2. Acquaintances, family members, colleagues
3. It would be socially inappropriate to say no because you know them
4. Having lots of Friends makes you look popular
5. It’s a way of indicating that you are a fan (of that person, band, etc.)
6. Your list of Friends reveals who you are
7. Their Profile is cool so being Friends makes you look cool
8. Collecting Friends lets you see more people (Friendster)
9. It’s the only way to see a private Profile (MySpace)
10. Being Friends lets you see someone’s bulletins and their Friends-only blog
posts (MySpace)
11. You want them to see your bulletins, private Profile, private blog (MySpace)
12. You can use your Friends list to find someone later
13. It’s easier to say yes than no.
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12. The friend numbers game
•Large university in the American Midwest.
•First year social statistics class (2009)
•95% Response Rate
•Data captured through Facebook API
•N = 393.
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13. Too Many Friends!
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14. And too many connections
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15. But again,
scale matters.
Men with 500 friends only have
mutual conversations with 10 of
them. Its up to 16 for women.
That’s less than 4% of friends.
Source: Economist (via Overstated.net)
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16. ocial Network
Analysis to the Rescue!
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17. Trace data can tell a lot
Source: Predicting tie strength with social media.
Eric Gilbert, Karrie Karahalios and Christian Sandvig.
CHI ’09
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18. Friend lists
Tedious and incoherent
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19. Eigenvector Community
Well partitioned, but
overwhelming
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20. Greedy Community
Large swaths of Sense
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21. High School
Professional
Friends (24%)
Colleagues (23%)
Single event
friends (3%)
Current
Co-workers (13.4%)
Friends from
Undergraduate (15%)
Summer
Camp Friends (2%)
Family (8%)
Grad School
Colleagues and Friends (12%)
Intern friends (3%)
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22. Network as Context in Email
Source: Hansen, D. (forthcoming) Analyzing Social Media with NodeXL, chapter 8.
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23. Network as context in Twitter
Source: Smith, M. (forthcoming) Analyzing Social Media with NodeXL, chapter 4.
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24. Networks in Twitter II
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25. So what?
• Lurking within any social network site profile
is a host of clustered peers. Discovering
these groups through community detection is
an effective way to bring coherence to a
profile, and help it scale.
• Consider: planning a party, recommending a
concert, sending out important news.
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26. Nearness is now a
social property as
much as a spatial one.
This is not the same thing as collaborative
filtering. Networks do not signify
similarity, they signify community. These
are the people that do things together,
disclose information to each other.
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27. Looking forward
Particular relationships create networks.
Norms of access create overload.
Thinking local is one solution, but it is partial.
We need to create contexts, so users don’t
have to.
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28. Thank You
Bernie Hogan
Research Fellow, OII
;)
@blurky
bernie.hogan@oii.ox.ac.uk
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