Social Networking Software
A SWOT Analysis
James Durkan
Wales e-Training Network/LCSS
20 December, 2007
Introduction 3
SWOT Analysis 3
Strengths 3
Collaborative 3
Engaging 4
Sense of Community 4
Knowledge Management 4
Ubiquitous Communication 5
Ease of Use 5
Integration 5
Low Cost 5
Appeal 6
Weaknesses 6
Oversold 6
Tribal 6
Disorderly 7
Privacy Issues 7
Opportunities 7
Integration 7
Distributed Platform 7
Standards 7
Portable 8
Modularity 8
Volume of Content 8
Threats 9
Competing Platforms 9
Shifting Sands 9
Ownership 9
Technical Support 9
Abuse and Exploitation 9
Duty of Care 10
Conclusion 10
Introduction
The World Wide Web has evolved into something that is approximating the vision of Tim Berners Lee. The new web, Web 2.0, (a phrase coined by O'Reilly when it chaired the first consortium) is a collection of services that enable users to deploy content on the internet without having to acquire technical skills. Whereas the internet of yore was a collection of static HTML pages written by an elite with some degree of technical expertise, Web 2.0 has removed that barrier an the result is a dynamic collection of content linked through social networking websites such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo.
Excitement about this phenomenon has been high and the rush to own or to use these sites has been likened to a land rush.
SWOT Analysis
The purpose of this paper is to take an objective look at the nature of the social networking environment we have today. I have chosen to subject it to a SWOT analysis as the most succinct way of assessing the phenomenon. For the sake of expediency, I have been liberal in my paraphrasing and quoting of authoritative sources drawn from academic and significant commentators.
Strengths1. Collaborative
2. Engaging
3. Sense of Community
4. Knowledge Management
5. Ubiquitous Communication
6. Ease of Use
7. Integration
8. Low Cost / Weaknesses
1. Oversold
2. Tribal
3. Disorderly
4. Privacy Issues
5. Knowledge Capture
Opportunities
1. Integration
2. Distributed Platform
3. Standards
4. Portable
5. Modularity
6. Rapid Generation / Threats
1. Competing Platforms
2. Shifting Sands
3. Ownership
4. Technical Support
5. Abuse and Exploitation
6. Duty of Care
Table 1: A summary of the SWOT Analysis on social networking software
Strengths
Collaborative
The defining feature of social networking software is its sociability. People come together with a common purpose and create a body of content through shared effort. Peer review ensures that a concordance emerges. The synergy generated in this process ensures that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. As users evaluate their own material against the materials of others in the community, they engage in higher cognition such as analysis and synthesis.
Engaging
The nature of social networking software facilitates an organic, dynamic creation of content. Since the users are themselves the authors of this content, they are highly motivated in amending and adding to it. Consequently, the content is current and often uniquely valuable. Peer review is a fundamental feature in these communities and the analysis and synthesis of the emerging content is engrossing.
...people are looking to fulfil six essential social needs online, and businesses that help facilitate those needs are more likely to create deeper emotional bonds than usually exist between companies and customers, according to a new research report released today by Communispace. These deeper relationships in turn result in greater consumer insights, advocacy and loyalty...
Move Over Maslow: Gaining Business Value from Social Networking Comes from Fulfilling... | Reuters
Sense of Community
The perception of a similarity with others, a meeting of minds and the sense of security arising from this interdependence is of considerable intrinsic value to the members of a community. The following is an extract from Reuters'Move Over Maslow: Gaining Business Value from Social Networking Comes from Fulfilling..., referring to a recent report from Communispace.
The Six Social Needs People Seek in Social Networks
The Communispace researchers, building on the work of social scientists, have identified the specific social needs that are met through participating in social networks.
1. Expressing personal identity: online social networks provide people with the ultimate tool for defining and redefining themselves, as evidenced in profile pages on Facebook and MySpace.
2. Status and self-esteem: the need for autonomy, recognition and achievement are essential to our sense of self-worth and are fulfilled in online communities, blogs, and social networks that provide a way to develop and manage a virtual reputation.
3. Giving and getting help: people have a need to both seek and provide help to others. Mutual assistance between strangers is a phenomenon that has been uniquely enabled by the Internet.
4. Affiliation and belonging: online communities are becoming the way people find, create and connect with others "just like me" - people who share similar tastes, sensibilities, orientations or interests.
5. Sense of community: a sense of belonging or affiliation alone is not equivalent to a true sense of community. Achieving a real sense of community requires long-lasting reciprocal relationships and a mutual commitment to the needs of the community as a whole.
Communispace tapped its other research on social networking behaviour and found that when companies meet the full range of social needs, they gain trust and deep insights into their consumers and community members - marketing nirvana. And when companies go still further to actively embrace and act on people's ideas they fulfil a sixth social need:
- Reassurance of value and self worth: People want to be reassured of their worth and value, and seek confirmation that what they say and do matters to others and has an impact on the world around them. Meeting all 5 + 1 of these social needs generally requires the level of intimacy and facilitation that are the hallmarks of smaller, invitation only online communities.
Knowledge Management
Given the relational and recursive nature of the learning process, in 'Using Social Software For Personal Knowledge Management In Formal Online Learning', Pettenatti el al focus on the recognised and growing importance of social software as an “educational middleware” in formal learning. By “educational middleware” they mean a network based environment which allows the setting up and distribution of learning and knowledge management activities to promote flexible individual and collective knowledge-construction, through reflection and meta-cognition. The spontaneous use of social software in informal contexts, favours the creation of an open and socially shared information space which nurtures the relational negotiation of co-constructed and re- defined meaning (Morin, 1996).
Users (learners) become the main protagonists of their potential lifelong knowledge acquisition experience.
(Paraphrased from the abstract of Using Social Software For Personal Knowledge Management In Formal Learning)
Ubiquitous Communication
Ubiquitous access to digital technologies changes what is pedagogically possible in at least three ways. First, ubiquitous access to the Internet and telecommunications technologies changes classrooms into places with access to abundant resources and rich connections to the world. Second, ubiquitous access to a variety of digital devices and multimedia tools makes it possible to create, analyze, synthesize and communicate knowledge using a rich variety of media forms. Third, ubiquitous access to digital tools that automate lower level skills allows students to concentrate on higher level thinking, and lessens the skill levels needed to explore a range of complex topics...To take full advantage of the potential inherent in ubiquitous computing; teaching must be reconceived from instructing to conducting learning. Teaching and learning must no longer be thought of as bound by the school building or the school day.
(Kent State University’s Research Center for Educational Technology)
Ease of Use
"Unfortunately, although the web became an excellent repository of information, it became a place where only technically adept users and organisations would author content. The arrival of new services (often referred to as 'Web 2.0') has helped to remove many of the barriers preventing users from participating. Thanks to this wave of new services we have seen a massive rise in the uptake of web authoring and collaboration. The term this new wave of social activity has been given varies i.e. Social Software, Social Media and Social Computing. The key word is 'Social'!"
(JISC infoNet)
Integration
The aim of integration is to transform multiple tools into one useful and flexible environment for building communities and to provide multi- functional services to the users. We aim to build such a flexible mechanism by using an integration model on top of Web 2.0 technologies.
The model should have the following capabilities: (i) Tagging and linking of people through uploading and downloading of information; (ii) Sharing information; (iii) Supporting scientific research community; (iv) Integrating the new tools as they are generated in a specific area; (v) Providing a dynamic environment in which the user can benefit from the capabilities of different tools; (vi) Allowing rich content.
The integration model itself doesn't build new tools. It uses the existing tools.
(Integration of Collaborative Information Systems in Web 2.0, Topcu A. E. et al, Indiana University, 2007)
Low Cost
Agile software-development techniques are ideally suited to support rapid release cycles, so they have a readiness for change. Integrate lightweight development and deployment processes as complements to the perpetual beta. Combine this with low-cost, commodity components to build a scalable, fault-tolerant operational base.
(O’Reilly Radar, Web 2.0, Principles and Best Practices, 2006)
Appeal
"Visitors to MySpace.com and Friendster.com generally skew older, with people age 25 and older comprising 68 and 71 percent of their user bases, respectively. Meanwhile, Xanga.com has a younger user profile, with 20 percent of its users in the 12- 17 age range, about twice as high as that age segment’s representation within the total Internet audience. Not surprisingly, Facebook.com, which began as a social networking site for college students, also draws a younger audience. More than one- third (34 percent) of visitors to Facebook.com are 18-24 years old, approximately three times the representation of that age segment in the general Internet population."
(More than Half of MySpace Visitors are Now Age 35 or Older, comScore.com, 5 October 2006)
Weaknesses
Oversold
"Ten years ago (has it really been that long?), we were well into the technology hype of the World Wide Web. New technologies were going to revolutionize how we live, how businesses work - just about everything. Enormous amounts of money were invested in all kinds of Web-based ideas, from optical fibre in the ground to telecommunications equipment to online banking to selling pet food on the Internet using a sock puppet mascot. A few years later, the bubble burst. Both technologies and business models had been oversold, and the market collapsed. From a business (and investing) point of view, novel Web technologies were something to be avoided. What is often missed about the post-bubble time is that Internet usage didn't stop, or even pause very much. Even electronic commerce, the big hype-driver of the late 1990s, continued to grow in actual use even as company valuations crashed. Similarly, technology innovation and development continued. Today, hype is back, there's a lot of startup activity, and there are new claims about how Web technology will revolutionize this or that. Much of the excitement is described as Web 2.0, suggesting the second major release of Web technology."
(Blog entry: Query: Web 2.0 & Social Software, Larry Davies, St Thomas University, Florida, 2006)
"Memo to Badoo, Bebo, Catster, Dogster, Facebook, Faceparty, Flickr, Flixster, Hi5, Hyves, Imbee, Imeem, MySpace, Mixi, Pizco, Pownce, Takkle, Twitter, Virb, Vox, Xanga, Xing, Zoomr ... and the 3,245,687 other social networks clamoring for our limited attention spans: We got it. Making connections between friends is cool. Sharing photos and videos, even cooler. But it's all so... 2006. Haven't you got anything new to show us?
Here's a safe bet: Two years from now, 90 percent of these networks will be gone and their founders will be back working at Starbucks"
(The 15 Biggest Tech Disappointments of 2007, ABC News, 17 December, 2007)
Tribal
"...there is a high degree of audience sharing going on, as Britons online satisfy their increasing appetite for social networking or decide on which network is best for them. The high degree of overlap also indicates the fickle nature of the online social-networker and it will be interesting to see when the dust settles who will come out on top – and whether they stay there for very long.”
(Facebook & Bebo: The Assault on MySpace, Nielsen/NetRatings, 2007)
From this, it must be seen that social network sites have an adversarial relationship and that they would restrict any attempt to directly access users on a rival site.
Disorderly
In Press Releases Are Not a PR Strategy, Linda VandeVrede compares the easy distribution of material afforded by social media to a chaotic land rush and lack of zoning in her home state of Arizona. “What was once a beautiful, open desert landscape has given way to ill-planned communities and highways. Now the highways are clogged and insufficient to hold the capacity,” she observes.
While she supports the democracy of expression online, she is concerned about the sheer volume and poor quality of Web content as well as the narcissism and false sense of accomplishment that often drive it.
VandeVrede is not alone in her nuanced assessment of the brave new world of social media. In making its award (when it presented YOU with the person of the year award), Time cautioned that “Web 2.0 harnesses the stupidity of crowds as well as its wisdom.”
Privacy Issues
Sara Motahari et al, New Jersey Institute of Technology identified the following seven categories of privacy issues:
1. Inappropriate use by Administrator's: E.g. The system admin sells personal data without permission [9].
2. Legal Obligations: The system admin is forced by an organization such as the police to reveal personal data [9].
3. Inadequate Security [9].
4. Designed Invasion (Poor Features): E.g. a cell phone application that reveals location to friends, but does this without informing the user or providing control of this feature [3, 6].
5. Social Inference through lack of Entropy: See CampusWiki example above.