There are many ways in which social networks can be derived on the web: users connected through transactions
in online auctions, users who post within the same thread on a news group or message board, or even members
of groups listed in an HTML document can be turned into a social network. Many online communities claim to
be or support social networks, but lack some of the properties one may expect of a social network. For the
purpose of this work, we use a very specific definition. A web-based social network must meet the following
criteria:
It is accessible over the web with a web browser. This excludes networks where users would
need
to
download special software in order to participate and social networks based on other technologies, such as
mobile devices.
Users must explicitly state their relationship with other people qua stating a relationship.
This
would
rule out building social networks from auction transactions, co-postings, or similar events that link people
because the connection created as a side effect of another process.
Relationships must be visible and browsable by other users in the system. Some websites allow
users
to
bookmark the profiles of other users, either generally or under certain categories. Others allow users to
maintain address books. Even if these lists are expressions of social connections, they are not part of a
web-based social network if they cannot be seen and browsed by other users. Websites where users maintain
closed lists of contacts are not interesting for their social networking properties
- neither to users or people performing a network analysis
- and are thus ignored for our purposes.
The website or other web-based framework must have explicit built-in support for users making these
connections to other people. This
means
that a simple HTML page where a user links to all of his or her friends' web pages would not count because
HTML itself does not have explicit built-in support for making social connections.
This includes most of the major social networking websites like Tickle, Friendster, Orkut, and LinkedIn
while ruling out dating sites like Match.com or other online communities that connect users such as Craig's
List or MeetUp.com. Sites that require users to pay for membership are included as long as they meet the
criteria above.
The goal of this survey was to investigate how users were able to add more information about their
connections in the social network. Most social networking websites allow users to interact with other
members. Thus, it is important to define when that interaction constitutes information about the
relationship.
A basic social networking connection between individuals must exist before additional information
can be
added. Sites that allow users to rate others, such as rating someone's appearance, often do not require
that
users have a connection -anyone can rate anyone else. In order to be used as additional information about a
relationship, there
must be a relationship between people in the first place. Thus, simple rating systems that do not require
users to be socially connected are not counted.
The information must be persistent. Many websites allow users to send messages or mini-messages
(such
as
"winks" or "smiles" on dating-related sites). Since these are sent and do not persist as a label on the
relationship, they would not be considered in our survey. On the other hand, comments or testimonials about
a person do persist on the website and are considered as free text descriptions of a relationship.
The information must be visible by the user who added it, but it does not have to be publicly
viewable.
Some data, like trust ratings, are personal and users would not want this shared with others.