2. Social networking Nigel Gibson AL Conference 07/06/08

3. What are we going to do? We’ll look at what we might mean by “social networks” We’ll look at the topography of online social networks I’ll offer a fast pass over some current technologies and SociaLearn We’ll have a chat about all this stuff IXIX

4. Before we start Do you read Wikipedia? Do you use Amazon? Do you use IMDB? Do you edit Wikipedia? Do you offer reviews on Amazon? Do you offer reviews on IMDB?

5. In the beginning As a basic unit a family is a social network And it’s part of a wider network

6. So…… The relationships might be through work, children’s school or activities, wider family, neighbours We might not know all the people a partner or child or parent knows This means we can access different networks through our closest network

7. A network My friends …………. all have friends

8. You get the idea

9. People So you have friends and they have friends You might know some and you might not know others but they are FOAF Friends of a friend

10. Online social networking

11. Primordial soup In the beginning there was ARPA net (1969) And CYCLADES (Early 70s) And ALOHANet (1970)(My favourite) And other local and national networks And, finally, The Internet linked them all together into a network of networks (from 1974) And what drove all these developments was people wanting to talk to each other

12. Online One of the first viable online communities was The WELL (the Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link) established in 1985 and still going strongThe WELL Started in the Bay area of San Franscisco on a bulletin board They “engineered” the start by charging membership but inviting “interesting” people to join for free Then, in 1991, the web arrived

13. The kids are alright Fast forward because the birth and development of the WWW is a whole different story As of 31 March 2008, 1.407 billion people use the Internet according to Internet World StatsInternet World Stats Friends Reunited - launched 2000, sold in 2005 for £120M with 15M users MySpace started in 2002 - 110 million membersMySpace 15 million people use Geni.com to build their family treeGeni.com Other SNS include Bebo, Hi5 and FaceParty

14. http://xkcd.com/256/

15. Blogs As soon as people could write to the Internet some started keeping online journals This became more widespread as the web made setting up and keeping a blog a simple task – a blog is a “web log” Some are influential in specific areas – frequently American politics

16. FaceBook Originally started so that US college graduates could keep in touch 70 million users

17. So people are talking And sharing things Flickr to share photosFlickr YouTube to share videosYouTube Slideshare to share presentationsSlideshare Share bookmarks on Del.icio.usDel.icio.us We can aggregate what we are doing on FriendFeedFriendFeed And in doing so we create networks

18. Instant Twitter is a microblogging site Messages (tweets) limited to 140 characters Can be sent from mobile devices Delivered in real time Can be distributed to other applications Find and follow friends and friends of friends

19. So what is it all for? We “manage” who we talk and listen to Some of my FOAFs are very smart indeed I can access a network of experts Relationships of trust “Hive mentality”, synergy, power of collaboration About psychogeographypsychogeography

20. So what is it all for? http://nogbad.wordpress.com/2008/06/03/how-social-networks-work/

21. Someone can answer my question

22. Why do people contribute? Gift economy – not a new idea, dates back to the Stone Age Reciprocal altruism By contributing we create capital – we increase the chances of being helped if they have a question We add value to the global commons

23. SociaLearn assumption There is a major shift in society and education driven by the possibilities new technologies create for creating and sharing content and for social networking NB: This is a dialogue about futures – not a prediction SociaLearn suggests that instead of a VLE we’ll create personal learning environments http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/socialearn/index.php

24. Image by M Weller and taken from presentation, Social:Learn on SociaLearn site

25. To quote a good book Image from: http://is.gd/rH1

26. Summary we can use the web as passive consumers or we can become activists and contribute but whatever we do we can still turn it all off

28. If you want to try Take a look round Find somewhere you feel comfortable –Blogger –Wikipedia –Twitter Watch what others are doing Dip your toe in the water

29. Any questions?