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Chapter 1: Social Computing
T Social networks: This concept focuses on building groups of users that are connected by a shared
interest or goal.
T Social communication: This concept allows users to communicate ideas and information while
maintaining a context about each message.
Social Media
Media has always been a popular form of communication, beginning with the invention of the radio and
television to media streaming over the Internet onto a personal computer. Most of the common forms
of media do not include direct interaction on the part of the users, yet social applications rely on users
participating in the application. The concept of building applications that use social interaction and media
is the blend of these two ideas, and it has been a very popular success.
The major features frequently seen in social media applications include:
T Streaming or downloadable video or audio files: These media files make up the heart of a social
media application, and the continual presence of new media files is generally why users return
to the application.
T Ability to rate and comment upon content: The ability to communicate one’s impression of a
media file is the soul of a social media site. Users rate the content to help other users find the best
content. User comments generate an open conversation about the media content in question in a
way that is impossible to replicate with a standard television or radio experience.
T Number of views: Tracking the number of unique views of a media file helps the social applica-
tion rate the item’s popularity and potentially elevate the most popular items to the most visible
locations.
T User profile and link to profile page: Users of a social application take advantage of the user pro-
file to identify themselves and their activities in the social application.
T Metadata about the media: Metadata about the media, such as the time a media file was
uploaded to the site or the geographic location a photograph was taken, help provide users with
additional context for relating to the media file.
T Subscribe for updates: By using a subscription technology such as email or RSS, the social appli-
cation reminds the user to come back and continue to participate in the conversation and the
social experience.
An excellent example of a social media application would be the popular web site YouTube, as shown in
Figure 1-1 below.
Although the example shows YouTube, which supports video content almost exclusively, applications
for audio such as Microsoft’s Zune Social and image applications such as Flickr should also be included
in the category of social media applications. These sites take media and allow users to interact with that
media. The most common social user interactions are the popularity counters as well as the comments
and ratings systems.
Social Bookmarking
With all of the information users deal with today, it can be difficult for a user to find the right information
he or she is looking for. Social bookmarking applications allow users to work together to mark items as
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