02 Social Media, Social Context

Question 1

Define “Social Media Service” and “Social Media Platform

Answer 1

• Social Media Service: Web based service supporting (direct and indirect) social interaction, especially communication, via generation and exchange of large amounts of content by a broad, non-IT-specialist set of users
• Social Media Platform: functionally coherent bundle of Social Media services, commonly accessible, sufficiently widespread

Question 2

Can CSCW software and the collaboration oriented Social Media classes be considered Social Media software / Social Media? Briefly discuss!

Answer 2

• CSCW software: collaboration software (git, google docs)
• Social Media: involving user-generated content that is created outside of professional routines and practices
• User-generated content in Social Media should “show a certain amount of creative effort” and should be published to a larger audience
• Pro: software like git and google docs have user-generated content, which does not necessarily have to be created professionally
• Pro: taking into account that collaboration is a form of social interaction which is one of the core definition of social media service “supporting (direct and indirect) social interaction”
• Con: the content does not necessarily have “a certain amount of creative effort” (not enough
• Con: the content does not necessarily get published to a larger audience

Question 3

Characterization of Social Media services in terms of the supported forms of communication: Name and define four different characteristics (axes)!

Answer 3

• Cardinality of people involved: {1:1, 1: n, m:n}
• Audience specification: specific receiver/list of receivers vs. an open set of receivers {direct, indirect}
• Channel directedness: {unidirectional, bidirectional}
• Anonymity: {non-anonymous, anonymous}
• Threadedness: do ‘reply-type’ relations exist? {threaded, non-threaded}
• Content type: {textual, graphical, video, contextual}
• Transmission style: {Stream, discrete}
• UI/Device/Usage Pattern: {mobile, laptop, desktop}
• Goals:
• Higher level of abstractions: informing or being informed, create or gain awareness, collaborate, chat, ~
• Lover level of abstractions: find a partner, maintain & expand social network, generate/manage ideas, exchange movies/music, entertain or be entertained, ~
• Commercialization: {commercial, non-commercial}

Question 4

Social Semantic Web: What is the nature and function of OWL, SIOC and OPO?

Answer 4

• OWL = Web Ontology Language
• SIOC = Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities
• OPO = Online Presence Ontology
• The Semantic Web aims at converting the current web, dominated by
  unstructured and semi-structured documents into a “web of data”
• These are Semantic Web languages. Semantic Webb is an extension of WWW, it provides a common framework that allows data to be shared and reused across application, enterprise, and community boundaries.

Question 5

What are reasonable classes of Context in Social Networking and Mobile Social Networking? Briefly explain!

Answer 5

• Social Networking: physical context (independent of user: lighting, temperature, …), individual context (location, speed, disabilities, …), social context (short term, long term)
• Mobile Social Networking: use of contexts induced by the mobile interaction scenario via sensors: identity, location, status, speed (mostly individual context)

Question 6

Social Networks: What information can be modeled in edge profiles?

Answer 6

• Friendship (likes, friend-of, loves, …)
• Kinship (mother-of, grandson-of, …)
• Professional relations (boss-of, same team member, …)
• Infection with a disease (gave-HIV-to, …)
• Commercial relations (buys from, pays, delivers-to, …)

Question 7

What are main differences between Blogs and Microblogs?

Answer 7

• Size and information quality (Micro blogs = twitter)
• Micro blogs overlap with direct communication services

Question 8

Define “Social Game”!

Answer 8

• A game that makes substantial use of social context / at least substantially involves more than one player in its social, interactive gameplay, game mechanics or rules

Question 9

Name and briefly explain three common aspects of Social Games and Social Media!

Answer 9

• Mostly outside serious life, leisure time oriented
• Communication as important element
• Defined set of rules
• Emergent mechanics & dynamics, transformative use
• Trans medial access patterns, blurring: real world <> virtual world
• Complex game worlds <> social information spaces
• Parallels in aspects of motivation/flow

Question 10

Name and briefly explain three characteristics of Social Networking! (S)

Answer 10

• Main goal: maintaining and expanding their social network via communication
• Users socially interact using bundle of Social Media services
• Users have personal information spaces: sets of items associated with users that they exert control over or whose relations they exert control over
• User has personal profile: publicly accessible sub-space used as personal reference for introducing a person
• Communication: non-anonymous
• Content: mostly textual, photos, contextual

Question 11

Define Mobile Social Networking!

Answer 11

• MSN is a form of SN with mobile UI and acquisition and use of contexts induced by the mobile interaction scenario via sensors conceptually connected to the mobile usage scenario