web 2.0 and network society

Uppsala UniversityThe Lounge Company 732008 1

Uppsala universitet Institutionen foumlr informationsvetenskap Enheten foumlr medier och kommunikation C-uppsats i medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap Framlagd HT (VT) 2008

Web 20 and Network Society -PR and Communication The Challenge of Online Social Networks

Author Max Tandefelt Tutor Else Nygren


Foreword For inspiration and thoughtful insights I owe Mr James Nunn and Basile Hurioglu of ldquoThe Lounge Companyrdquo many thanks


Abstract As online social network services are becoming one of the dominant media channels the importance of disseminating messages through them is of high importance for governments organizations companies etc The online social network services are several and changes rapidly as they grow and evolve Being networks the services give the user the tools to send as well as receive text and information This proposes us with yet another obstacle in communication via online social network services since sender and receiver merges together Online social network services and the Blogosphere which essentially also is a network exist in the context of Web 20 The crucial feature of Web 20 is to a large degree the harnessing of collective intelligence ie the collection of individual knowledge and information Many of the tools and sites within Web 20 are therefore of a network structure hence further stressing the importance to communicate via networks in general Network Analysis is the discipline through which we can see and understand the larger patterns of networks In this thesis I have looked into three key concepts of Network Analysis Weak Links Growth and Preferential Attachment I have found that we can use the knowledge of Network Analysis to disseminate messages via online social network services since it provides us with the raw structures of how networks tend to grow and how messages tend to disseminate


Title Web 20 and Network Society ndash PR and Communication The Challenge of Online Social Networks Number of pages 34 Author Max Tandefelt Tutor Else Nygren Course Media and Communication Studies C Period HT 07 University Division of Media and Communication Department of Information Science Uppsala University PurposeAim Facilitate message dissemination through online social network services as they are becoming one of the dominant media channels MaterialMethod Network Analysis Main results I have presented crucial concepts of Network Analysis that can be used for message dissemination via online social network services Keywords Online Social Network Services Network Analysis Web 20 Message Dissemination


Table of Contents 10 Introduction 6

11 Aim 6 12 Method 7

121 Material 7 122 Demarcation 7

13 Theoretical Frame 8 20 Background - Network Society 9

21 The Structure of Netcast and Broadcast 10 30 Network Analysis ndash the Logic behind Online Social

Network 11 31 Social Networks 11 32 The Power Law Distribution 11 33 Bridges and Ties 12 34 Strong and Weak Ties 14 35 Growth and Preferential Attachment 17

40 Online Social Networks and The Blogosphere 19 41 The Blogosphere19 42 Technical Features of Blogs 19 43 Impact of the Blogosphere 20

50 Online Social Network Services 23 51 Organization of Communication and Meaning 23 52 The Challenge of Communication via Online Social

Networks 24 521 What is Different from Communication with

Traditional Media 25 522 Risks 26 523 Opportunities 26

60 Understanding Dissemination in Online Social Networks 27

70 Web 20 ndash What is the Fuss About 28 71 Definition 28

711 The Web as a Platform 28 72 Harnessing Collective Intelligence 28 73 Folksonomy 30 74 The Context of Web 20 31

80 Conclusion 32 81 How can Network Analysis be Useful 32 82 Populating the Web 33

90 Summary 34 100 Literature 35

101 Web Sources 36


10 Introduction As we have moved further into the world of the wide Web communication and organization has changed drastically The web is becoming the dominant communication channel allowing quick and low cost access to information The Web was initially and to some degree even today highly un-organized following no general standard We now see a more standardized web semantic and understanding through amongst other services network services The entire media range is becoming available through one medium viz the network services where we to a large degree create share and combine our own information instead of reading published material from established mass media sources Online social networks services such as Myspace and Facebook are all about a shift from vertical to horizontal communication Everyone now has a voice and the possibility to spread news rumors photos and links at tremendous speed to large crowds Essentially this means that anyone with an Internet connection shares the public sphere We are now a couple of years into the Web 20 era the era of social networks wikis and blogging - the era of collective intelligence As the online social network services are becoming a common substitute for television and other traditional media governmental institutes organizations and companies have to look into new ways of disseminating messages via social network services The Online social network services are culturally drained with dynamic clusters of acquaintances a new way of communicating where several media can be used in one channel There is no easy or straight forward way as to how messages can be disseminated via the services Network Analysis an intuitive mathematical and logic discipline focuses on how networks tend to grow and how messages spread within them A discipline used in a vast number of sciences ranging from biology to sociology Can Network Analysis be useful in disseminating messages via online social network services 11 Aim The web has to a large degree become the most important medium for many of us to gain information about news company facts organizational goals product costs etc we also use the web to keep in touch and find new as well as old friends or business partners For any information campaign or message dissemination whether it be for anti smoking governmental changes or product information the web is important since we can not trust that everyone will watch television listen to the radio or read the news papers My general aim is to see whether Network Analysis can facilitate message dissemination and if that is the case ndash how Online social network services have a seemingly deep impact on our society and I want to establish and explain important features of networks per se and the most common features of the social networks services such as Myspace Facebook flickr YouTube and delicious in order to understand what they are and can be as communication tools An underlying aim is to explain the importance of online networks as perhaps the most important tool of todayrsquos communication


12 Method Online social network services and the Blogosphere exist and take place in what has been called Web 20 Since Web 20 constitutes the context in which the online social network services and the Blogosphere exist I find it necessary to explain the important features and aspects of Web 20 Further Web 20 in itself also has its place in a larger context I will to some degree give web 20 its context by looking at Elias Norbertsrsquo Civilization Process (see below) This is one part of my method in order to examine if Network Analysis can be useful for message dissemination via online social network services The other part is actual Network Analysis I will look into three common concepts that have been important for the development of Network Analysis Weak Ties Growth and Preferential Pattern Through combining Network Analysis with the most common features of the online networks services Web 20 and the larger social context in which online social network services act I will outline if and in what way Network Analysis can be useful 121 Material Apart from literature within the subject area I will analyze and contemplate over the most important features of online social network services in order to fully describe what they actually are I have chosen to conduct my thesis mainly out of the online social network services MySpace Face book (which make up 72 of the market1) Flickr delicious and YouTube There are many more services but my choice is made through the large amount of people using these networks and the different focuses that the various networks cover Myspace focus is on music Flickr is on photo Youtube on video and delicious on bookmarks Facebook seem to have no special focus apart from connecting with friends Focusing on these various services with their different areas will I believe cover most of the different focus areas that online social network services offer and a vast amount of users 122 Demarcation I will not go into detail of each service but rather exemplify with the different services and use them as background material As of now all the online social network services are growing and combining their function with other media channels I therefore find it useless to go into depth of each and every online social network service since that information would tend to be outdated rather quickly I will rely on my belief that the strength of research does not lie in its momentary observation but rather in its revealing of un-noticed rational The most common term of this paper is online social network services by which I mean services like Myspace Facebook YouTube etc These are not networks in them self but services which provides anyone with the necessary tools to gain access to the service own social network I will also mention social networks by which I mean clusters of acquaintances that are not dependent of a web service like Myspace for example but rather a network in which people meet connect and 1 Klaassen Abbey Advertising Age 8202007 Vol 78 Issue 33 p15-15 12p


are tied to others without an online social network service being necessary I will stipulate other terms and notions as I use them in the text 13 Theoretical frame I will establish what I believe that the online social network services are by explaining them trough Web 20 and to some degree through Norbert Elias Civilization Process theory I will use the Civilization Process in order to explain the context in which Web 20 and booth online social networks services and the Blogosphere exists In very general terms the Civilization Process acknowledges that we are all part of a chain of interdependence ie a chain in which the actors are dependent on one and another This chain constantly grows over time and we become even more interdependent of each other The chain spans over macro as well as micro level from the larger institutions of society to the spontaneous affects of individuals and their behavior As the chain grows and hence the interdependence thickens its parts ie the people restrain their behavior short term impulses are slowly replaced with a long term view since all social functions that people have to perform to a higher degree affects the whole network According to Elias it is within the upper strata (middle and upper class society) where positions firstly require self control and long term thinking Courtly and commercial functions within the political and commercial sector demands this behavior due to the increasingly complex networks of politics and long distance trade This behavior of affect control and long term thinking however spreads to the lower strata of society as the interdependence grows2 Network analysis is commonly used to explain complex sets of networks ranging from biological to social networks I will be looking at social networks in a media environment with focus on the relationship between members of social clusters Network Analysis is commonly used to view overall structures of relations Mark S Granovetter brought us important insights as to how social networks tend to operate and how messages disseminated within them In Granovetterrsquos perhaps most important article ldquoThe Strength of Weak Tiesrdquo he argues that the ldquohellipanalysis of process in interpersonal networks provides the most fruitful micro-macro bridge In one way or another it is through these networks that small-scale interaction becomes translated into large-scale patterns and that these in turn feed back into small groupsrdquo3 The combination of Network Analysis (and to some degree the Civilization Process) with my observations and contemplations of online social networks services and the Blogosphere is the theoretical frame of this paper 2 Elias Norbert 229-333 1939 ldquoThe Civilizing Processrdquo Basil Blackwell Publisher Oxford ldquo 3 Granovetter Mark S ldquoThe Strength of Weak Tiesrdquo 1360 (1) American Journal of Sociology Vol 78 Issue 6 1973


20 Background - Network Society Van Dijk (2006)4 recognizes some trends in what has come to be called the Network Society Network Society is the successor of Mass Society in which mass media was the dominant medium There is of course no clear cut to divide the two different societies and it may also be argued to what degree they actually are either the one or the other What ever we label various periods in time the most important is what the characteristics of that period are According to Van Dijk the Network Society has a different connectivity amongst its members than in the Mass Society In Network Society the direct relations and links between individuals groups and organizations increase not only regionally but also on a global level Due to the improvement of transport use of telephony and mail linking has become very easy The relations that are upheld and the new ones that we create are to a large degree realized by social and media networks5 In our time information is raw material The tremendous amount of information communication technology (ICT) products that we are using and becoming dependent of is designed to order the chaos of information that we encounter in our social as well as professional life ICT products facilitate the amount of systems and relations that are built upon and through networks The share number and importance of ICT products should give us a clue as to how important social networks are since the ICT products are the technological frame that makes many of them possible Castells (1996) asserts that a new economy took shape the last quarter of the 20th century The ICT revolution supplied the new economy with the necessary material base ie technological frame that was needed for the new economyrsquos knowledge base to really take of The global width the network organization and the ability to generate treat and effectively apply knowledge based information are the key features within the new economy6 The combination of social and media networks produced by both organizational and technological innovation forms the all-embracing network structure of modern societies7 Online social network services are only tools in Network Society There is however no doubt that the online social network services has had a great impact on our society The online social network services are frequently discussed in private conversation as well as on the news and have become a lucrative business in many ways Microsoft has for example bought a 16 share in Facebook for 240 million dollars in late 2007 Around the same period Facebook offered 85 million dollars for the Chinese online social network service Zhanzuo which has over 7 million users Facebook is now said to be worth around 15 billion dollars8 Capital investments like these by major companies are usually a sign of high priority business hence of high importance for the society in general Many of the largest services are becoming important media channels and co-operates with major networks channels MySpace for example is to screen the first episode of British televisionsrsquo Channel 4 Drama upcoming series Shameless before it airs on TV Channel 4 has previously used MySpace to launch teen drama Skins airing previews and teasers on

4 Jan van Dijk 2006 ldquoThe Network Societyrdquo (2nd ed) 2006 SAGE Publication 5 Jan van Dijk 2006 ldquoThe Network Societyrdquo (2nd ed) 2006 SAGE Publication 6 Castells Manuel 99 ldquoNatverkssamhallets framvaxtrdquo 1996 Blackwell Publisher Ltd 7 Jan van Dijk 28 2006 ldquoThe Network Societyrdquo (2nd ed) 2006 SAGE Publication 8 New Media Age wwwnmacouk Accesed 7th of December 2007


MySpace9 Yet another online social network service Bebo has announced that they will open up their network to content providers BBC and Channel 4 are among 22 initial partners that will fill the site with music and video free for the users of Bebo10 21 The Structure of Netcast and Broadcast Network society has had an obvious effect on media Parallel to the traditional broadcast structure we see a netcast structured media culture with many crucial differences from the broadcast structure The broadcast structure is controlled and limited in its openness It is also vulnerable in the sense that it is controlled by few institutions such as the political and governmental institutions and media institutions (journalists) all of whom are mutually interdependent and generally exclusive in terms of the production diffusion and gate-keeping of political information11 The netcast on the other hand is a media environment open for everyone to use where everyone is a potential sender and receiver of information 9 Source httpwwwnmacoukArticles36250New+Shameless+episode+to+debut+on+MySpacehtml Accessed 20071219 10SourcehttpwwwnmacoukLogonResourceBarrieraspxRequiredServices=17|ampPipelinedPage=Articles35918Social+networks+open+up+to+media+companieshtmlampPipelinedQueryString=liArticleID3d35918 Accessed 20071219 11 Kim Jang Hyun Shin Yunho Barnett George ldquoAn Analysis of Hyperlink and Share-Issue Network of the US Senaterdquo 2007 Conference paper - International Communication Association


30 Network Analysis ndash the logic behind online social networks 31 Social Networks A network is a mode of organization whether in the nature in our bodies or between holders of information A network consists of nodes and ties Nodes are the different individuals (or units) in the network while the ties are the ways the nodes are connected For a set of relations to actually be a network it has to consist of at least three nodes and two ties My focus will be on the relationships within social networks between the different nodes and how they are tied For my paper the number of nodes is not as important as how and why they interact ie what their relationships are and where in the network they are placed A social network is a social structure connecting several people Each individual or organization is a node that is tied through one or more types of interdependencies (values interests habits exchange of goods etc) Social networks can be lose or tight Lose networks are usually understood as a larger net with lose connections a business or organizational network The tighter network is a smaller net with tight connections friends and family ldquoThe fewer indirect contacts one has the more encapsulated he will be in terms of knowledge of the world beyond his own friendship circlehelliprdquo12 The shape of a social network hence determine the networks usefulness for the nodes since a lose net usually means varied influences and less control whereas the tighter knitted one is easier to control but is less likely to come up with varied influences Due to the structure of networks tight as loose a message sent from one node to another might very well end up being sent to all the nodes within that network Even though one is not acquainted with all the nodes a message might very well be spread to those nodes that are not familiar One of the reasons to why online social network services have had such a growth in recent years is because of the inherent effects of networks to grow and spread This is also the reason to why online networks are such an attractive tool for message disseminators The cost is very low and there are possibilities of massive dissemination 32 The Power Law Distribution The structures of large networks commonly follow a power law distribution a relationship between several that does not change if length scales are multiplied by a common factor (see fig1 Power Law Distribution) The figure illustrates the distribution where a couple of nodes have a large amount of the nodes while most of the nodes the so called Long Tail only has a few ties In the Blogosphere for example this would illustrate how a couple of nodes (Blogs) have the majority of ties (outgoing links) directed to them If the figure was for road bridges it would show how only a few bridges connect several roads

12 Granovetter S Mark ldquoThe Strength of Weak Tiesrdquo 1371 1973 American Journal of Sociology Vol 78 Issue 6 (May 1972)


The actual networks with the services that to some has become a culture in them selves are filled with various tools services and games The networks are steadily changing and the clusters are constantly growing which makes it difficult to know how to communicate via the online social network services However they are still networks and ought to follow the same power law distribution as is common for large networks I believe that in order to properly communicate with networks we have to know the rationale of networks per se and once this knowledge is gained we can add it to the functions and most common features of the online social network services to more fully understand the process of communication via these services I should state right away that I merely presume the power law distribution of the online social network services Recent research has shown that the Blogosphere seem to follow this distribution13 I can at least state that it is very likely that most if not all of the online social networks services follow a power law distribution Fig1 an example of a power law distribution14

A few nodes have many ties while the large part of nodes the so called Long Tail only has a few ties 33 Bridges and Ties In the following I will look into the concepts of weak ties growth and preferential attachment which all are important concepts and findings of Network Analysis

13 Tremayne M Zheng N Lee J K Jeong J ldquoIssue Publics on the Web Applying Network Theory to the War Blogosphererdquo Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 2006 14 The figure is taken from Tremayne M Zheng N Lee J K Jeong J ldquoIssue Publics on the Web Applying Network Theory to the War Blogosphererdquo Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 2006


It has long been thought that random associations between nodes can explain the emergence growth and variation of links typical for networks This idea was challenged as sociologist Mark Granovetter explained that ideas within networks are spread most widely by the peripheral members15 The diffusion of ideas within larger group networks might hence be understood as being spread most widely from the outskirts of a network rather than from individuals in the middle of a cluster of acquaintances Granovetter published his article The Strength of Weak Ties in 1973 His arguments are therefore not adapted to online social networks since he mainly treats social networks of physical contact The main difference between a physical network and a web network such as Myspace and Facebook is that the connection of nodes does not have to travel through other people and is not dependent on who one knows in order for ones personal net to grow I will discuss this in further length as I go along Network Analysis is however of high importance for this paper and for online social network services even though the work of Granovetter was not adapted for the web As explained above a network is built up of nodes and ties There are however other terms for explaining message dissemination within networks The term Bridge is used in Network Analysis as a connection between two nodes connecting two or more other nodes that are in no other way connected (linked) A bridge is just like any other tie in the sense that it is a potential information carrying connection between two nodes Granovetter defines a bridge as the line in a network which provides the only path between two nodes in a network He points out that pure bridges seldom exists in large scale networks since there is usually a way around a bridge16 A person is commonly able to reach another person -which she does not know directly- through more than one person (see fig 2) A bridge may however be served locally and for the sake of argument I will use the concept of bridge for illustration even though they are not conceptually perfect bridges Fig 217

Any node can reach any other node in both clusters through two different ties

15 Granovetter S Mark ldquoThe Strength of Weak Tiesrdquo 1973 American Journal of Sociology Vol 78 Issue 6 (May 1972) 16 Granovetter S Mark ldquoThe Strength of Weak Tiesrdquo 1364 1973 American Journal of Sociology Vol 78 Issue 6 (May 1972) 17 The figure is taken from Granovetter S Mark ldquoThe Strength of Weak Tiesrdquo 1973 American Journal of Sociology Vol 78 Issue 6 (May 1972)


In a social network such as Myspace or Facebook for example the distance between two people who hardly know or does not even know each other is only a ldquoclickrdquo away There are of course still bridges in such networks de facto but perhaps also what I will call psychological bridges A bridge could exist de facto in for example MySpace in the sense that the only way agent A might reach agent B is through agent C A psychological bridge would be a bridge between two people who do not personally know one another but are acquainted through friends or friends of friends Even though everyone hypothetically can be connected due to the technologies of web networks there might still be psychological bridges which are necessary for a message to disseminate A message that is sent from a close friend or someone you know well is more likely to be accepted and registered than a message from an anonymous or slightly familiar person within the same network Even if we are potentially all in the same network a psychological bridge could work and have the same functions and affects as a bridge in a social network that is not connected via the web The concept of a bridge is therefore still useful in the context of online social networks 34 Strong and Weak Ties In Network Analysis weak ties are distinguished from strong ties The strength of a tie between two nodes is dependent on the amount of time the emotional intensity the intimacy and the reciprocal services which characterize the tie18 This simply means that the better two nodes know each other in terms of friendship the stronger the tie is A bridge for example can only be a weak tie since if agent A in the figure below (fig 3) has a strong tie to agent B and A also has a strong tie to agent C the possibility that B and C will interact is fairly large hence eliminating the necessity of a bridge19 The figure below (fig 3) is an example of what is called the Forbidden Triad or the Weak Tie Hypothesis and exemplifies why a bridge can only be a weak tie Fig 3 the Forbidden Triangle 18 Granovetter S Mark ldquoThe Strength of Weak Tiesrdquo1361 1973 American Journal of Sociology Vol 78 Issue 6 (May 1972) 19 A bridge could only be a strong tie when neither party to it has any other strong ties


This hypothesis is commonly accepted within Network Analysis and I will not challenge it20 To exemplify a bridge node A and B in the figure below (fig 4) have a weak tie between them (since if it was strong blue and red would possibly have introduced their good friends to other good friends) Through this illustration we see the possibility of disseminating a message and reach both clusters through the weak tie between A and B If the message was given to one of the other nodes within any of the two clusters given that they are only acquainted to their own cluster the message would probably have stayed within that cluster or at least have taken a slow and crocked road to reach the other cluster Even though the other nodes within each cluster most probably have weak ties on their own connecting to other clusters we might still be interested in certain connections and certain other clusters or we can focus on all the weak ties within a cluster if we want to spread a message to as many as possible If person X would want to spread a rumor for example the best way to get it spread would then not be through telling all his best friends who would tell their best friends (probably of which many they share) because the rumor would mostly stay within the own groupcluster Instead if the rumor was spread to persons with many weak ties his or her ties would probably be bridges hence the rumor would travel from one cluster of acquaintances to another The board of IABCWellington an international network for communication professionals unconsciously or consciously had this in mind when they made sure that all their newsletters and event promotions were communicated not just to their contact database but also to their own personal networks Since then they have registered a 200 growth in membership21 In this example we can only assume that a number of weak ties and bridges were stricken with this information Fig 4

To exemplify the concept of a bridge further we might considerhelliprdquobridges in a highway system a local bridge in a social network will be more significant as a connection between two sectors to

20 I have chosen to accept this idea but believe that there are cases where a bridge can be a strong tie However I believe that it is much more common that a bridge is a weak tie than a strong For this paper and my aim the forbidden triad is accepted since it will help us understand networks 21 Communication World November December 2007


the extent that it is the only alternative for many people ndash that is as its degree increasesrdquo22 The degree of a node is to the extent it is linked to other nodes A node with a high degree is hence a node with many connections As mentioned above there are both tightly and loosely knitted networks The looser and larger ones are more open to new ideas since it allows several people in with whom one cannot all be acquainted In a research over how people get jobs Granovetter found that ldquoA natural a priori idea is that those with whom one has strong ties are more motivated to help with job information Opposed to this greater motivation are the structural arguments I (Granovetter)23 have been making those to whom we are weakly tied are more likely to move in circles different from our own and will thus have access to information different from that which we receiverdquo24 As Granovetter points out himself this even suggests the primacy of network structure over the motivation of close friends This is yet another example that illustrates the strength of the weak ties in a network Weak links may hence be very influential in message dissemination An important aspect of message dissemination then seems to be whom the message is sent to According to Granovetter weak ties are more likely to link members of small groups Strong ties are more likely to be concentrated within respective groups The extent to which a node is directly connected only to those other nodes that are not directly connected is called betweeness In a recent study over blogs discussing the war in Iraq especially two clusters were recognized a liberal and a conservative During the research the nodes within these two clusters mainly linked amongst themselves in their respective cluster and discussed matters within the own cluster There were however hubs (links that gain large amount of incoming links) that received high betweeness and which became important as bridges mediating the various views25 Hence a message would only have a slim chance of being disseminated in the discussion of blogs to the two different clusters if it were not sent to one or several Blogs linked to the hubs of high bestweeness or the hub itself In the discussion above I have mainly discussed social networks networks that are not necessarily part of an online social network service It is important to separate between the networks created through the online services and those that have come into existence in other ways Since there are some differences between the two like physical contact and how a message actually disseminates they work differently de facto In the following I will discuss two principles of networks closely related to online networks Even though I feel that non-online and online networks should to some degree be treated separately I believe that the knowledge gained from Granovettersrsquo study of weak ties is of high importance for any network study To what degree I feel that we can use the insight of weak ties will be discussed in further length in coming chapters 22 Granovetter S Mark ldquoThe Strength of Weak Tiesrdquo1365 1973 American Journal of Sociology Vol 78 Issue 6 (May 1972) 23 Brackets inserted by author 24 Granovetter S Mark ldquoThe Strength of Weak Tiesrdquo1371 1973 American Journal of Sociology Vol 78 Issue 6 (May 1972) 25 Tremayne M Zheng N Lee J K Jeong J ldquoIssue Publics on the Web Applying Network Theory to the War Blogosphererdquo Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 2006


35 Growth and Preferential Attachment Researchers in the late nineties began to understand why networks follow the pattern of a power law distribution By graphing nodes by the number of outgoing links from web pages to other web pages Barabaacutesi and Albert found a scale-free power-law distribution (Fig 1) They also found that two principles explained the development of networks following the power law growth and preferential attachment There are two kinds of links for web sites A site can have outgoing links meaning that they are linked to another site A site can also have incoming links meaning that other sites are linked to that very site The so called PageRank is one of the factors that determine Googlersquos search engine results It measures the amount of incoming links to a site in order to judge how high it will rank on the Google search engine Another factor to PageRank is that an incoming link from a site that itself has many incoming links will give the initial site a higher ranking than one with less incoming links would have done and will hence give the site to which it links higher status Site S will for example get ndashsay- three points in PageRank for an incoming link that on its own has 100 incoming links But site S will only get one point from another site if that site only has 50 incoming links on its own Googlersquos PageRank works in many ways like the natural structure of many networks in the sense that the most well linked sites the central nodes are those of high traffic the ones that are well used In the following when I speak of links to a site I am referring to an incoming link In terms of networks growth means that the number of nodes in a network grows over time The web grows as more and more documents are added and linked For the Blogosphere growth is a certainty since it doubles in size every six months26 As networks grow they tend to follow certain rules If they grew randomly the curve in fig 1 would look very differently The second principle to the development of networks lets us in on why networks grow in a certain way Preferential attachment basically means that the more links a node has the more links it will get A well connected node is more likely to become even more connected ie receive new links As an agent within a social network links to another agent within that network it means that the linking agent in some way are familiar with the linked agent27 If we follow the logic of preferential attachment the linked agent thus becomes a more likely agent to receive yet more links than a relatively un-linked agent If a new agent were to randomly link to another agent she would be more likely to link to a better known agent or site than a less known agent or site Hence the probability of randomly selecting a particular agent or site is proportional to its degree (the number of links to a node)28 This rule is applicable to the Blogosphere and the web in general The logic of preferential attachment is easily exemplified through everyday phenomenons Albert and Barabasi exemplify with the pattern of citation in scientific research papers The numbers of times certain papers are cited follow a power law distribution29 This is the same principle of preferential attachment as for nodes in a social network We tend to link cite and connect to already established well linked others rather then un-known others 26 Kirchhoff Lars Dr Bruns Axel Nicolai Thomas 1ldquoInvestigating the Impact of the Blogosphere Using Page Rank to Determine the Distribution of Attentionrdquo 27 For some online social networks there is of course the possibility to link randomly I do not know how common or how well received this is and will not discuss it I will simply presume that it is an uncommon behavior 28 Source httpenwikipediaorgwikiPreferential_attachment Accessed 20071212 29 Barabasi Albert ldquoEmergence of Scaling in Random Networksrdquo 1999 University of Notre Dame Notre Dame


The power law distribution of networks is similar to Paretorsquos 8020 rule ie 20 of the worldrsquos population earns 80 of the income Colossuses like eBay Yahoo and Amazon are linked to by millions of people while other sites are linked to by a handful Many will link to already well-linked sites since they have already proven useful to many 30 The rich get richer There is also a tendency that old nodes in a network will be better linked than new Old nodes are more likely to have collected links during their longer life span than new nodes They therefore have a slight advantage when it comes to achieving incoming links31 30 Tremayne M ldquoThe Web of Context Applying Network Theory to the Use of Hyperlinks in Journalism on the Webrdquo2004 JampMC Quarterly Vol 81 No2 31 Tremayne M Zheng N Lee J K Jeong J ldquoIssue Publics on the Web Applying Network Theory to the War Blogosphererdquo 293 Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 2006


40 Online Social Networks and the Blogosphere With insight in some key concepts of Network Analysis I will in the following present common features amongst online social network services and the Blogosphere which I will treat as an online network 41 The Blogosphere Blogs are a one-to-many perspective of communicating Blogs are in general easy-to-update web pages that are usually maintained by one individual author The term ldquoBlogrdquo is derived from ldquoWeb Blogrdquo and is most commonly defined as a website with archive functions that display the chronologically ordered entries in reverse chronological order A Blog is commonly used as a commentary site focusing on specific issues such as trends within IT and business for example Other typical uses for Blogs are for open diaries and sharing day to day events and thoughts An important feature of Blogs is the setting of links to other Blogs Many Bloggers offer a list of links to other Blogs and may also include links to other websites they find interesting in one way or another From basically any Blog one could follow links to every other Blog These links and Blogs constitute the actual Blogosphere32 Another common feature is for visitors to leave comments on the various entries on the Blog The Blogosphere is the term or notion for all Blogs and their interconnections The Blogosphere is held together by linking With linking Blogs work as filters for online content in the way that the most well read and serious will get heavily linked while others perhaps not as serious or interesting remain unlinked 42 Technical features of Blogs I have chosen to also look into the Blogosphere since it essentially is a network The Blogosphere differs from online social network services in the sense that you for one do not have to be a member From this it also follows that you are not limited by your membership to reach read and comment other Blogs The Blogosphere also vary from social online networks in that each Blog can have a different template hence a different look The various templates for Blogs however have had a tendency to become more uniform Another important variation is that where online social networks have limited focus areas Blogs have theoretically as many different focuses as bloggers In an online network service each member display whom they are friends with who are part of their personal network As a Blogger you do not ldquocollectrdquo or display your friends In some of the online social network services you have a personal Blog option so one might argue that there is no straight line between the Blogosphere and the online network services However the Blogosphere has three important technical functions that I will explain and discuss in the following section RSS permalink and trackbacks that do not exist in social network services 32 Tremayne M Zheng N Lee J K Jeong J ldquoIssue Publics on the Web Applying Network Theory to the War Blogosphererdquo 291 Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 2006


RSS RSS allows someone not just to link to a page but actually to subscribe to it with notification every time that page changes With RSS the links themselves have become dynamic With RSS the web browser is not the only means of viewing a web page RSS is used to send notices of new Blog entries but also other updates like stock quotes weather data and photo availability Permalink A permalink is a URL that points to a specific Blog entry even after the entry has passed from the front page into the Blog archives With the permalink one can frequently see date and time of posting and the author who initially authored the item or its subject Even if an item is changed renamed or moved within the internal database its permalink remains unchanged The permalink is the most successful way of bridging Blogs Permalink is like a built in memory that points to conversations and commentary allowing users to retrace chosen parts of a discussion33 Trackback A Trackback is a so called link-back methods With trackback web-authors can request notification when somebody links to one of their documents This enables authors to keep track of who is linking to or referring to their articles Some Blog software programs support automatic pingbacks where all the links in a published article can be pinged when the article is published A Trackback is an acknowledgment that can be sent via a network signal (ping) from the originating site to the receiving site The receptor often publishes a link back to the originator indicating its worthiness Trackback requires both sites to be Trackback enabled in order to establish this communication Trackback does not require the originating site to be physically linked to the receiving site34 Trackbacks are used primarily to facilitate communication between Blogs if a Blogger writes a new entry commenting on or referring to an entry found at another Blog and both blogging tools support the Trackback protocol then the commenting Blogger can notify the other Blog with a ldquoTrackback pingrdquo the receiving Blog will typically display summaries of and links to all the commenting entries below the original entry This allows for conversations spanning several Blogs that readers can easily follow These three tools together enhance the possibility to follow discussions as they appear on the Internet make history of discussion available and visibility of who links to what As with folksonomy and tagging (see below) these three technical aspects of the Blogosphere (and other parts of the web) help further connect trains of thought I will discuss this in greater length together with two other Web concepts folksonomy and tagging below 43 Impact of the Blogosphere Blogs offer a means for entering into the public discourse essentially becoming a way to participate in any ongoing debate The Blogosphere could well be a competitor to the traditional media in the form of a new organizational model It is free of cost a mixture of established journalists and average Internet users it has commentary functions and the Blogs within are interlinked Compared with the traditional press the Blogosphere is ldquolimit-lessrdquo in two senses

33 Source httpenwikipediaorgwikiPermalink Accessed 20071217 34 Source httpenwikipediaorgwikiTrackback Accessed 200712 17


The readerwriter distinction is gone and the user can follow discussions and relating stories or reports something that has been difficult and time consuming in the traditional press Within the Blogosphere most nodes are relatively unlinked while others heavily linked become so called hubs centers of traffic in the network How this happens is of great importance since this process has influence over the flow of ideas on the web35 That something is discussed in the hubs might for example affect the life time of a certain issue The chance not only to hear about it but to discuss it read others thought on a subject matter enhances an issues existence A message is becoming dependent of the Blogosphere for a longer life span The Blogosphere is also heavily interlinked with journalism websites the spread of information from the media to the public and vice versa is increasingly affected by bloggers who if not already serving as opinion leaders at least provide a window into the process of opinion formation36 In a research conducted by Technocrati37 they state that 77 of the Bloggers searching for company or product information relies on information from other Blogs38 Another example of the power Bloggers might hold is Tim Wither who started the Blog phenomena adopt-a-journalist in which he tracks every word written by one of the New York Times reporters39 Adopt-a-journalist exemplifies the Blogosphere as a new organizational model for the media It takes on the journalistic responsibility as a meta-journalist revealing and examine those who reveal and examine In a recent study over bloggers blogging about the war in Iraq statistics showed that a majority of the bloggers were journalists academics and technology-related professionals In the study the bloggers seemed to be better educated than people in average40 The statistics in this study is of course troublesome since (as noted in the article) most bloggers do not reveal their professions in their Blogs and a Bloggers could of course lie about his or her profession and gender However if the statistics are true and general for the Blogosphere the majority of bloggers are professionals within important and status laden professions with the possibility to disseminate information publicly to a wide degree It might be argued that the impact of the Blogosphere is exaggerated Since Bloggers commonly link to other Bloggers Blogs often get high ranking in search engines which make them perhaps more visible than is proportionate to the number of Blogs in the Blogosphere The so called ldquoecho chamberrdquo of the Blogosphere ie a claim or statement that becomes repeated a number of times and as a consequence believed as true and important is seen by critics as an amplifier of the Blogospheresrsquo impact Tom OrsquoReillly the founder of OrsquoReilly Media and a prominent Web commenter notes that ldquoIf it were merely an amplifier blogging would be uninteresting But like Wikipedia blogging harnesses collective intelligence as a kind of filter Much as PageRank

35 Tremayne M Zheng N Lee J K Jeong J ldquoIssue Publics on the Web Applying Network Theory to the War Blogosphererdquo 291 Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 2006 36 Tremayne M Zheng N Lee J K Jeong J ldquoIssue Publics on the Web Applying Network Theory to the War Blogosphererdquo 291 Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 2006 37 Technorati is on of the largest search engines for Blogs 38 G A Marken ldquoBlogosphere or Blog with Fearrdquo Online Public Relations 39 Fernando A ldquoBig Blogger is Watching Yourdquo 2004 Communication World 40 Tremayne M Zheng N Lee J K Jeong J ldquoIssue Publics on the Web Applying Network Theory to the War Blogosphererdquo 297 Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 2006


produces better results than analysis of any individual document the collective attention of the Blogosphere selects for valuerdquo41

41 Tim OrsquoReilly ldquoWhat is Web 20 ndash Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Softwarerdquo wwworeillynetcom


50 Online Social Network Services To start with what is an online social networks service It is a template tool which allows you to access and connect through a network to others within that network But it is also an organization of communication and meaning through certain tools (blog video sound etc) and signs (smiley emoticons games ranking features mood settings etc) All in all it can be said to be a personalized media unit through which you communicate to other members of the same network a personal webpage connected to millions of others As with the Blogosphere certain nodes (users) are more popular than others The difference in how this show could be through how many friends one has but also how many messages and viewings ones has The number of friends is not to be trusted as proof of how popular ones site is since it is common to accept any friend invitation that one might get through the network Within the online social network services the engines of value are personal musings connections and profiling42 In the network each web site is a node and the hyperlinks among them are the links Tapscott and Williams says in their well received book ldquoWikinomicsrdquo that ldquoThe growing accessibility of information technologies puts the tools required to collaborate creative and compete at everybodyrsquos fingertips This liberates people to participate in innovation and wealth creation within every sector of the economyrdquo43 Even though I feel that this statement is exaggeratedly positive it has some truth to it We connect more and more through various networks to find old friends new friends business partners discussion groups etc We can potentially exchange thoughts with anyone on a peer to peer level Ones geographical location is no longer a problem for a great number of people when it comes to knowledge sharing The backbone of the online social network services are the personalized profile A surprisingly large number of network service users gladly fill their profile with personal information like political interest pictures current whereabouts etc Even famous artists and politicians and broadcast networks have profiles and anyone can become lsquofriendsrsquo with them as well 51 Organization of communication and meaning The web has become more organized in its different formats ie in its compatibility Various softwarersquosrsquo and programrsquos now smoothly work together compared to the initial stages of the Web The Web has become more organized in the way we use it as well It is of course a constant degree of change and development of the Web but also a more uniform way of using it Users of the networks services use the various expression tools given from the service to express and blurb about who he or she is show photos share music etc Most of the tools are shaped in the way that it lets the user talk about him or herself There are also common features to interact with others in the network Facebook has features like Wall where members can leave short messages Poke which is simply a function that ldquonudgesrdquo the member that it has been sent to It has no real function apart from that It can however be interpreted in different ways by the users Facebook also has other features like Status which allows the users to inform their current status

42 Don Tapscott Anthony D Williams 2006 ldquoWikinomics How Mass Collaboration Changes Everythingrdquo Portfolio 2006 43 Don Tapscott Anthony D Williams 10 2006 ldquoWikinomics How Mass Collaboration Changes Everythingrdquo Portfolio 2006


whereabouts and moods for example Myspace has features like Bulletin which allows a member to send one message to all his or her friends within the network There is also a Group feature which lets it members create groups with a common page and message board Myspace also has other features like TV (a YouTube look a like device) News which displays news that members submit The members can vote for the best news which gives the news different ranking in the system A common feature on Facebook is also the various applications its users can chose to use Facebook opened up its Facebook Platform in 2007 which allows developers to create applications in the framework of Facebook Some of the applications are popular quizzes other are ways to post fun material to friends etc The applications are like a mini context for us to express ourselves through Even though we can connect to millions of people we are in a sense limited since we do it via the network services which as a phenomenon only allow a certain range of expression Elias Civilization Process focuses on the chain of interdependence that constantly grows and makes the interdependencies even more dependent A consequence of the ever growing chain is that its parts restrain them selves in their short term behavior and develop a long term view on everything they do The necessities of the overwhelming interdependence trains them to eliminate any irregular behavior44 The behavior on the network services hardly allows any irregularities partly due to limited functions of the services but also due to a networks structure A text can still be shocking and a song or link might very well be unusually weird funny or obscene but in a network however and especially in an online network your identity is vulnerable due to the very same rationale that makes it powerful dissemination Consciously or un-consciously ones behavior can hence be regulated by the fact that everyone can read and follow what you do It is a sort of self-monitoring phenomenon 52 The challenge of communicating via online social network services Learning how the online networks work and knowing the audience is an ever ongoing process If we compare online networks with traditional mass media there is a new set of questions to be answered For one what is the motive of an online network user or more specifically what is the specific motive for a specific user in a specific network Online social network services hold a lot of data about its user One way to collect user data has been through the applications on Facebook Facebook does not allow application vendors to use Facebooks userrsquos data but when a member installs an application the developer will get access to data In other words Facebook does not prevent application vendors from using that data in marketing or advertising campaigns via their applications Funnily enough the usage of applications on Facebook follows the power law distribution (see fig 5) 87 of the usage only goes to 84 out of no less than 5000 applications on Facebook45 Using applications as a tool or means to communicate is hence increasingly difficult

44 Elias Norbert 229-333 1939 ldquoThe Civilizing Processrdquo Basil Blackwell Publisher Oxford 45 Tim Orsquoreilly Source wwworeillynetcom Accessed 20071212


Fig 546

The figure shows the popularity of the various applications on Facebook 521 What is different from communicating via traditional media The easiest and most comprehensive way to understand an online social network service is to see it as a personalized media unit which is used and controlled individually One of the main differences from traditional communication is of course the network channels that are being used However network services are not only a new channel like radio TV or magazines where a given message can be spread at the right time with the right message Networks in themselves have a radically different structure and logic where video radio and text can be created as well as used and spread within the network Users of network services are also active in the sense that they know friends acquaintances or others will look at their profile Many or most of the users are also active in that they will share and spread material to others in the network Much of the dissemination is therefore dependent of

46 Tim Orsquoreilly Source wwworeillynetcom Accessed 20071212


the messages spread factor ie how likely users are to spread the message sent to them what does the message say about the sender what is the reason to send it 522 Risks There are some obvious risks for anyone that uses networks as a communicative tool Due to the structure of networks and their wide spread the sender cannot control whom it will and will not reach In other words apart from the initial ldquosend outrdquo the message is out of the sendersrsquo control and is not retrievable so the message of the sender will have to count on that it will be scrutinized re-butted made fun of and as to spread salt in the wound not by one but by potentially thousands even millions of people To a whole other level the message is objected to collective intelligence or rather collective scrutinization 523 Opportunities The opportunities are several if one manages to communicate in the right way Due to the structure and logic of networks there is a potential network effect to every message within A well planned message can travel very far and have a longer life span than a message sent via other channels The channel of network services is more personal than those of the traditional mass media The channel in itself is open to a large amount of formats including radio video TV mail phone (voIP) and games The creativity of a message is hence not limited to one medium There are also opportunities to reach audiences that were hard to reach before since the medium has attracted such a vast number


60 Understanding dissemination in online social network services Above I have outlined some features of the online social network services The question still remains though how Network Analysis can be useful in message dissemination via online social network services Looking at Network Analysis we especially see the importance of weak links and preferential attachment Weak links tend to be a better strategic point to place a message if we want it to disseminate into several clusters This is due to the bridging effect of weak ties Preferential attachment tells us that users of networks commonly link to those that already are well linked following the logic of lsquothe strong get strongerrsquo Online social network services are of course not simply empty units or nodes that blindly follow the power law distribution They are culturally drained individual media units with more or less specific focus areas The bad news of online social network services is that they change rapidly in that they evolve It is however not only the services that changes We can assume that the users change in their approach to them as well As the online social network services began to pop up the average user was used to e-mail as the dominant way of communicating over the Web Now only a couple of years into the boom of the network services we actively use them for day to day contact with our friends and to satisfy our media cravings There are of course also coming generation that perhaps only use network services and that does not separate between radio TV mail and phone The good news is that even though the services change and evolve they are still networks which presumably follow the power law distribution In that sense they are predictable Just as the Blogosphere online social networks work as a filter to the myriad of sites on the web Friends exchange links to what they deem are the funniest or most interesting information at the moment If a message circles around in an online social network it is deemed to be spoken about and have a longer life time than it would have had without the network circulation


70 Web 20 what is the fuss about Online social network services and the Blogosphere are part of what constitutes Web 20 In the following I will explain other important features of Web 20 that further outline the context in which the online social network services and the Blogosphere exists in In the following I will explain Web 20 and explain the different possibilities to link and connect I will contemplate over the concepts of tagging folksonomy and PageRank 71 Definition In order to describe Web 20 I have collected most of the information from a web 20 declaration made by those who introduced the term in late 2004 Tim OrsquoReilley and Dale Dougherty the latter being the developer and publisher of Global Network Navigator (GNN) the first commercial internet page and the latter President and CEO of the publishing company OrsquoReilley Media Inc Web 20 might sound as new upgraded software of Internet but is basically just a description of the web era that we are in now ie the way software and users operate over the web After the dot-com bubble popped in early 2000 many believed that the web had been and indeed was over-hyped During a conference brain storm session Tim OrsquoRiley and Dale Dougherty concluded differently They saw new interesting software popping up regularly and felt that the sites that had survived the dot-com bubble seemed to have something in common The notion of Web 20 has been criticized for being a hype a buzz word to sell new products and indeed some companies have used it in that sense Others have criticized saying that there is no real difference from what is supposed to be the 10 era and the 20 era I will not rebut the criticism but rather explain how Web 20 is defined and what features it is said to hold If 20 differ from 10 or not does not matter for my presentation The crucial part is that we use the web in a certain manner weather we should give it a name or not is not of high relevance Web 20 is not only about the Web and its software it is also about how we approach and implement them It is as much a Web as it is a social phenomenon 711 The web as a platform Internet is in itself a platform for a number of sites and softwarersquos Web 20 can be explained from a set of principles and practices that a number of sites demonstrates to various degrees within this platform47 One of these features among those who survived the web 10 era seems to be that they have used the web to harness collective intelligence 72 Harnessing collective intelligence

47 Tim OrsquoReiley Source httpwwworeillynetcompubaoreillytimnews20050930what-is-web-20htmlpage=2 Accessed 20071212


Hyperlinking is the foundation of the web As users add new content and new sites it is bound into the structure of the web by other users discovering the content and linking to it ldquoMuch as synapses form in the brain with associations becoming stronger through repetition or intensity the web of connections grows organically as an output of the collective activity of all web usersrdquo48 In the following I will present a number of web 20 phenomenonrsquos that will help us understand the concept of web 20 and how it harnesses collective intelligence eBay Search engines are portals to millions of websites linking its users to the collective work of other users of the web eBay an online shopping and auction site which has had tremendous success on the Web is fully dependent of its users activity As more people use eBay it becomes better in its role as a provider of context in which the transitions of goods can take place Like a search engine eBay connects sites within its own context since the service simply allows people who wish to buy and sell items to connect eBay is 20 in the sense that rather then providing people with published information it connect common wills through a context Just imagine what eBay would have been without its users Amazon Amazon another web success story and provider of context is also fully dependent of its users The content on Amazons site is to a large degree made by the users themselves Amazon which started as an online book store has now become an online shop that sells books DVDrsquos software furniture toys etc Amazon encourages its users to write about the books films etc that are sold through Amazon Users are also allowed to rate the products with a one-to-five-star system This rating provides the potential buyers to get a basic idea of the products usability and quality The reviews that are added by the users different from a company or a sales mansrsquo product information and is seen as one of the success features of Amazon Amazon is populated with reviews and ratings and hence collects the vast amount of its userrsquos information over the products sold through Amazon Wikipedia Wikipedia is a web based free content encyclopedia constituted added and edited collaboratively by voluntaries Wikipedia is open and free for anyone to use whish is made possible due to its usage of wiki software (see below) According to Wikipediarsquos own statistics there are currentlyrdquohellipover 75000 active contributors49 working on more than 5300000 articles in more than100 languagesrdquo50 Some of its key characteristics are that anyone can edit the articles that exist on Wikipedia Since its beginning in 2001 Wikipedia has grown into one of the largest reference web sites on the Internet51 Wikipedia differs from traditional encyclopedias in the sense that it is an ongoing project ie it changes and grows constantly due to the open editing policy52 The editors the co-authors of Wikipedia are tens of thousands and ranges from expert scholars to casual readers The fact that anyone who visits the page also is able to contribute to it has led to an enormous amount of articles with an enormous amount of content over every 48 Tim OrsquoReilly Source httpwwworeillynetcompubaoreillytimnews20050930what-is-web-20htmlpage=2 Accessed 20071212 49 Out of 4193901 registered user accounts of which 1182 have administrative privileges 50 Source httpenwikipediaorgwikiWikipediaAbout Accessed 20070419) 51 Source httpenwikipediaorgwikiWikipediaAbout Accessed 20070524 52 Source httpenwikipediaorgwikiWikipediaAbout Accessed 20070524


possible topic All the articles in Wikipedia are linked with each other or cross-referenced In general the articles of Wikipedia improve over time It is not until the article has gone through discussions debates and a vast amount of arguments that it reaches a more objective encyclopedic nature53 Wikipedia is based on the assumption that all bugs are shallow given enough eyeballs The more common and well visited topics are generally better guarded and hence more objective than the less visited articles Even though vandalism occurs studies suggest that Wikipedia is broadly as reliable as Encyclopedia Britannica54 and the errors that occur in both encyclopedias are of similar nature Wikipedia uses software called wiki software In essence it means that a website which runs on wiki software is open for its users to add edit and remove material What Wikipedia has done as well as eBay and Amazon is to create and provide a template or a context which the users can fill with content They all have in common that they improve as more people join and they connect one to several 73 Folksonomy Another phenomenon within Web 20 is best described through delicious and Flickr which have pioneered the concept of folksonomy Flickr is a photo sharing site and a social network platform Users share their personal photos and are through the tools within Flickr able to tag them Tagging something in this case a photo simply means collective categorizing by freely chosen key words The key word or term (tag) is associated with or assigned to a piece of information (text photo video etc) describing the piece of information55 Tagging will follow the associations of the collective since it does not follow any pre-determined categories A picture of a boy doing a trick on a skate board might hence be tagged as ltassume freakgt and ltcrazy trickgt rather than ltyoung mangt and ltsport activitygt Folksonomy so to speak naturalizes the web allowing the users to control the language Delicious is a social bookmark site a way to save organize and share bookmarks to websites Delicious uses a non-hierarchical keyword categorization system that allows its user to tag their bookmarks with freely chosen keywords56 ldquoActs like searching on Google tagging bookmarks with delicious and sharing photos on flickr all have private benefits but these acts create collective benefits as well These collective benefits yield a richer Web experience and enhance lsquothe wisdom of crowdsrsquordquo57 These two networks hence also harness the collective intelligence through allowing the users to choose the actual key words Summing up the different parts that constitute the whole we see that web 20 is essentially ways of facilitating and practicing networking The various features are all in one way or another 53 Source httpenwikipediaorgwikiWikipediaAbout Accessed 20070524 54 Source httpwwwresearchibmcomvisualprojectshistory_flowresultshtm Accesed 20070524 55 Source httpenwikipediaorgwikiTag_28metadata29 Accessed 20071213 56 Source httpenwikipediaorgwikiDelicious Accessed 20071213 57 Don Tapscott Anthony D Williams 208 2006 ldquoWikinomics How Mass Collaboration Changes Everythingrdquo Portfolio 2006


network tools facilitating and personalizing the web The features of permalink trackback RSS folksonomy and tagging connect the users of the web to another level Permalink is like a built in memory while trackback is the users self consciousness RSS represent the selected information that we chose to react to while folksonomy and tagging are the language we as users govern 74 The Context of Web 20 Web 20 is a phenomenon of the Network Society It is at this time period the ultimate connection between users of the Web Instead of reading Web published material we now to a larger degree contribute and take active part together with every other user of the Web In this connectivity we become dependent of each other on another level Not only do we become dependent of people in distant places but we also become dependent in the sense that we share the same platform viz the Web The chain of interdependence has hence become longer and more visible than before the Web and especially before the Web 20 era For this enormous chain of interdependence our expressiveness is limited to the context the frame of the various services As the Web has evolved irregularities have and are being regulated Through network services the Blogosphere and other Web phenomenonrsquos we expand our social networks and encounter more social clusters from whom we exchange goods and thought The language and behavior that is used over the Web is in consequence (and by its technical limits) adapted to suite all


80 Conclusion Through the online social networks services the channels of communication are to a large degree becoming one and the same Online social network services have become the natural platform for many users of the Internet where they handle their contacts supply their media interests look for information hear the latest news gossip etc Online social network services are services that provide a context a template tool with certain features which allows people to connect A crucial difference when it comes to message dissemination from traditional media is that there is no one sender as with TV radio and press through which messages with certainty can be sent in the senders more or less preferential shape form and manner The other big differences are the services shape and structure (network) and its individual stamp The structure of the online social network services are that any member (or in some cases even non-members) can visit each individual profile which makes the user both senders and receivers The research question for this paper is if Network Analysis can facilitate message dissemination I have assumed that online social network services are becoming the dominant platform and the natural medium for the average Web user for keeping in touch with friends getting news as well as gossip up-dates hear about interesting links watch video clips etc Hence a natural medium for anyone who wishes to spread information Speculative I believe that the online social network services will in one way or another become the dominant media reaching and connecting everyone 81 How can Network Analysis be Useful Growth is a natural part of the online social networks and as they grow they will to some extent or another follow the power law distribution due to preferential attachment Some sites will hence be more linked to than others becoming important for up-dates The user profiles that are well visited will be linked to by a large number of users each linking to certain cluster of acquaintances The online social network services are filled with plenty of cultural meaning which can be hard to grasp Terveen and Hill investigated the number of hyperlinks among web pages and found for example that frequently hyperlinked web sites are perceived as being of high quality The more credibility and usefulness a web site has the higher its chances of getting hyperlinked58 When it comes to online social network services constant up-dating and other signs of activity also seem an important part of keeping up ones popularity Through Network Analysis we can see the naked raw structure behind a network which allows us to understand the patterns of communication within We can see where to place messages and understand how networks might come to grow I have not offered a technical solution as to exactly how this can be done However the different services have different ways of connecting to new members but common to all is linking The Blogosphere offers fairly easy tools (RSS permalink trackback) to follow exactly who is connecting to who when and what conversations 58 Kim Jang Hyun Shin Yunho Barnett George ldquoAn Analysis of Hyperlink and Share-Issue Network of the US Senaterdquo 2007 Conference paper - International Communication Association


have been discussed Online social networks are a bit trickier due to its closeness compared to the Blogosphere It is however possible to see activities such as comments and top friends within most online social networks which reveals some of the information dissemination over the specific services 82 Populating the Web The structure of the online social network services makes the user both senders and receivers in the network Users will communicate by amongst other ways sending links and text messages Whilst on the Web the users of network services are of course not restricted to the service they are in but often use it as a constant open window in their browser while following links sent to them or searching simply searching other information This presents us with the question if the challenge of message dissemination lies within the actual online network services or outside The answer is of course both Anyone who want a message to disseminate need to have ldquoback uprdquo in the form of information population (text over the subject matter) on the tags or search words that might be assimilated to the specific information the message disseminator want to spread Among other things this stresses the importance of understanding folksonomy the way users of the Web choose to tag their information The ldquoback uprdquo sites and information needs to be social media friendly in the sense that it should have the feature of sharing the various content of that page to various online social networks have the necessary picture and video library both on the ldquoback uprdquo pages but also in the online social networks of current interest


90 Summary As Internet is becoming the dominant communication channel the importance of communicating via the web is crucial Online social network services offer a personalized media unit through which we amuse and inform ourselves and others As with the Blogosphere the interconnected sphere of all Blogs online networks have tremendous potential and proven effect of spreading messages and connecting people The quickly changeable features and trends of the various online social network services are hard to analyze and follow I have therefore defined three important processes of networks through Network Analysis growth weak links and preferential attachment In order to explain the context in which the online social network services exist I have mentioned important features of what has come to be called the Web 20 era A general important feature of Web 20 is the harnessing of collective intelligence The success sites in Web 20 are those that use their userrsquos information simply providing them with a context in which they can connect share and improve each others information Online social network services and the Blogosphere are not different in this aspect They connect people and as an effect filter the Web The funniest most interesting links and video clips are sent and information is spread through them tipping others in their network of the most interesting information of the Web To some degree I have put Web 20 in a larger social context the Civilization Process I have then concluded that Network Analysis can be a helpful tool in facilitating message dissemination through online social networks and the Blogosphere


10 0 Literature Barabasi A L Albert R ldquoEmergence of Scaling in Random Networksrdquo University of Notre Dame Notre Dame 1999 Castells M ldquoThe Information Age Economy Society and Culture Volume 1 The Rise of the Network Societyrdquo (2nd ed) Daidalos1998 2000 Elias Norbert ldquoThe Civilizing Processrdquo Basil Blackwell Publisher Oxford 1939 Fernando A ldquoBig Blogger is Watching Yourdquo Communication World 2004 Granovetter M S ldquoThe Strength of Weak Tiesrdquo American Journal of Sociology Vol 78 Issue 6 May 1973 Hill and Hughes ldquoComputer-Mediated Political Communication The USENET and Political Communitiesrdquo Political Communication 143-27 Taylor amp Francis Copyright copy 1997 Kim Jang Hyun Shin Yunho Barnett George ldquoAn Analysis of Hyperlink and Shared-Issue Network of the US Senaterdquo Conference Papers -- International Communication Association 2007 Annual Meeting p1 Kirchhoff Lars and Bruns Axel and Nicolai Thomas ldquoInvestigating the impact of the blogosphere Using PageRank to determine the distribution of attentionrdquo 2007 In Proceedings Association of Internet Researchers Vancouver Canada Klaassen Abbey ldquoMarketers Start to Use Social Networks for CRM Instead of Adsrdquo Advertising Age Vol 78 Issue 33 p15-15 8202007 Kominik Anna ldquoInnovation Down Underrdquo Communication World NovDec2007 Vol 24 Issue 6 p7-7 Marken G A ldquoBlogosphere or the Blog with Fearrdquo Public Relations Quarterly Winter20062007 Vol 51 Issue 4 p33-35 Tapscott D Anthony D Williams ldquoWikinomics How Mass Collaboration Changes Everythingrdquo Portfolio 2006 Tremayne M ldquoThe Web of Context Applying Network Theory to the Use of Hyperlinks in Journalism on the Webrdquo JampMC Quarterly Vol 81 No 2 2004 Tremayne M Zheng N Lee J K Jeong J ldquoIssue Publics on the Web Applying Network Theory to the War Blogosphererdquo Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 2006 Van Dijk J 2006 ldquoThe Network Societyrdquo (2nd ed) SAGE Publication 2006


101 Web sources wwwwikipediacom wwwnmacouk wwworeillynetcom


Foreword For inspiration and thoughtful insights I owe Mr James Nunn and Basile Hurioglu of ldquoThe Lounge Companyrdquo many thanks





















101 Web Sources 36





















































Fig 546














































101 Web Sources 36





















































Fig 546














































































Fig 546


























web 2.0 and network society

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