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Fall 2006 Internet Reviews: Social Networking Software: Facebook and MySpace Stacey Greenwell University of Kentucky, staceyg@email.uky.edu
Beth Kraemer University of Kentucky, [email protected] Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits oy u.
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Repository Citation Greenwell, Stacey and Kraemer, Beth, "Internet Reviews: Social Networking Software: Facebook and MySpace" (2006). Library Faculty and Staff Publications. 22. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/libraries_facpub/22
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This article is available at UKnowledge: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/libraries_facpub/22 DEPARTMENT K ENTUCKY L IBRARY A SSOCIATION
INTERNET REVIEWS: SOCIAL NETWORKING SOFTWARE: FACEBOOK AND MYSPACE
BY STACEY GREENWELL AND BETH KRAEMER
UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY LIBRARIES
INTERNET uthor’s note: Shortly after this article was MySpace and Facebook are particularly popu- submitted for publication, Facebook disabled the lar with “Net Generation” users. An estimated UK Libraries profile, citing a violation of their 85% of students in high school and college Terms of Agreement which they say specifies that have at least one profile in at least one of organizational profiles are not allowed. Profiles these sites. The central feature of this particu- must be created for individuals only. We are dis- lar kind of social networking site is the ability puting this interpretation of the Facebook Terms. to identify a group of friends whose profiles Facebook recommends that Libraries create indi- become linked to yours. Your group of friends
REVIEWS vidual profiles for librarians and establish a becomes a network with unique communica- “Facebook Group” to represent the library itself. tion privileges. Your friends can post com- Contact the authors for more information about ments that will appear on your site. You are this incident and the current status of our profile. able to broadcast announcements that go to At the moment, several libraries do have active your entire group of friends or your network in Facebook profiles, but the implication is that more one stroke. The personal connection encour- may be shut down in the coming months. aged by these sites is both the strength and potential vulnerability of this type of social Static HTML pages? That’s so yesterday. The networking. new trend for libraries looking for a web pres- ence that appeals to the younger generation is CONCERNS AND BENEFITS Social Networking. Public and academic MySpace and Facebook have both been in the libraries around the country are experiment- news recently with stories about users who ing with this new trend and the University of have suffered some consequence as a result of Kentucky has established profiles in both content they posted to their own profiles. Facebook and MySpace, two of the most pop- Colleges and universities have charged stu- ular services. This column offers a general dents with violation of campus alcohol poli- overview of these two services, as well as cies based on photos found on the sites. insights based on the University of Kentucky Graduating students have cited Facebook pro- experience. files as a factor in cases where the student was turned down for a professional position. It’s WHAT IS SOCIAL NETWORKING not just your friends who are exploring these SOFTWARE? services: parents, potential employers, and Social networking sites are hot. These web- university administrators are aware of the pop- based tools allow individuals to meet, interact, ularity of MySpace and Facebook and the collaborate, and share. There are a variety of kind of information that can be mined from sites for a variety of purposes, including: profiles. • Meeting friends (e.g., MySpace and Facebook) Concerns about MySpace and Facebook cen- • Sharing media (e.g., Flickr and YouTube) ter on the nature of the content users are • Sharing ideas (e.g., blogs and wikis) posting and the relatively open access of the • Collaborating at work (e.g., SharePoint) sites. Parents are particularly concerned about • Dating (e.g., eHarmony) who has access to their children’s profiles. An individual can create his or her own per- Both services now allow users the option to sonal space within the service, but interaction restrict access to their profiles to their 12 with other users is the key feature. approved group of friends only. User educa- tion is key to preventing problems. Users need INTERNET to be aware of the option to restrict access, patrons. Finally, MySpace and Facebook are need to be judicious about accepting friend wildly popular with this particular audience. REVIEWS requests (other users may misrepresent them- Profiles are free and easy to create. The only CONTINUED selves and are potentially not who they say investment is the time required to create and they are), and need to be aware that open maintain content. This is a high-visibility profiles are open to anyone. arena and participation is cheap and easy; having a library presence there makes sense. With user education to reduce problems, we see exciting benefits in social networking MySpace sites, particularly MySpace and Facebook. The (http://www.myspace.com/) sites integrate web, email, chat, blog and MySpace is the most trafficked internet site in media-sharing in one neat package. the U.S. A MySpace profile can be created by Institutional users — such as libraries — can anyone with an email address. The ability to use the sites to facilitate two-way communica- customize the “look” of your profile makes it tion with users rather than the traditional popular with high school students and anyone one-sided web presence. User comments can looking to advertise to this younger audience. enhance the site, making it more personally Independent musicians create profiles to appealing to this audience and more timely. advertise their music directly to listeners. Patrons can post questions to the site and Movies geared toward teen audiences are also answers will be visible to all visitors. The being promoted directly on MySpace. Libraries “friends” feature also provides a focused group — particularly public libraries — have also for advertising, such as promoting library begun to create MySpace profiles as another classes and services of interest to younger way to reach this set of their user population.
13 Figure 1 INTERNET REVIEWS CONTINUED
Figure 2 with the basic elements common to any MySpace profile identified. A basic MySpace profile is created by complet- ing a form. Some questions on the form are Facebook required (e.g., birth date) and others are (http://www.facebook.com) optional. The optional sections will display on For the most part, Facebook is open only to your profile if you have provided content, and registered users with a valid education-orient- won’t display if you have not. You can provide ed email address. As a result, access is consid- information ranging from your favorite movies, erably more restricted than MySpace. A where and when you went to high school or Facebook user has limited access to view pro- college, your sexual orientation, and where files outside of one’s network (the network you work. Any responses become search terms typically being the educational institution of that will allow other users to find your profile which one is affiliated.) Like MySpace, indi- (e.g., find everyone who graduated from the vidual users may choose to limit who can view University of Kentucky in 2002, or find every- their profile by adjusting privacy settings. one who likes to watch “Deadwood”). Despite these restrictions, more than 7.5 mil- lion people are registered users of Facebook. After your basic profile is complete, you may According to the Facebook website, two- add optional elements like blog entries, pic- thirds of those registered return to the site tures, videos, etc. The basic look of the site each day, and as of this writing, Facebook was (colors, font, some layout elements) can also the seventh-most trafficked site in the United be customized, and a variety of sites exist States. where you can download free MySpace lay- outs for your profile. Figure 1 shows the Facebook is particularly popular with college 14 University of Kentucky Libraries MySpace students. On a sprawling and unfamiliar cam- profile (http://www.myspace.com/ uklibraries), pus, Facebook can serve as a lifeline to staying INTERNET connected with old friends and can aid in and then within other networks, typically by meeting new people. Facebook users can easily college or geographic area. Facebook profiles REVIEWS connect with individuals from one’s high include a wall which allows other Facebook CONTINUED school, hometown, etc. Links within users to post comments and links. Facebook Facebook profiles make it simple to find oth- users can write “wall-to-wall” and carry on a ers who share the same interests (favorite conversation with another user. Figure 2 bands, movies, hobbies, etc.), live in the same shows the University of Kentucky Libraries dorm, participate in the same school activi- Facebook profile, with the basic elements ties, etc. Students can create groups based common to any Facebook profile identified. upon interests which can further help in con- necting with others. Facebook users can create groups which can be open to anyone or restricted. Groups are con- When creating one’s Facebook profile, the siderably wide-ranging, from groups affiliated user will be prompted to enter basic informa- with a campus club or activity, to more general tion such as gender, birthday, email address, groups such as “Why do I pay for a dorm room phone, etc. Sections are provided for personal when I spend all my time at the library” or information as well — political interests; “UK Basketball rocks my world!!!” Groups can activities; interests; and favorite music, provide an easy way to share information with movies, TV shows, books, and quotes. Like others and message all members; they can be the basic contact information, a Facebook particularly useful in planning an event or a user can adjust the privacy settings to hide regular meeting. Groups can be fun and some- this information from others — across the times irreverent, and they further shape one’s board or for specified users only. Facebook profile and add to one’s network. users can also choose not to fill in these per- sonal information categories at all. SHOULD LIBRARIES GET INVOLVED? Since an email address is all that is essentially The Courses portion of the profile gives facul- required to create a profile, virtually anyone ty the opportunity to become more involved or anything can have a profile. Mascots, with Facebook, as students or faculty can indi- departments, and inanimate objects have cate courses taught or taken by course num- Facebook profiles. At the University of ber. Increasing faculty use of Facebook is not Kentucky, for example, even the Patterson too surprising, especially considering that Statue has a Facebook profile. So technically some of the newest faculty are of the social speaking, it is no problem for a library to networking generation anyway. A recent obtain an account. As far as setting up the examination of some librarians on Facebook profile, it takes a matter of minutes. As with revealed faculty librarians at other institutions any online presence, what is most essential is, born as late as 1980. of course, the content.
Another important part of the Facebook pro- Students are increasingly using these social file is one’s photo. Photos vary widely from networks, to the degree that some are choos- profile to profile. Some users will post a cur- ing the messaging feature in these social net- rent photo, others may post a childhood works over traditional email and other com- photo, dog, cat, friend, movie star; short of munication methods. Some students log into pornography (users must agree to this when these services and remain there all day — for uploading any photo), anything goes. them, it is as essential as phone and email Facebook users who do not upload a photo were to other generations. will appear as a question mark. Facebook users can also create photo albums. Photo albums We try to reach students in a variety of ways can be shared with anyone, including individ- — by hosting open houses, distributing flyers, uals who do not have Facebook profiles. setting up a table at campus or community events. Since social networks are where an In addition to all of the user-supplied informa- overwhelming number of our students spend tion (contact information, personal informa- their time, it makes sense that we would want tion, photos), profiles include several essential to be there as well. Setting up library profiles social parts: friends, the wall, and groups. Like on social networking sites can serve as just one MySpace, users can request a “friend” linking more way to put the library’s contact informa- with another profile. Recipients of friend tion out there. In addition to providing infor- requests are notified and can accept or deny mation about the library, the profile can serve 15 friend requests. Friends are grouped by net- as just one more way for students to provide works-first within one’s own local network feedback to the library. A number of students INTERNET won’t bother with paper feedback forms, but We plan to continue updating our profiles reg- they just might be inclined to submit com- ularly with new content. Two of us are primar- REVIEWS ments electronically. If even a handful of stu- ily responsible to maintaining the profiles in CONTINUED dents find the library in a social network and both services, but we have recruited help from use its services as a result, isn’t it worth it? several other librarians in the system to con- tribute content. In addition to basic contact WHAT’S NEXT? information and tips on using the library, we Initially most of our “friends” in both MySpace regularly add items that we hope will be of and Facebook were other libraries around the interest to students. At the beginning of the country. We’re all experimenting, and explor- fall semester, we included tips for new stu- ing the profiles of other libraries is one of the dents as well as information about obtaining best ways to get ideas and learn what is possi- and activating the campus ID card. We linked ble. (If your library has a profile in either ser- to some tips for using Facebook wisely and vice, send us a friend request!) Students at the featured information about a campus safety University of Kentucky are primarily Facebook seminar which discussed responsible use of users. We expect to see more MySpace usage as Facebook. We have created a series of photo high school students with elaborate profiles albums to give the site some color, including established in that service go off to college, but an album of sketches of the future for now we are seeing more activity in our Information Commons, a collection of cam- Facebook account. After our profile was estab- pus banners on display in Young Library, and a lished and had a certain amount of content, fun series of librarians on vacation and just the next step was to attract friends. We decided generally having fun. not to solicit directly to students. There is some question about whether students would see that In general, we strive to keep up with what’s as an invasion of “their space.” Our strategy new. Today’s number one site may be was to send friend requests to students we knew MySpace, but it will inevitably be replaced by (primarily library student workers) and faculty something else. Just a few years ago, Friendster at UK who had Facebook profiles. We also sent was the hottest social networking site around. a friend request to the Wildcat mascot, who Mention it to a student today and you may has a Facebook account. Once our profile get a blank look or “ugh, that’s where my big became linked to those profiles, the friends of sister’s friends used to hang out.” our friends were able to discover the library profile and several new students sent us friend Social networking sites give libraries just requests as a result. We combined this less another option to reach our clientele in new aggressive form of direct advertising with other ways. As we utilize these new tools, it makes methods, such as promoting our Facebook pro- us realize that it is truly an exciting time to be file during student orientation sessions. Our in this profession. profile is still fairly new, but we are seeing slow and steady growth in the number of UK stu- Stacey Greenwell dents who have become our friends. [email protected] Beth Kraemer [email protected]
FOR FURTHER READING Abram, Stephen. “What Can MySpace Teach Us in Special Libraries.” Information Outlook. 10. 5 (May 2006): 34-5. Farkas, Meredith. “Libraries in Social Networking Software.” Information Wants To Be Free May 10, 2006, accessed August 28, 2006