Social Networking Software Follow-Up: Facebook and Myspace (And More) Stacey Greenwell University of Kentucky, [email protected]

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Fall 2007 Internet Reviews: Social Networking Software Follow-up: Facebook and MySpace (and More) Stacey Greenwell University of Kentucky, [email protected]

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 Follow-up: Facebook and MySpace (and More)" (2007). Library Faculty and Staff Publications. 261. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/libraries_facpub/261

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This article is available at UKnowledge: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/libraries_facpub/261 DEPARTMENT K ENTUCKY L IBRARY A SSOCIATION

INTERNET REVIEWS: SOCIAL NETWORKING SOFTWARE FOLLOW-UP: FACEBOOK AND MYSPACE (AND MORE)

BY STACEY GREENWELL AND BETH KRAEMER

UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY LIBRARIES

INTERNET his article is a follow-up to the Internet MySpace Reviews column which appeared in Kentucky (http://www.myspace.com) Libraries in the Fall 2006 issue (v 70 n 4, p 12- MySpace is still one of the most popular sites 16). As with all things internet, a lot has on the web. According to Alexa: The Web changed in a short time. Both Facebook Information Company, MySpace continues to (http://www.facebook.com) and MySpace be the sixth most trafficked site in any lan- (http://www.myspace.com) have new features guage worldwide (1). Usage is still primarily with new implications for library use. We by the Net Gen demographic and bands, but

REVIEWS think it is time for another look. usage is increasing in other groups as well. MySpace profiles have been created for politi- WHAT IS SOCIAL NETWORKING cians, authors promoting books, and movies. SOFTWARE? Movies that are specifically teen-oriented may Social networking sites are still hot and get- use MySpace rather than a traditional ting hotter. The primary purpose of these movie.com site as their primary web presence. applications is to allow people to connect. Most sites require an individual to create Since our Fall 2006 article, MySpace has some kind of personal profile which is then made available additional features to facilitate linked to others in a variety of ways. (See our social interaction and information sharing. original article for the basics of social net- Some features seem to be a response to the working in Kentucky Libraries, vol. 70#4.) popularity of other sites such as Facebook. MySpace and Facebook are two of the more Features that are popular in one service often popular social networking sites, particularly show up in others. New MySpace features with the Net Generation, including current include: high school and college students. The original 1. Photo album support: MySpace images were primary purpose of these sites was simple previously uploaded and accessed individu- social interaction: connecting with friends ally. The service now supports a Facebook- and/or meeting new people. These services style album system, allowing users to group have evolved beyond that original purpose to photos into albums which make manage- have specific information-sharing uses that ment of large photo collections much easier. have implications for libraries. 2. Status update: Users can use a quirky one- liner to specify where they are or how they What started as a means to keep up with one’s are feeling at the moment. This may sound friends has become a tool for keeping up with familiar to Facebook users and users of professional contacts or promoting one’s insti- Twitter, a new utility that is much like a tution, business, or ideals. Whether using micro-blog; Twitter users post brief messages social networking software for political cam- similar to instant messages or text posts paigns or for bringing a grieving campus about their current status or activities. together, social networking software has 3. MySpaceTV: This is MySpace’s answer to become an important way to build community YouTube. One can upload, view, rate and among its users. In this follow-up, we’ll comment on user-created videos. describe how these services have evolved in 4. Friend search: If the user is looking for a par- this past year. ticular friend among the hundreds linked to his/her profile, this new search utility is very helpful. Until the search was imple- 11 KENTUCKY LIBRARIES • VOLUME 71 • NUMBER 4 INTERNET mented, users had to scroll through pages of (and vice versa), they can add comments to thumbnail images to find a specific person. the library profile site, and their friends may REVIEWS 5. News: MySpace now includes a news aggre- see the library profile (which could potentially CONTINUED gator, a real-time news service that supports result in more friend requests). The potential user comments and ratings. for broadening the audience for library bul- letins may make more aggressive solicitation MySpace profiles can still be rather garish and of friends beneficial. Libraries (particularly site accessibility is not a high-priority, but the public libraries) have used bulletins to pro- service has improved support, continues to mote events, classes and services. Creating a provide information on internet safety for MySpace profile is free to create, the system is users, and has added features that attempt to extremely popular, and the profiles do not prevent “spam” friend requests. take a lot of time to maintain. As of September 2007, the UK profile has been At the University of Kentucky, the library’s viewed 1865 times. For our particular audi- MySpace site has had limited success in terms ence, the profile is not having a huge impact, of reaching students, which was the initial but for a zero-cost and a low-effort activity it goal. There are 122 friends who have linked is worth continuing. to our profile. Most of those, however, seem to be organizations (e.g., the UK Student Facebook Activities board), businesses (e.g., local clubs (http://www.facebook.com) and shops), regional bands and authors, and Since our initial article in Fall of 2006, several other libraries and librarians. The original significant things have happened with plan was not to aggressively seek friends but Facebook. Most notably, it is now open to rather to “build it and they would come.” everyone. Originally created by two students However, the friend requests that came unso- as a social networking tool for Harvard stu- licited were not UK students but the groups dents in February 2004, the site was only open mentioned above, as well as hoards of “unsa- to college students, then later high school stu- vory” or irrelevant profiles (e.g., romance dents and some large workplaces until authors) that were rejected. With this strate- September 2006 when it opened to everyone. gy, the library gained 87 friends during Once Facbook allowed anyone to join, enor- approximately the first year of our profile. mous growth naturally resulted: from 12 mil- lion active users in December 2006 to over 31 As an experiment, it was decided to see what million active users today. response we would generate if the library did send out friend requests to UK students. The Though now wide open, Facebook became MySpace search utility was used to bring up restrictive in regard to who could create a pro- profiles of users who identified themselves as file. In August 2006, there were over 100 current UK students. One-hundred four friend libraries with active Facebook profiles. By the requests were sent in one afternoon during end of September 2006, there were none. July. By the next morning we had 17 new friends, for a response rate of about 16%. This Why? Creating a profile for someone other kind of promotion is somewhat tedious. Each than one’s self violates Facebook’s Terms of friend request needs to be sent out individual- Service. Perhaps Facebook wanted to avoid ly; we felt compelled to take a quick look at becoming home to the thousands of “fakester” the profile before “friending” them to guard profiles one finds on My Space-real or fake against anything beyond a normal level of profiles for celebrities, politicians, businesses, inappropriateness in the content. bands, even inanimate objects like cans of beer. Regardless, this interpretation of the Although it may be tedious, this kind of pro- Terms of Service significantly hampered motion may be worth doing. We did not librarians’ efforts to reach out to students via receive any negative feedback from sending Facebook. We attempted to reason with the requests. Students are accustomed to Facebook that what the library was doing was receiving friend requests from people they hardly “fakester” activity; for a complete don’t know. If they do not want to link to a accounting, visit http://sla-divisions.typepad. profile, they simply reject the request. If the com/itbloggingsection/2006/09/librarys_ friend invitation is accepted, then their profile facebo.html. will be linked to the library profile. Friends will receive any bulletins the library sends out Despite the issue with institutional profiles,

12 KENTUCKY LIBRARIES • VOLUME 71 • NUMBER 4 INTERNET libraries can create groups. Our experience ion at UK), the Facebook Platform has been a indicates the group has been considerably less tremendous opportunity for libraries. REVIEWS successful than the profile. Some disadvan- Launched in May 2007, the Facebook CONTINUED tages of groups versus profiles that we have Platform allows developers to create third- observed are as follows: party applications for Facebook users. Applications cover a wide variety of purposes— It is more difficult to notice the library from the silly (use Zombies to bite your group on a profile. When one was a “friend” friends or the Harry Potter application to cast with the library, it was easier to notice when spells) to the more compelling (the many cat- we changed our profile picture, status, posted alog search applications or the Librarian a note or picture, etc. Groups are much more application which supports reference with a hidden on the profile, usually buried some- real librarian). where between a hundred other groups one has joined (from “UK Basketball Rocks My One approach using Facebook is to talk to World” to “Blanding Tower 15th Floor is the students directly as a librarian, and this was Best!” to “Guys Who Love Peeing Outdoors” found to be fairly effective. For example, a to other things that aren’t fit to print here). number of students created unofficial “Class of 2011” groups. Over the summer we quietly It is more difficult to get people to join a monitored a few of the groups and answered group. With a profile, the library could questions as they arose: “Where is the Cat’s “friend” students or encourage students to Path?” (a designated safe place to walk at UK) “friend” us. With groups, the group adminis- “When is Fall Break?” “How do people address trator (librarian) must already be friends with mail to my dorm?” It is challenging to walk a student before the fine line between being helpful and requesting that student butting in on student conversations, but we join the group. This seemed to get no complaints when we offered severely limits how the occasional friendly advice to these fresh- many people can be man groups. reached. The library’s profile had over 50 Facebook advertising is some- friends after just a cou- thing that many campus organi- ple of months; after a zations have done, and the UK year, there are barely Libraries have taken out 50 group members. It is Facebook ads on several occa- possible for the librari- sions. Most recently we ran an an to “friend” students ad for our freshman welcome and then encourage event “The Hubbub,” a pizza them to join the group, and gaming party held in our but becoming friends information commons. Though with a librarian may the ads are fairly inexpensive seem more threatening and they are seen by many stu- to some students than dents it is difficult to evaluate simply being friends their effectiveness. The atten- with the library as a dance at “The Hubbub” was outstanding whole. (around 400 students, and we were competing with rush activities) but it is unclear how Many features are not available in groups. much of that was a result of the Facebook ads With a profile, the library created a number of since we advertised in multiple venues. For photo albums. Pictures were taken of student more information about Facebook advertising: activities as well as pictures of interesting http://utk.facebook.com/advertise.php things in the library. Photos of the student organization banners hung in Young Library One surprising aspect of all this librarian proved to be a particular popular photoset. experimentation with Facebook is how it has With a group, we can post pictures but cannot grown as a professional tool. We have often organize them. felt that, if nothing else, librarians should experiment with Facebook just to network While the groups feature for libraries has not with other colleagues. It pleased us to see that been very successful (at least not in our opin- this sentiment is getting national attention

13 KENTUCKY LIBRARIES • VOLUME 71 • NUMBER 4 INTERNET (see this Business Week article: http://www. photosets of library activities and events, as businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_34/b4 yet another way to reach users. Flickr is pow- REVIEWS 047050.htm) erful and free or low-cost. A pro account pro- CONTINUED viding unlimited photo uploading costs $25 Before Facebook was open to everyone, one of per year. the authors created a Facebook group for SLA members (at the time, almost entirely aca- Ning (http://www.ning.com/). demic librarians). Never expecting the group Ning is a social networking tool that allows to grow, we were delighted a year later to see users to create their own topic-based networks the group had grown to over 500 members. and invite others to join the group. Members Since then, hundreds of library-related groups of a given network can participate in threaded have sprung up on Facebook, including: discussions, upload images and video, and cre- ALA ate their own home page within the network. Kentucky Library People There are several library-related networks cur- First Year Experience Librarians rently within the Ning system. Library 2.0 Interest Group No, I Don’t Look Like a Librarian! LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/). LinkedIn is marketed as a tool for profession- In addition to the groups (which have some als. The service provides typical social-net- problems in general—see above), librarians working options—create a profile and link it are “friending” each other and keeping up via to the profiles of others—with a more busi- messages and the wall. Upon returning from a ness-oriented twist. Other users are called conference, we “connections” rather than “friends.” The serv- routinely “friend” ice provides an option to recommend others people post-con- within your network and includes a section ference rather than for job experience. A number of librarians file business cards. have personal accounts in this service. With Facebook, we often respond LibraryThing (http://www.librarything.com/). to a colleague’s sta- LibraryThing allows users to catalog their own tus or recently book collections in a web-based shareable posted note. Yes, database. The service supports tagging and we talk about allows users to connect with others based on everything from common book interests. library 2.0 to shoes to U.S. Open del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/). Tennis, but what a A “social bookmarking” service that allows wonderful way of users to create web-based bookmarks, which keeping in touch can be accessed from any computer via the with colleagues web. Bookmark collections are also shared one would other- with other users as a discovery tool. wise only commu- nicate with a few Encore (http://ukty-mt.iii.com/iii/encore/app). times a year. Think social networking is just for kids or your more techie colleagues? Features of social OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKING SERVICES networking utilities have been showing up in MySpace and Facebook are not the only traditional tools for a while, including library social networking utilities used by libraries catalogs. The University of Kentucky is cur- and librarians. Some of the tools described rently working with Innovative Interfaces, below are new and others are finding new use Inc. to develop an overlay to the library cata- by libraries. log that is intended to provide a more intu- itive search interface option for users. The sys- Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/). tem supports a “tag cloud” relevancy feature Flickr’s primary purpose is photo-sharing. common in social networking applications Users can create a free account or can upgrade that support tagging. The system will support for additional services, such as greater storage user tagging so that in addition to library- capacity and more control over organizing applied subject terms, we could soon see images. Libraries are using Flickr to create patron-applied tags as a tool for improving

14 KENTUCKY LIBRARIES • VOLUME 71 • NUMBER 4 TRENDS INTERNET search. Students could tag library resources as useful for a specific class or project, helping Social networking is a powerful force. The REVIEWS students in later semesters to discover those influences extend beyond teen or young adult CONTINUED resources. librarianship. The trends seen in these tools include: SOCIAL NETWORKING SOFTWARE IS EVERYWHERE The “personalization” of information In a short time, social networking software is resources and services. Information used to be becoming as ubiquitous as the phone or email. dry and stuffy: “Just the facts, Jack.” The A recent study released by the National author relating the information was explicitly School Boards Association shows that 96% of separated from the content. Professional affili- U.S. teens and tweens with online access use ation and contact information were generally some form of social networking software. And the only personal details provided about the it’s not just the kids—according to the author. Social networking tools have opened Business Week article mentioned above, 41% the door to the personalization of information. of Facebook’s visitors are 35 and older. The An important critique or service announce- number of adults on MySpace is even higher. ment will appear next to photos of the author’s cat or a description of a recent vacation. There The recent tragedy at Virginia Tech is an is a blending of personal and professional lives, indication of how ingrained social networking fueled by social networking. This can be an is with the college-age generation. Several uncomfortable transition for experienced pro- news stories during the early hours of that day fessionals, but it appears to be a strong trend. noted survivor use of social networking tools, especially Facebook. Students used Facebook The blending of tools, resources, formats, to get information about friends who had sur- services. Social networking applications vived the massacre. A Facebook group for VT involve extending, blending, collaborating, survivors popped up within hours and was a personalizing, sharing, and re-mixing (“mash- source of support as well as information. If one ups”). Tools tend to be more modular or joined the group, then obviously they were include modular components of other services OK. Where cell phones were busy and people and Facebook applications are one example of had trouble making direct one-to-one contact, this trend. Mash-ups are everywhere-take a this was a way to “broadcast” one’s status to a Google map of movie theaters or a list of large number of people quickly. movie reviews from IMDB.

This use of social networking sites indicates Evolution of existing tools to incorporate how important such sites are to these kids. elements of social networking. Elements of Facebook is not just a tool. It’s ingrained in social networking are everywhere. Amazon their lives. There have been several news supports tagging. CNN’s broadcast includes reports over the past year about use of user-submitted video. Even library catalogs are Facebook and MySpace as a way for kids to evolving-Encore is just one example. grieve for lost friends. A personal MySpace site becomes like a guestbook at a memorial TAKE THE PLUNGE service when a teen dies. The site stays up (at Don’t let all the blinking, twirling cartoon-like least until or unless a parent wants to close it) stuff fool you or frighten you off. At least keep and friends post messages and share memories. an eye on these trends and consider giving some Organizations have begun to acknowledge the of these tools a try. You might find that it’s the importance of social networking sites to most fun you’ve had at work in a long time. millenials. Shortly after the Virginia Tech shootings, NBC News created a Facebook Stacey Greenwell announcement to reach students willing to be [email protected] interviewed about the tragedy. They wanted to interview students who knew the shooter, Beth Kraemer and this was the fastest way for them to make [email protected] contact with the greatest number of students.

WORKS CITED

Alexa. "Alexa Top 500." 1 November 2007. Accessed 1 November 2007.

15 KENTUCKY LIBRARIES • VOLUME 71 • NUMBER 4