MIS 373 - Social Networks

Overall, this class was really great.  The subject matter was in one way very similar to other MIS classes I’ve taken.  The topics we discuss are related to IT and how it can be managed in a business context.  This is pretty typical of MIS classes.  But in another way, the subject matter was just completely different.  Instead of concrete examples and definite conclusions, there was always a great level of uncertainty about the crucial questions surrounding the management of Web 2.0 and social media tools.  A few of the issues that always came up included metrics/measurement of success, monetization, and the future of social media.  Although this class didn’t explicitly answer these questions for me, I think it gave me a pretty good framework to analyze these things that are happening around me every day.  Who knows…down the road I might just find my answers to these questions.

A big thanks to Karl, Scott, Ken, and Tom for organizing a unique and thought-provoking class.

Another article…this ones pretty amazing.  It talks of an engine that Steven Wolfram, the inventor of Mathematica software, has created that will find and calculate information based on any question you give it.  So instead of Google, which gives you a list of results pertaining to a query, this engine will use information from a variety of different sources and give you just the answer you are looking for.  It’s not complete yet, but it seems like they’ll have a prototype soon.

To me, this technology seems like part of Web 3.0.  Web 1.0 was able to deliver content to the masses; Web 2.0 is having that content generated by users; and Web 3.0 will be able to understand all of this content.  In other words, Web 3.0 will involve the rise of the semantic web.

What will be the dynamics of Web 3.0?  How will money be made?  What will leading-edge companies like Google do in the face of Web 3.0?  It is my guess that Google is already developing something similar, or planning a takeover of whoever developes a strong presence in semantic web.

I saw an interesting article a while back about Facebook and its monitoring of user content.  Apparently, they have a staff of about 150 people that do nothing but look through users’ pictures and videos to filter out offensive content.  They’ve even developed a set of standards to determine what stays and what goes.

What I’d like to know is what Wikipedia is doing to ensure clean and correct content on its site.  Do they also have a hired task force constantly looking at site updates?  The amount of effort required to do that is just unfathomable.  I understand much of the content-policing is done by the user community, which is essentially the entire world.  But just how much is done by the user community?  Does Wikipedia staff play a role?

Upon doing some further research, it seems as though Wikipedia does not have any hired staff whose explicit job is to monitor content.  Wikipedia basically lets volunteers sign up for slots of time for which they are to monitor certain fast-changing articles.  Most of the other content-monitoring is done by the community at large.  This begs the question:  Why does Facebook hire a task force of content monitors, and Wikipedia does not?  Both sites are chock-full of user-generated content; that’s practically their whole reason for existing.  Both sites can have offensive content posted on them.  I think what it comes down to are expectations.  In some ways, people expect to see inappropriate content on Wikipedia (even though they may never have), because it’s known by everyone as “the user-generated encyclopedia”.  On top of that, people have probably heard a few stories about abuses on Wikipedia (like Judd Bagley’s affair and whatnot).  Facebook, on the other hand, has a different image.  Things like vandalism are perceived as much less of a problem on Facebook, so people generally do not expect to see offensive or unexpected content on the site.  In order for Facebook to maintain that image, it seems they’ve had to hire a bunch of people to filter out “bad” content.

Has anyone ever wondered what it would be like to “tweet” in real life?  This link I found on Gizmodo today portrays this in a very hilarious way.  What’s interesting is that the guy in the video “tweets” like he’s musing to himself about the things going on in his life and around him.  As someone who doesn’t have a Twitter account or even really seen people’s tweets, I find this kind of fascinating.  Is Twitter really used by most people as just a way of expressing the things they are thinking?  If so, why does Twitter market itself as a means for quick, frequent status updates?  Maybe if their marketing message was more along the lines of “tell everyone what’s on your mind,” they would just be thrown into the large pile of regular blogging sites. Can Twitter continue to use this kind of marketing to convince users that it’s really much different than the average blog?  This raises the issue we’ve seen come up many times:  “Is Twitter just a fad?”  Maybe yes and no.  On the one hand, it has gotten a lot of hype from the likes of South by Southwest and now even celebrities.  On the other hand, Twitter offers some pretty useful features like real-time updates of posts.  More than likely, Twitter’s popularity is due to a lot of these things that have just happened to come together.

After the Social Media in Entertainment lecture, I found an interesting article that shows that content uploaded to YouTube becomes less popular as the original creator of that content uploads videos more frequently.  The article suggests that “when a producer submits several videos over time, their novelty and hence their appeal to a wide audience tends to decrease.”  If this is true, this that means TV shows are constantly catering to ever smaller and smaller niche markets.  Since TV shows make up a large portion of the content on many TV networks, why is TV always hailed as the widest-reaching mass marketing tool?  I can see how movie channels constantly playing blockbuster movies can maintain their appeal to large audiences, but those channels usually aren’t open to advertising anyways.  Very strange…

Another issue I’d like to address is quality.  When most people think of the quality of video content, they consider the clarity of the picture and sound, the sophistication of visual effects, editing, plot, and overall “production value” (basically the amount of money spent making the video).  As someone who has worked in quality management within a manufacturing firm, I know that quality is just a generic term referring to how well a product conforms to a set of specifications.  In the case of traditional video content (TV, DVDs, etc), the points mentioned above are usually what constitute quality.  However, in the case of videos uploaded to online communities, I think quality often refers to how closely theses videos cater to the specific needs of their target markets.  Based on this definition, high quality online videos will be successful in attracting a market with a very specific set of characteristics, which in turn can lead to lucrative advertising deals (like DadLab’s deal with Baby Bjorn).

Will Facebook version their service?  Should they?  I bring up these questions because there were a few people in class that thought versioning Facebook was almost a necessity.  When I say versioning, I’m talking about Facebook separating its user base according to a set of user characteristics like age, interests, motivation for signing up (personal, work, etc), or whatever else.  Once this has been done, users can only create an account for one “version” of Facebook, with access to only their respective version’s user base.

Back to the question:  Should Facebook version its service?  Having separate user bases could give users the peace of mind in knowing that their information is available only to their specific demographic.  For example, students signed up to Facebook College wouldn’t have to worry about their parents or potential employers seeing their embarrassing party pictures.  Of course, this all breaks down if there is now way to enforce sign-up rules.  Obviously, the huge downside to separating Facebook’s user base is losing the ability to connect with those that aren’t singed up to your particular “version” of Facebook.  For example, it is quite possible that a college student will have acquaintances in high school or friends that have already graduated.  From a business standpoint, versioning means that the value of your “connectors” (from the Cyworld case) decreases because they have access to a much smaller network of people.  I’m sure many of Facebook’s future monetization efforts will rely on these “connectors,” so versioning would be a very foolish move.

The future of social networks was an interesting topic of discussion.  The prospect of a single identity on the Internet is both intriguing and frightening.  On the one hand, you’ll be able to surf the Internet with greater peace of mind, knowing that there is a lot less anonymity on the web.  A single identity also opens up the possibility for things like recommendation systems that take into account all of your friends’ preferences (like an advanced version of what Amazon offers).  On the other hand, a universal ID system would be scary for the same exact reason:  its lack of anonymity.  Presently, everyone using the Internet has gotten comfortable with the fact that their actions are not being traced by some entity in the sky.  For this reason, people feel free to do just about anything they please on the Internet without fear of repercussion.  Of course, this is a good and bad thing.  It gives on person the ability to secretly shop for his/her favorite Britney Spears music, and another the chance to commit fraud on eBay.

Personally, I would never want a universal ID system to be a mandatory thing, whether it be by the government or anyone else.  The anonymous aspect of the Internet is ingrained in people’s minds.  At the same time, such a system is highly plausible.  Although the Internet has been around for more than 30 years, it’s only been in mainstream usage for about a decade.  To say that the Internet will be used 10 years from now in the same basic way it’s being used now would be more than shortsighted.  As a final thought, a universal ID system will never be fool-proof; the people that “need” anonymity will still be able to get it.  So effectively, universal IDs would just limit anonymity on the web to those who need it the most.

Social media promises a lot of great things.  However, the prospect of measuring their financial impact on businesses remains hazy.  There’s a lot of noise and mixed signals out there, and it’s hard to find out just what to focus on.

As seen in one of our previous lectures, part of the problem comes from a lack of acceptance by consumers of social media.  In our discussion with Amy Crow from BazaarVoice, we found that many product reviews are being falsely created.  Over the years, this has eroded buyers’ trust and confidence in the system.  The fact of the matter is that these fake reviews constitute only a tiny percentage of all the reviews out there.  However, there are still many people that have a largely negative view of product ratings and reviews.  I think the root cause of this, as mentioned before, is lack of acceptance.  In the grand scheme of things, online ratings and reviews are still relatively new, and many people have not grown to accept them just yet.  I guess that’s uderstandable though, given the anonymous nature of such a system.  Social networks like Facebook could offer to take some of the anonymity out of web, but much of it will still remain.

When I look at LinkedIn, I don’t see a tool for recruiting.  I see an interface for professional networking.  Sure, this would include recruiting functions, but I think LinkedIn serves more of a “making connections” purpose.  This breaks down into two major functions:  finding people with certain characteristics, and getting in touch with specific people that do not yet know you (like our example with Jeff Dachis).

An example of the first function could be as follows:  I’m an engineer looking to start a business with an amazing new cancer-detection technology I’ve developed, but I need to find a partner - a business person with keen knowledge of the healthcare industry.  LinkedIn would serve this function wonderfully, allowing me to search for people and contact them directly, or finding someone I know that might know someone, who knows someone, etc that would eventually lead me to my target.

The second function, trying to get in touch with specific people, works very much the same way.  You can either search for the person, send him/her a message directly, and hope that he/she responds.  However, this typically doesn’t work, especially if you’re looking for “important” or high-profile people.  The power of LinkedIn, as we discussed in class, is to create the links that will eventually lead you to your target person.  What you are looking for is a way to get your name to the target by way of someone else that the target knows and trusts.  This way, you greatly increase your chances of hearing from him/her.

Nowhere in the above two functions do I see traditional recruiting happening.  Maybe this is just because what I think of when I hear recruiting is resume dropping, career fairs, mass interviews, etc.  I don’t usually think of making connections with people one-on-one.  I guess maybe that is the direction that “recruiting” will go as we see more and more effort being put into tools like LinkedIn.  The one-on-one style is defnitely richer, as it gives both parties the opportunity to really get to know each other and why they want to work together.

I particularly enjoyed this lecture because we were able to focus on a single company that everyone is very familiar with: General Motors.  Many people in class had strong feelings about how GM should be utilizing social media.  Personally, I think the auto industry has a long way to go before it can start using social media internally (for collaboration, knowledge sharing, etc), although there would be huge potential.  The biggest obstacle preventing this from happening is the complexity of car companies’ (especially US) supply chains and the interdependencies that exist for nearly every part of a car.  I think car manufacturing would have to become drastically more modular for these complexities and interdependencies in the supply chain to start to disappear.  This means going towards fully digital/electronic cars, with almost no mechanical parts.  To get an idea of what I’m talking about, check out this video (skip to 1 min) of the GM Hy-wire.  If the Hy-wire comes to be reality, I think we might very well see social media being used within GM.  There will be much less management effort needed to coordinate activities amongst numerous suppliers because there are so few dependencies in making the car (hence, more modular).  The less coordination required to do something, the easier it becomes to apply social, collaborative tools to it.  More collaboration amongst the players in the supply chain would lead to more innovation and better cars in the future.