Social Networks using Web 2.0

In this article we highlight the pattern and behavior of different social networks and how they are implemented using Web 2.0. We have also indicated how behavior of individuals and their network can be extracted and analyzed by studying different social networks. Towards the end of this article we highlight the future of Web 2.0 and how its enhanced capabilities can make social networks more mature with added features and functionalities to improve the efficiency of social collaboration.

What is a social network

Whenever we consider a network, we imagine a set of entities connected with each other on a logical or a physical basis. Physical networks like computer networks are some things that can be planned, implemented and managed very optimally and efficiently. However, when we move from physical to logical networks, the visualization becomes much more difficult. Social networks are comprised of the most intelligent components - human beings. Being so, any activity involved with the social networks, be it participation, management, optimization becomes extremely complicated and context based.
Due to the various facets of the human species, we can have multiple types of social networks in all the fields and areas. This can range from a network of physicists, to a network of doctors to a network of soccer lovers. Each type of network has its own focus area, member size, geographical spread, societal impact and objective. Managing such networks is not only complicated but requires lot of collective effort and collaboration. There have been uncountable social networks formed but only a few has finally achieved their true goal which emphasizes the complexity of such a matter.
A social network is usually created by a group of individuals who have a set of common interests and objectives. There are usually a set of network formulators followed by a broadcast to achieve the network membership. This advertising happens both in public and private groups depending upon the confidentiality of the network. After the minimum numbers are met, the network starts its basic operations and goes out to achieve its goal. Success of a social network mainly depends on contribution, interest and motivation of its members along with technology backbone or platform support that makes the life easier to communicate and exchange information to fulfill a particular communication need.
Implementing social networks and sustaining them is one of the biggest challenges and people have formulated many mechanisms in the past to keep alive such networks. This has been largely supported by the advancements in the field of information technology. The large scale computerizations and the powerful advent of E-Commerce have aided this also, but overall the need for a structured support was and is still there. Web 2.0 has been one of the greatest contributors in this area and we will see how it has been a great contributor in this area.

What is Web 2.0

Web 2.0 tries to tap the power of humans connected electronically through its new ways at looking at social collaboration. This is one of the commonalities between social networks and Web 2.0 - both have people as their fulcrum.
The main agenda of Web 2.0 is to connect people in numerous new ways and utilize their collective strengths. In this regard, many new concepts have been created such as: Techniques (Blogging, Social Networking, Communities, Mashups, and Tagging), Standards (XHTML, CSS, and REST) and Tools (RSS, AJAX, DOJO, PHP and Ruby). The power of Web 2.0 is the creation of new relationships between collaborators and information.
The components of Web 2.0 help to create and sustain Social Networks as we will see in details in the upcoming sections. Blogging is the art of social conversation and have replaced personal home pages and this helps for a more consolidated flow of thoughts and ideas. Wikis have enabled collaborative contribution and authoring among distributed teams. Tagging or folksonomy is a collaborative means of identifying information widgets to increase the power of any web site and searching required information in a faster way. Combined with other such concepts, Web 2.0 provides an ideal platform for implementing and helping Social Networks to grow.

Components of Web 2.0 for social networks

In today's environment, computer literacy is at its peak and tools that are aided through the computerization age are most effective in keeping alive a concept as complicated as Social Networks. The beauty of Web 2.0 fitment to Social Networks is that all the components of Web 2.0 are built for the growth and sustenance of Social Networks. As discussed in "Building Smart Communities with IBM Social Collaboration Tool Suite" (developerWorks, May 2009), the major concepts that have been considered in Web 2.0 are:

• Communities: Communities are an online space formed by a group of individuals to share their thoughts, ideas and have a variety of tools to promote Social Networking. There are a number of tools available online now a days to create communities which are very cost efficient as well as easy to use.
• Blogging: Blogs give the users of a Social Network the freedom to express their thoughts in a free form basis and help in generation and discussion of topics.
• Wikis: A Wiki is a set of co-related pages on a particular subject and allow users to share content. Wikis replace the complex document management systems and are very easy to create and maintain.
• Folksonomy: Web 2.0 being a people-centric technology has introduced the feature of Folksonomy where users can tag their content online and this enables others to easily find and view other content.
• File sharing/Podcasting: This is the facility which helps users to send their media files and related content online for other people of the network to see and contribute more on.
• Mashups: This is the facility via which people on the internet can congregate services from multiple vendors to create a completely new service. An example may be combining the location information from a mobile service provider and the map facility of Google maps in order to find the exact information of a cell phone device from the internet, just by entering the cell number.

As we see from the above components of Web 2.0, each of them contribute to help the implementation and continued existence of social Networks on a meaningful basis. While wikis and communities help to create an online space for the networks, blogging, folksonomy and file sharing help to information flow across the virtual world of the social networking community.

Figure 1: Information Flow in Social Networks

 http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/ws-socialcollab/