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By Tai, December 7, 2008 1:17 am

Danah M. Boyd
& Nicole B. Ellison, Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship

Comments (4)

By Tai, November 23, 2008 12:03 am

On the occasion of Yahoo! 360 being closed in April 2009, I have some personal recommendations for alternative blogging solutions.

Where to migrate automatically copy legacy Yahoo! 360 contents to

Yahoo! 360plus Vietnam

This product is the official product for Vietnam market with Vietnamese interface.

Click here to see instructions of the utility.

Pros

• Compatibility between Yahoo!’s products
• Local events

Cons

• Community outspread: 360plus Vietnam is for Vietnamese users only

Publish to FeedBurner

FeedBurner is a Google’s property to manage contents via RSS.

This method requires certain technical experience.

Publishing using FeedBurner does not migrate your data to another SNS, but to HTML format where you can backup your contents manually.

How to do that

1. Set your 360 blog to public mode
2. Register an account at FeedBurner or login using your Google account
3. Burn your feed
   
4. Go to Publicize, select BuzzBoost
5. Fill in the form activate the BuzzBoost function
   

Considerations

1. You go where your friends are. Is Facebook where most of your friends reside now?
2. You may want to choose the platform that will be easy to backup your contents. WordPress is best to fulfill this desire

Recommendations

Before you go on with further introduction on the blogging alternatives, here are a few immediate recommendations:

1. Professional blogging: Blogger, WordPress
2. Personal blogging: Facebook
3. Blog to update family and friends: Facebook
4. Don’t really care about receiving comments (but still can receive response): Tumblr
5. Mostly copy & paste: Tumblr

Best choices today

Facebook

Facebook is world’s #1 Social Networking Site. It has a powerful Notes function with very good privacy settings

Click here to see its Notes.

Pros

• Contained within world’s #1 SNS, which means all your social graph and contents are in the same place
• Your friends are updated of your blog post
• Person tagging, which notifies the tagged persons
• Privacy option to item level

Cons

• The ’sense of blogging’ is drowned within a complex SNS
• Ads

Blogger

Blogger is a well-known blogging platform from Google.

What people usually hesitate about Blogger is that it seems to be stand-alone, i.e. no feeds.

However, few know that it has a very useful Follow function where you can get updates from other bloggers using Blogger.

Update from Official Google Blog

KhanhLNQ, Tính năng Following mới nhất của Blogger

Pros

• Professional platform with many built-in widgets
• Good SEO optimization
• You can choose your own domain
• No ads

Cons

• N/A

Windows Live Spaces

Windows Live Spaces is in Live network with more than 40 millions users.

Pros

• Professional platform with many built-in widgets
• Very trendy themes
• Potential to integrate into the new Microsoft’s Live product package
• Privacy option to item level

Cons

• No permalinks
• Ads

WordPress

WordPress is a highly regarded blogging platform. WordPress is offered in two ways: a blog on WordPress.com or software package to run a self-hosted blog.

This blog is WordPress itself.

While WordPress has limited social networking features, one can use plugins or external service to achieve this goal.

For example, MyBlogLog connects readers with the author(s).

Pros

• Professional platform
• Free plugins developed by many supporters
• Free theme designed by many supporters
• Good SEO optimization
• Full control over the contents on self-hosted blog
• One’s own domain
• Privacy option to item level
• No ads

Cons

• Limited built-in social networking features

Tumblr

Tumblr is not a blogging platform, but instead a tumblelog, which is much more of a free-form log.

There are interesting features of Tumblr:

1. You can Follow other tumblrs. All posts of yours and people you follow are displayed in the Dashboard
2. You can reblog other tumblrs, which means copy exactly the content into yours
3. Privacy option to item level
4. No ads

It is much different from a regular blog in ways that:

• There is no comment function
• There is no category or tag

Then why would people want to use it?

• Just log it, no need for meticulous and time-consuming editing

Tumblelog creates a much different experience so it is incomparable to a full-pledged blogging platform. Try it and see it.

Other global sites

The services that I mention here are perfectly social network sites with blogging, photos sharing and communication channels. Explore them as you please

1. Multiply
2. Xanga
3. MySpace
4. Friendster
5. opera

Sites targeting Vietnamese market

YuMe

YuMe’s features and design remind me of Vietnam 360plus Vietnam. However, I find the themes more attractive.

The team behind YuMe is also high active and helpful.

A data migration tool from Yahoo! 360 is provided.

faceViet

faceViet is a Facebook clone built by a team based in San Francisco.

faceViet also provides the data migration tool from Yahoo! 360.

TheGioiBan

Among Facebook clones for Vietnamese, TheGioiBan is the most advanced in terms of design and features.

Until this entry is written, certain features of TheGioiBan is under construction, however.

Trivia

Technically speaking, Blogger and WordPress are purely blogging platforms with certain connecting features. Others are social network sites that provide blogging feature.

You might be interested to read my ponders over Content-centric Social Networking one year ago. One year has past and I’ve witnessed Follow feature standardized by Twitter it has spread to Blogger.

Tai Tran’s presence

While the majority of my blog content is right here on this blog, I am present on all the sites that I have mentioned.

Kindly comment if you want to connect to me via any site listed above.

What is your choice?

Comments (1)

By Tai, November 3, 2008 3:12 am

Assignment 1: promotion and expectation management using social media

Requirements

Chan Than San is a Vietnamese model working in East & South East Asia region. He has a Xanga site, a Yahoo! 360 site, a MySpace account and at least 2 Facebook accounts which he maintains manually himself. In 2010, his modeling career is rocketing it consumes most of his time and his manager wants him to fully focus on his main task as a model.

Suppose you are hired to be the Social Media Manager for Chan Than San.

1. How will you get to know him both professionally and personally? Detail all assumptions made.
2. How do you plan for the transition from he to you on the current accounts? Also clarify the legal and ethics issues relating to account management.
3. How do you manage expectation in communities in which the language used is not comprehensible to you? For example, you speak English and Vietnamese and want to see what Indonesian fans say about him - of course they use Indonesian.
4. Which media will you use to promote him? Why?
5. How do you manage the community? Detail all assumptions made.
6. How do you deal with criticism, negative responses, flaming, spamming, trolling from the communities both within and out of your management? Detail all assumptions made.
7. How do you collaborate with his manager, stylists, event manager, photographers and fan club coordinator?
8. How will you do SEO on his fansite (if any)?
9. Who do you expect to report to? Detail all assumptions made.
10. Think of a case when conflict of interest arise. Detail that case. Propose solutions you want to take in order to tackle the conflict.
11. Where do you see yourself in the next 3 years in your career?

What the…?

What is this joke about?

No this is not a joke. I’m serious.

This is a piece of career orientation I’m giving for the enthusiasts in the social media industry - if you care enough.

Social Media gives a platform on which new business opportunities are built. What businesses? Every single kind of business you can name.

In social media, there are not only the product implementers (creators), the advertisers (trader), the analysts (observers), the investors (angels), the users (clients). There is also the role of the consultant.

Consultants are ones who utilize knowledge and reputation influence to assist the business growth. Financially, this role helps generate revenues, and adds another link in the cashflow of this industry. These are also people who spread the words, standardize the concepts, educate users and businesses.

Where are these people in Vietnam? I can see Nguyen Viet Hai from i360 and Do Quang Tu. I know some others who are doing jobs very close to this role.

Are you interested? Think about it. And I hope you have been inspired.

Trivia

Do you wonder why I chose this particular person to write about, not another more well-known Vietnamese celeb? The reason is that he is not known only within Vietnam, but in other adjacent countries as well. The regional opportunities and challenges if working with this person are interesting to raise. The second thing is that he is using some social media properties including Xanga & Slides, apart from the default-in-Vietnamese Yahoo! 360 + Flickr, which should intrigue/interest the social media experts. This is similar to the buzz in the social media world about Britney Spears on Twitter.

I’ve heard about a fansite for Hoang Thuy Linh being developed by several young social media initiators. This could be a great opportunity for experiment with new media interactions. It will be interesting to see how a fansite built by the 2.0 people will differentiate itself from other sites.

What do you think?

Comments (4)

By Tai, October 29, 2007 11:08 pm

Facebook

73.5 million users and growing fastest

What I like about it

1. Mini-Feed is useful in seeing a quick snapshot on the latest happenings within your network without going to several sites to check.
2. The ability to supply how you know a person.
3. Nice applications. Approximately 10% of Facebook applications I’ve tried are interesting and useful while others are not as good.

I think these can be improved

1. Fixed 600 width and non-resizable
2. Non-customizable design
3. No built-in blogging functionality. Blogging can be done with applications such as Live Blog, but we don’t normally depend on addons for such important values like blogs.
4. Tight security: profile only viewable by friends. How do you determine if a profile is your friend or not just by looking at the screen name which can be different from the real name?
5. One account can only join no more than 200 groups. Unlimited is preferred.

Orkut

24.6 million users

What I like about it

1. Simple design, Google philosophy after all
2. Extensible width
3. Ad-free

I think these can be improved

1. Name. Honestly speaking, the Turkish name “Orkut” is very unfamiliar. Just a remark, as the brand name is not supposed to change
2. Very few, if any, extensions

Yahoo! Mash

What I like about it

1. Wider width
2. Larger font
3. Allows profiles to be updated by friends
4. Mini-feed is also supplied

I think these can be improved

1. Check boxes to select friends to add should be provided
2. More group levels
3. Informal language. I am especially not easy with the word “fugly”
4. Profile with non-removable fields such as “What’s most likely playing on my iPod”… Excuse me, can I NOT have an iPod?

MySpace

107 million users. The currently largest site

What I like about it

1. Integrated all-in-one solution that includes social networking, blogging, mail, favorites, forum, movies, events, media

I think these can be improved

1. Inconsistent design
2. Music landing page
3. Spam, including spam invitations, protection
4. Tons of ads

Other notable networking sites

Read more

Wikipedia, List of social networking websites

Mashable, Facebook Hammers MySpace on Almost All Key Features

Techcrunch, Facebook platform

American Class Divisions

Nerdlifestyle, Media restrictions

My choice

Facebook to keep in touch with international friends and English-speaking communities

Yahoo! Mash. Many young Vietnamese users rely on Yahoo! services

for socially musical networking

How about you?

Share your experience here…

Which site do you like best? What you wish your site had offered?

Comments (2)

By Tai, July 6, 2007 11:01 pm

1. What is Tag

1.1. Definition

A tag is a relevant keyword associated with a piece of information, thus describing the item and enabling keyword-based classification of information.

The piece of information can be files, web pages, images, bookmarks, or blog entries.

Typically, one item contains multiple tags.

Usually a tag contains a link to display all items associated with that tag.

1.2. Tagcloud

A tag cloud is a visual depiction of a collection of tags used on a collections of items. Often, more frequently used tags are more emphasized.

Display order of tag cloud can either be alphabetical, or sorted by popularity, or random.

A tag is frequently found on websites, but there is one good example of printed media that employs tag cloud: The Van Couversun, Wednesday January 3, 2007

1.3. Tag Folksonomy

A folksonomy describes a content that employs tags. Examples of folksonomy may include: del.icio.us, Flickr, MySpace, youtube…

Alternatively, folksonomy also describes a community using a service and navigating through information by following tags and giving tags to own data to help people find them.

Some services (Xanga, Wordpress) provide site-wide tag list while others (Blogger, Yahoo! 360) only give tag list of one owner.

Folksonomy is coined by 2 words ‘folks’ and ‘taxonomy’. ‘Taxonomy’ is from the Greek ‘taxis’ and ‘nomos’ which respectively mean ‘classify’ and ‘manage’. Folksonomy can be interpreted as ‘community classification management’.

2. What are Tags used for?

2.1. Searching

Tagging allows searching. Internet users can follow the link from a tag to retrieve all information associated to that tag.

2.2. Tag vs. Category

Categories allow classification. Tags also allow classification. How are they different?

For example, you write an article about:

“web design for web 2.0, exploiting glossy design style, with images created by Adobe Photoshop”

that article can be put under 2 categories: ‘Design’, ‘Photoshop’. Because these may be the mainstream of your website. The article can be assigned with tags like: ‘web-2.0′, ‘glossy’, ‘images’, ‘Adobe’, ‘web’, ‘web-design’, ‘Design’, ‘Photoshop’

• Categories are more structurized and static | Tags are more liberal and continually added
• Categories can have unique names | Tags need to be popular and used by many
• Categories can have long names | Tags should have less than 3 words
• Posts are usually in one to four categories | A single post can list many more tags (one Flickr photo is allow to contain 70 tags)
• Categories are not tags | Tags can be used to replace categories
• Categories define the mainstream of the website | Tags define the information in each item
• Categories help visitors to get an idea what the website is about | Tags help visitors to find different items

2.3. Drawback

Inconsistency among authors

• Different people may use different terms to identify one object.
  Example: some use ‘football’ and some use ’soccer’ to refer to one kind of sport. ‘lumber’ and ‘timber’ is another example
• Plural and singular
  Example: ‘dog’ and ‘dogs’ are two different tags
• Polysemy - words which have many meanings
  Example: ‘table’ can be a thing in the dining room or on the computer screen
• Synonyms
  Example: television and TV

Inconsistency among items of one author

• One person, at different times may give different tags to one object. For example, Bob wrote about a TV show and tagged it ‘television’. The day after, he wrote about another one and tagged it ‘tv’. Yet another day, he tagged his next post ‘TV show’.
• Unpredictability: when one adds a new tag, she may discover that many previous posts may also be associated with that tag. Editing back can be a pain.

3. Giving smart Tags

3.1. Giving smart tags can do 3 things

1. Boost visitors’ navigation: with commonly found tags, visitors save time to find the information they expect
2. Push your wiki(search_engine) pagerank: when your tags match what internet users type in their wiki(search_engine), the possibility that your page appears on top results is higher
3. Save time for regressive tag addition: when you predict a collection of tags you’re going to use, it will save time for you to add tags to previously posted entries

3.2. How to give smart tags

…or more accurately, find smart tags to give

1. Compare the tags you’re planning to use to see which is more popular. This can be done by searching each keyword with Google to record the number of results returned. More efficiently, there are utilities that enable this: Go Rank
2. Study how people tag by visiting popular tagging folksonomy

   

   • del.icio.us
   • Flickr
   • wordpress
   • Xanga Tags
   • Technorati

4. The ‘other’ Tags

Tag cloud inspiration

Ideas are expressed based on the presentation of a tag cloud depiction

Mind Map

Fun Web 2.0 Logo Cloud

The outdoor tag game

Tag is a playground game that usually involves two or more players attempting to “tag” other players by touching them with their hands. It may be made more complex with various rule modifications.

The self-writing tag game

Anyone who is tagged by a friend is to write a number of truths about her/himself, then continue to tag other friends.

The secret tag game

Anyone who is tagged needs to tag three other friends before s/he can read the “secret message” left by the tagger.

Read more here

Reference

Lorelle on Wordpress