Articulated Social Networks:
An Ethnographic Study of the YASNS Phenomenon

Research by: danah boyd - University of California, Berkeley (SIMS)

Get Involved! Share your Friendster Experiences!

Research Talks:

• February 11, 2004. "Revenge of the Social Network: Lessons from Creator/User Battles" O'Reilly Emerging Technology. San Diego, CA, USA.

Papers:

• "Friendster and Publicly Articulated Social Networks." danah boyd. Conference on Human Factors and Computing Systems (CHI 2004). Vienna: ACM, April 24-29, 2004.
• "Reflections on Friendster, Trust and Intimacy." danah boyd. Ubicomp 2003, Workshop application for the Intimate Ubiquitous Computing Workshop. Seattle, WA, October 12-15, 2003.

Useful Blogs:

• Apophenia - my own, including early ethnographic data
• Many-to-Many - a group blog on social software
• The Social Software Weblog - business-y perspective on social software
• Friendster Slut - Ryan Shultz's data and stories

Project Description

Social networking has invaded all aspects of social software. From blogrolls to Buddylists, people have learned to negotiate implicit networks in everyday digital interaction. Yet, in a re-popularization of a 1997 fad, social networking has achieved popular and technological prominence in its explicit form. Dozens of sites have emerged to address how social networks can help people connect to have sex, find jobs, sell cars, and waste inordinate amounts of time.

While developers are professing that they have a business plan in their back pocket, users are consistently challenging any and all expected behavior. In return, creators are playing whack-a-mole against unwanted actions to appease venture capitalists. Will masochistic users keep returning?

This research is focused on ethnographic, quantitative and visual analysis of the YASNS (Yet Another Social Network Service) Phenomenon. Primary research questions include:

• How does a publicly articulated social network differ from behavior-based on privately articulated networks? How must they be analyzed differently?
• How do people construct and negotiate their presentation of self in a connected set of Profiles?
• What social issues emerge as people try to articulate their social network?
• What methodological approaches can be used to analyze this phenomenon and when/where is social theory relevant or challenged by this new architecture?