Designing for Social Sharing

Rashmi Sinhawww.uzanto.comwww.rashmisinha.com

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browsing alone

Part I: Why NOW?

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The web has become a social sphere

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Who is online

Broadband penetration is at more than 50%

From Pew Internet Research, for US only

6From Pew Internet Research, for US only

Just for fun!

34% men, 26% women 37% of 18-29 yrs old, and 20% of 65 and over

go online, on any given day, just for fun…

From Pew Internet Research, for US only

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The web has become a social sphere

Massively multiplayer online games

96.5 million people

WOW is millions of people with diverse backgrounds collaborating, socializing, and learning while having fun. It represents the future of real-time collaborative teams in an always-on, diversity-intensive, real-time environment.

WOW is a glimpse into our future. Joi Ito in Wired Magazine

11240,000 users

12Wells Fargo StageCoach Island

13American Apparel

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Four draws of such games the ability to socialize an achievement system that gives

players an incentive to improve complex and satisfying strategy that

makes combat fun underlying narrative that players want

to learn more about Many games also update continuously,

adding features and addressing user requests

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Alone together

Social interaction in online gaming (Ducheneaut et al. 2006)

Surrounded by others. Feel their presence, not interacting all the time

Analogy: Reading book in a cafe Spectacle: Performing for an audience

Analogy: Playing pinball with others watching

Social facilitation (Zajonc, 1960) Improved performance in presence of others

(even if presence is passive) Observed even in cockroaches!

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The web has become a social sphere

Massively multiplayer online games

Rich interfaces enable richer interactions

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Part II

Part II: What is social sharing?

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HiI found you while I was searching my network at LinkedIn. Let's connect directly, so we can help each other with referrals. If we connect, both of our networks will grow. To add me as your connection, just follow the link below.

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1) I am linked to ->

-> to you --->

--->You are linked to her ->

---> so on…

How it works•Individuals connected to each other•Relationships can be marked, hubs identified•Concept of six degrees of separation•“Are you my friend” type of awkwardness

First generation Social Networks(Friendster, LinkedIn…)

Object mediated social networks

“… call for the rethinking of sociality along lines that include objects in the concept of social relations.”

Katrin-Knorr Cetina

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Coffee Dance performance Tomatoes

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Second generation social networks Put objects at the center

Social sharing Tagging Viral sharing Social News Creation

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1) I share my pics ->

-> with you --->

-->You share your pics ->

---> with him

How it works•People share objects and watch others•Social connections are through objects•Formation of social streams of information with emergence of popular, interesting items

Social sharing of our stuff (social networks with objects in between)e.g., Flickr, Yahoo answers

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1) I send video I like ->

-> to you. You pass on -->

--> to her, who sends on

to her, who passes on…

How it works•Individual to individual to individual•Popularity based navigation helps track “viral” items

Viral sharing (passing on interesting stuff)e.g., YouTube videos

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1) I tag my bookmarks

-> you see my tags

-->You share your tags ->

How it works•Saving & tagging your stuff (creating bookmarks).•Tags mediate social connections•Formation of social/conceptual information streams. Emergence of popular, interesting items

Tag-based social sharing (linked by concepts…)e.g., Flickr, del.icio.us

politicslebanon

Global voices

politics

technologyGlobal voices

webJAVA

CNN networksblogs

science

science

science

brain

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1) I find interesting story

-> you rate story

-->Others rate stories

How it works•Finding and rating stories•Popular stories rise to top

Social news creation (rating news stories)e.g., digg, Newsvine

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Objects invite us to

Connect Play React Reach out

Part III: So you want to design for social sharing?

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Forget the ipod!

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Give up controlThis is messy!

Some principles…

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1: Make system personally useful

For end-user system should have strong personal use

Memorable Personal Snippets (e.g., Del.icio.us & Flickr)

Self-expression (e.g., Newsvine) Social status: Digg

Don’t count on altruism System should thrive on people’s selfishness

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Bite-sized self-expression

Creative self-expression Artistic expression (Flickr, YouTube) Humor (YouTube)

Individual piece should be small Can create sets & lists Do Mashups Simple, guessable URLs for everything

Leave room for games & social play Appreciation Stalking (some!) Gossip

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2: Identify symbiotic relationship between personal & social Personal snippets > Social

stream Pictures > Organized by Events Music > Organized by Playlists

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3: Create porous boundary between public & private

Earlier systems Personal (Personal Desktop

Software, e.g., Picasa, EndNote) OR Social websites (Shutterfly)

Rethink public & private People share for the right returns Set defaults to public, allow easy

change to private

Give user control Over individual pieces & sets Delete items from history Reset /remove profile

Privacy settings on Flickr

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4. Allow for levels of participation

Everyone does not need to create! Implicit creation (creating by

consuming) Remixing—adding value to others’

contentSource: Bradley Horowitz’s weblog, Elatable, Feb. 17, 2006, “Creators, Synthesizers, and Consumers”

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Why do people digg?

“commenting, digging, burying comments, typing descriptions, reading hundreds of articles and…

…for a lot of nerds, using digg is just a casual free-time activity. Entertaining. Fun. Engaging.”

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how to encourage participation Insights from Social Psychology

Highlight unique contribution Allow for smaller local groups Highlight benefit to self from Highlight benefit to group

Source: Using social psychology to motivate contributions to online communities, Ling et al. 2005

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5. Let people feel the presence of others

What paths are well worn

User profiles / photos

Real-time updating Like a

conversation Sense that

others are out there

What people are digging right now!

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6. And yet, moments of Independence…

Choreography: when alone, when part of group

Prevent mobs Don’t make it too easy

to mimic others Incentives for

originality & uniqueness

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Allow for alternative viewpoints & perspectives Social sharing can lead to

tyranny of dominant view People of a group agree

Viewpoint rises to top (popularity lists, tag clouds)

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Create conditions for wise crowds Cognitive Diversity Independence Decentralization Easy Aggregation

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Wise Crowds: Cognitive Diversity

Need many perspectives for good answers Groups become homogenous

Members bring lesser new information in Diversity reduces groupthink

Groupthink works by shielding members from outside opinions

Diversity reduces conformity Chance that you will change opinion to match

group

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Wise Crowds: Independence Keeps people’s mistakes from getting correlated

(uncorrelated mistakes averaged out) Encourages people to bring in new viewpoints

(diversity) Concept of Social Proof

Milgram experiment People assume that groups know what they are doing Assuming crowd is wise, leads to herd like behavior

Can sometimes lead to good decisions Information Cascades

Sequence of uninformed choices, building upon each other

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Wise Crowds: Decentralization

“A crowd of decentralized people working to solve a problem on their own without any central effort to guide them, come up with better solutions, rather than a top-down driven solution.”

Suroweicki

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Wise Crowds: Easy Aggregation

A decentralized system can pick right solution With easy way for information to

be aggregated across system Example: votes on Digg

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7. Enable Serendipity

Don’t make navigation all about popularity Access to some popular stuff (keep this fast

moving) Make the “long tail” accessible

Popularity as a jump off point to other ways of exploring

Provide personalization Recommendations using collaborative filtering

Similar tags, content, others Ad-hoc groups?

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8. Most of all, allow for play

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Things to try at home! Create an account on myspace.com Read Emergence, Wisdom of Crowds Play a Multiplayer Online Game (WOW,

Second Life) Play with an API (try GoogleMaps API) Try a mobile social application

(DodgeBall) Ask your friends what they find “fun”

on the web

Questions?

www.rashmisinha.comwww.uzanto.com