Individual Topical Review Paper Outline

Lin Liye G14
Individual Topical Review Paper Outline
Social Networking and its evolution

Specific Innovation of Interest
This paper aims to discuss on the issue of social networking and its evolution with a focus on the world’s largest social network, Facebook (FB), as well as the multilateral ways in which this innovation has changed the world, culturally, socially, politically as well as commercially. Facebook, a social network originally intended for students in Harvard to get together, has expanded its reach worldwide, reaching 750 million users as of July 2011, and has already cannibalized other online social networking websites such as MySpace and Friendster to become the single most dominant player in the market.

Rationale for Selecting this Innovation
Facebook has already affected and changed the world culturally, politically, commercially and socially. One political example will be the recent upheavals experienced in the Arab world. Online social networks, most notably Facebook, had been utilized by the population to organize protests and as a portal for the population to show their support for the supporters and voice their unhappiness about the incumbent regimes. Through these events, Facebook has demonstrated its potential as a tool to assemble a large crowd in short notice, and this has many repercussions. One possible political repercussion is that autocratic governments will find it harder to crack down on dissent, and this brings the question as to whether Facebook will actually be an agent of democracy. The future of Facebook is indeed fascinating, the scale of which is beyond anything seen before in history. If Facebook is a country, it will be the third-largest in the world, which begs the question, whether it will one day be as powerful as governments or as influential in the political arena. Etiquette in online social networks has become very important, because everything that is uploaded to the network remains there for posterity. Misplaced remarks about a particular superior at work may even cost users their jobs. In the future, will online social etiquette be a compulsory course for students in primary schools to complete?


Proposed Approach to Development of Paper
Executive Summary
The executive summary will only be written after the entire paper is completed.
Background/Introduction

The mobility of online social networks e.g. Facebook means that users can access them everywhere with the appropriate device and network, which they can then use to broadcast to the whole world anything within their fancy. This is in accordance with Web 2.0, where instead of downloading information from the Internet, the trend now is to upload information.



Historical Perspective

The recent history of social networking started from the pre-industrial age of courier mail to the snail mail, or nationalized post office system we are accustomed to. Following that, we have the telephone, to the fax machine. Fast forward to the Internet age where we have the email, to possibly the first widely-used online forums, IRC, to MSN Messenger to Friendster and finally to Facebook. The focus here is on the speed at which the other party can access the information sent out, in which case has shrunk from days to seconds, as well as the effective audience which social networking has, from a single individual to as many as over a million ‘friends’ for the most popular pages.

Current Situation

Social – Privacy has become a very valuable asset. Pictures are laid bare on FB for all to see, whether from your own album or photos “tagged” by friends. Pictures in compromising positions or posts that knowingly or unknowingly insult people close to you can no longer simply be erased without a trace. Such materials can either impede career advancement or shame the person to such an extent that he or she may end up choosing suicide to end the embarrassment.

Cultural – The advent of such online social networks shows that the people of every race and country want to be part of it. Even when the Japanese and Chinese have low levels of participation in Facebook, they have their own versions as well, albeit mostly catered and limited to the local population.

Politically – Examples include the Arab Spring and the Chinese Jasmine Revolution. These social networks allow huge numbers of people to be mobilized in a very short time, when a single message can be seen by tens of thousands of people as a post on their ‘live feeds’. This allows discussions to take place for all to view and take part in, potentially allowing demagogues to take over the discussions.

Commercially – Online display advertising revenue for FB has risen past Yahoo in the first six months and is projected to claim no. 1 spot in USA in 2011. Google is third. Companies now vie for attention in an ever more fickle consumer who is constantly distracted by advertisements on all platforms, online or offline. Beyond that, companies have also used Facebook as a medium to raise public awareness of their products and events through display advertising, pages, profiles or events. Companies have pages of their products/shops where people can ‘like’ their pages, where they post the latest products and offers. An example will be the 2011 Bondue camp held in SMU, where camp participants had to make their way to the sponsor’s shop in PoMo to like their Facebook page as part of a sponsorship deal.

Future Considerations

Political
• Will Facebook inevitably be an agent of democracy?
• Will FB evolve to be as powerful as states and governments?
Socially
• Will all services online be eventually integrated into a single portal under Facebook? Currently, Facebook users are able to log into other online forums via FB.
• With heightened privacy settings, will governmental services and records such as medical information and property prices be allowed to be accessible through Facebook?
• With online social networking taking on an increasingly central role in our lives, there could arise in the future compulsory primary school classes on social etiquette on online networking sites.
Culturally
• As more people get more connected on FB, there is an increase in exposure to people from different countries and regions. Will there a similar rise in cultural assimilation or understanding, and will there be a Facebook effect, not unlike the McDonald’s effect espoused by Thomas Friedman, which states that two countries with the McDonald’s franchise operating within them has never been to war with each other i.e. the risk of war between two states is inversely proportional to the percentage of registered users in the countries compared to the entire population within the countries.
Conclusions

Research is still ongoing.

References

References will include print and non-print resources.