Library Review

Sociability and social interaction on social networking websites

Andrew Keenan Ali Shiri

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Andrew Keenan Ali Shiri, (2009),"Sociability and social interaction on social networking websites", Library
Review, Vol. 58 Iss 6 pp. 438 - 450
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Sociability and social interaction

on social networking websites
Andrew Keenan

438
Received 16 December 2008
Reviewed 16 March 2009
Revised 24 March 2009
Accepted 26 March 2009

School of Library and Information Studies and Humanities Computing

Program, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, and

Ali Shiri
School of Library and Information Studies, University of Alberta,
Edmonton, Canada

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Abstract
Purpose Social websites have become a major medium for social interaction. From Facebook to
MySpace to emergent sites like Twitter, social websites are increasing exponentially in user numbers
and unique visits every day. How do these websites encourage sociability? What features or design
practices enable users to socialize with other users? The purpose of this paper is to explore sociability
on the social web and details how different social websites encourage their users to interact.
Design/methodology/approach Four social websites (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and
Twitter) were examined from a user study perspective. After thoroughly participating on the
websites, a series of observations were recorded from each experience. These experiences were then
compared to understand the different approaches of each website.
Findings Social websites use a number of different approaches to encourage sociability amongst
their users. Facebook promotes privacy and representing real world networks in web environment,
while MySpace promotes publicity and representing both real world and virtual networks in a web
environment. Niche websites like LinkedIn and Twitter focus on more specific aspects of community
and technology, respectively.
Originality/value A comparison of different models of sociability does not yet exist. This study
focuses specifically on what makes social websites social.
Keywords Social networks, Communication technologies, Internet, Social interaction
Paper type Research paper

Library Review
Vol. 58 No. 6, 2009
pp. 438-450
# Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0024-2535
DOI 10.1108/00242530910969794

Introduction
Social websites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter offer a variety of features to
facilitate socialization on the internet. Users share public musings, private messages,
photos, songs, videos and most other standard forms of expression. These social
websites are amongst the most visited sites on the internet (Alexa, 2008) and have
grown exponentially within the last few years. The number of social websites has also
grown exponentially, offering different focuses, designs and features for their users.
These social websites want you to join their community and experience their vision of
the social web. But what exactly makes these websites different from one another, and
how do they encourage users to socialize?
This paper is an exploratory study of the social web, specifically analyzing how
social websites encourage sociability. This analysis will focus on a four major social
networking websites (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn) and explore the
features that encourage sociability. Analysis will be based on the following formative
questions what makes a social website social? How do different social websites
encourage interaction between their users? What features do social websites offer that
differentiate them from other social websites?
Because sociability on the web is an emergent field, establishing operational
definitions is essential. These operational definitions will clarify the use of particular

terms in this paper. Hopefully, the public will eventually reach a consensus on the
proper taxonomy of online socialization.

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Sociability
The ability to interact with others, or to socialize (Preece, 2006). Websites use features,
design standards or technologies to encourage sociability. For example, an online
dating website uses profiles to encourage users to interact with other users. Or, a blog
with user comments allows readers to respond to a topic and socialize with both the
author and other readers.
Social network theory
An interdisciplinary theoretical lens that emphasizes the relationships between actors
(or users) within the network. The structure of the network is understood to be more
important than the individual users (Scott, 1991). Social network theory, also called
social network analysis (SNA), examines how the structure of a network affects users
within the network.
Social networking sites
Websites that encourage social interaction through profile-based user accounts. Social
networking sites are commonly defined as Web 2.0 (OReilly, 2005), meaning they mimic
desktop applications. Popular social networking sites include Facebook and MySpace.
Social websites
Websites and web technologies that promote socialization online. This term
encompasses social networking sites as well as more traditional social web
technologies including bulletin boards, message boards or web-based chat rooms. This
will be the primary term used in this paper to describe social networking websites.
Related research
The social web describes websites or web services that facilitate socialization or
interaction for users. We have identified two major groups of sites exist within the
social web:
(1) people focused; and
(2) activity focused.
People focused social websites emphasize social interaction through user-driven
personal content. This content is centered around the profile or users home page. Each
member within the community has a profile page that contains personal information.
The amount of information provided is the decision of the user. Facebook and MySpace
are the most popular people focused social websites, with Facebook recently becoming
the most visited social networking site (AFP, 2008).
Activity focused social websites emphasize social interaction through site-specific
content. This site-specific content is usually a thematic focus for a website with users
providing their own contributions to that specific theme. There are a large number of
activity focused social websites, ranging from film making to dating. Users post their
content that contributes to the community. These sites can also contain a more usercentered focus and incorporate elements from the people focused social websites, but
the common distinction is the site-specific theme or content. We classify Flickr

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(photos), del.icio.us (bookmarks), Lavalife (dating), Youtube (video) and Soundclick

(music) as activity focused social websites.
This analysis of the social web examines people focused websites and their
strategies to encourage sociability. Currently, analyzing sociability on the people
focused social websites is an emergent trend. While a number of features on social
websites appear in mainstream media outlets (Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker,
Time etc.), social web analysis has only begun in academia. The most prominent figure
within the discipline is Danah M. Boyd. Her work exploring Friendster (Boyd, 2004),
writing in social networks (Boyd, 2004), analyzing network longevity (Boyd, 2006a, b),
and the role of social networking in teens (Boyd, 2006a, b) represents the emergent
academic discipline studying the social web. We hope that this study can contribute to
this new stream of research.
The social web and social networking are often used as synonyms, but the two
concepts have decidedly separate meanings. The social web refers specifically to
websites and web technologies, while social networking is an existing body of theory
relating to human interaction. A social network is a social structure comprised of types
of interdependency between nodes. Nodes are most commonly individuals or
organizations. The configuration of individual nodes into a larger web of
interdependency creates a social network. Social networks have been studied for over
100 years, beginning in rudimentary stages with Emile Durkheim and Ferdinand
Tonnies. SNA officially entered the academic consciousness in 1908 with the work of
Georg Simmel and proliferated in the 1930s in a number of disciplines including
anthropology, psychology, sociology and philosophy (Freeman, 2004).
SNA has developed into its own theoretical paradigm. The major assumption of
SNA is the emphasis on the social network or social group over the individual
(Wellmen and Berkowitz, 1988). While traditional social science research focuses on the
individual actors, SNA emphasizes the relationships between actors within the
network. The structure of the network is paramount and supersedes individual agency
(Scott, 1991). By taking a structural approach, the emphasis in research is how ties
between nodes affect individuals within the networks (Freeman, 2004). The theoretical
basis of SNA, the structural function of the group, has major implications for analyzing
the social web. SNA provides a critical lens for understanding the structure of the
social web through analyzing the potential for interaction between nodes and
individual actors. SNA has interesting implications for further studies on the social
web, but because this study is decidedly exploratory, this discussion will be saved for a
future iteration of this project.
There is no accepted framework for evaluating sociability online (Preece and
Maloney-Krichmar, 2003). Preece and Maloney-Krichmar (2003) have attempted to
develop a framework for evaluating participatory online communities and sociability
using three key principles purpose, people and sociability. Purpose refers to the
specific purpose of the community. For example, the purpose of Flickr is sharing
pictures, while the purpose of Classmates.com is reconnecting former school
acquaintances. People refers to the demographic of the community. A childrens social
website would have far different characteristics than an adults social website, or a
Muslim website vs an Atheist website. Policies refers to the governance of the
community. Each community will have its own culture, values and norms that develop
based on the needs of its users.
Preece (2001) also detailed specific technical measures to evaluate sociability.
Determinants of sociability include measures like number of participants, number of

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messages sent, member satisfaction, retention, number of users joining per month,
number of on-topic messages, trustworthiness, number of errors, productivity and
other quantitative measures. These metrics relate to the more technical aspects of the
system and its ability to facilitate interaction through design.
Preeces principles for evaluating sociability online represent an earlier incarnation
of the social web. Preeces metrics focus on topic-specific communities, particularly
message boards, multi-user domains, bulletin boards and online forums. Before the
explosion of Web 2.0s version of the social web (Facebook and MySpace being prime
examples), the social web consisted primarily of niche groups. A collection of
enthusiasts would form an online community around a specific topic and share
musings around said topic. The community centered around discussion based on
specific topics, which would appear as threads. These are similar to email list servers,
but appear in a web environment rather than over an email server. Preeces metrics for
evaluation are designed to evaluate these interest-focused communities.
The current incarnation of the social web functions as both a meta-community and
specific community. Rather than the topic-based interests of former message board
communities, the current social web is a conglomeration of all interests into a single hub.
The focus of the previous social web was topics and interests, while the focus of the new
social web is individuals and their collective identity. In a previous social web
environment, a user would focus almost exclusively on the communitys topic of interest.
Discussions in the community would focus on the common interests of the community,
with the emphasis being on the threaded topics and replies of the community. In the new
social web environment, the focus is on the identity of the user. Users can join niche
interest groups and participate in communities within the site, but the focus remains on
the individual as the primary unit of interaction. The emphasis on the topic and threaded
discussion is replaced by an emphasis on the profile of the individual user.
This different type of community requires a new kind of exploration into sociability.
Because this field is emergent, the focus of this study is an exploratory journey. This
paper evaluates the major features of social websites from the perspective of the user.
The evaluation will not follow a specific set of metrics, because a suitable metrics does
not yet exist. Perhaps a future iteration of this study will focus on creating metrics for
evaluating social websites in the era of Web 2.0.
There are a few additional theoretical influences that have structured this
understanding of sociability online. While these are not major elements of this
exploration, it is important to mention their relevance to this study. These topics
include universal usability, interface design and human computer interaction.
Ben Schneidermans influential book Leonardos Laptop introduced the concept of
universal usability for computers. Schneiderman defines universal usability as more than
90 percent of all households being successful users of information and communication
technologies at least once a week (Schneiderman, 2003). Universal usability is a goal for
integrating technology into society a seamless integration where nearly all citizens are
proficient with a technology (like the telephone). This is a goal for future designs of
computers and internet technologies. Interface design and human computer interaction
fall into a similar category with universal usability. Interface design, the visual and
structural design a system, governs how a user interacts with that system. In terms of
online applications, interface design is both the visual representation and the behind-thescenes mechanics of a system. A poor interface design ruins the experience of a user. This
interaction between the user and the system is known as Human Computer Interaction or
HCI (Myers, 1998). HCI observes how users interact with a system and attempts to

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determine better approaches for humans to interact with computers. Each of these three
concepts, relating to the design of a system, is an inherent influence on this papers
observations of social websites. Intuitive design and universal usability, or adequately
navigating and understanding a website, quietly affects this evaluation of social websites.
Methodology
The object of this study is to evaluate the social features of social websites and discuss
the strategies these websites use to encourage interaction. This study chose four
websites to examine closely Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter. Facebook
and MySpace were selected because of their ubiquity and popularity on the web.
LinkedIn and Twitter were selected primarily as points of comparison. LinkedIn is a
social network aimed at professional development, and Twitter focuses on brief status
updates. The number of websites was limited to four to allow for a thorough discussion
of each website, along with a meta-evaluation of the major features of social websites.
To evaluate these websites, two sources were used experience with the website and
literature about the website. The primary method of evaluation was user experience. The
researchers have been members and interacted with MySpace and Facebook for over two
years, and Twitter for approximately six months. They recently joined LinkedIn for the
purposes of this evaluation. Social websites require a certain level of participation before
an evaluation is possible. Simply joining a website and browsing its basic features does
not capture the social focus of the website. Evaluation requires participation with a larger
network of users. Because the researchers had already established a network of users on
MySpace and Facebook (and to a lesser extent, Twitter), evaluating the social features
was simply an articulation of our existing experiences with the website. Creating that
same network of users on LinkedIn was more difficult. Ironically, we used our existing
user network from MySpace and Facebook to generate a new network on LinkedIn.
Because this is an exploratory study, the data gathering process consisted of
exploring the features of each website. The features were selected from the available
options on each social website for evaluation purpose. For example, when examining a
particular users profile on Facebook, a user can immediately see their wall that
contains all recent activity from the user. From that main page, a user can navigate to
pictures, information or other user-selected features (videos, games etc.). While this
method is not exhaustive, it simulates the activity of a regular user on the website. The
focus is exploring the normal user experience and understanding how the social
features encourage our interaction with a user. Essentially, this functions similar to a
user study, but limits the scope to only researchers.
After collecting the data on the social features, The About and Help sections of
each social website were consulted. This clarified the focus that each company places
on their websites social features. This was also a safe guard against overlooking a
major feature of the website. While this was a suitable precaution, the design of each
social website clearly emphasized its social features. There were no discrepancies
between the services described in the corporate about section and the actual user
experience. The researchers also searched for overviews of these websites on Ask.com,
Yahoo Answers, About.com and Wikipedia for a public internet-focused opinion.
Analysis and discussion
This section will provide an analytical discussion of the experience with four social
websites (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter). We will be exploring each site
individually and detailing their sociability features. Facebook and MySpace, as the

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largest social websites, receive the most coverage. These websites offer an extensive
amount of social features and require a thorough analysis. LinkedIn and Twitter
represent a niche application of social websites, focusing on professional networks and
micro-blogging (quick updates), respectively. These serve as points of comparison
between the social web giants Facebook and MySpace.

Sociability and
social interaction

Facebook
Facebook encourages sociability by representing existing social connections in a
virtual space. The emphasis on Facebook is taking your existing real world
connections or networks and making them accessible through the web. The emphasis
in Facebook is presenting your real world identity and networks through a safe,
privately accessible web environment. Sociability on Facebook is an extension of
sociability in the public realm your personal information (or profile page) is
accessible by people you have added as friends. While Facebook has occasionally
violated this model of privacy, particularly with the Beacon advertising scandal, their
emphasis on representing existing social networks through a virtual space is
consistent. Facebook encourages sociability by creating a comfortable, private and
familiar social environment. This is accomplished in several ways:

443

using legal names;

restricted profile access;

social desktop environment; and

simple media interface.

When Facebook first emerged as a publicly available social website, it was surprising that
users were encouraged to use their actual names. Normally, social websites encouraged
users to choose an alias screen name. Facebook restructured the popular social web by
strongly encouraging (perhaps even covertly forcing) users to use their proper name. This
is a crucial shift, allowing users to search the Facebook database as though it were a public
record, like the phone book. Using proper names also increases the relevancy of searches.
Rather than users needing to exchange their aliases as query terms, users can say look
me up on Facebook and imply the searcher to use their proper name. Proper names also
remove the cultural gap between savvy previous generation social web users and social
web neophytes. Selecting an alias is less familiar than using a proper name using your
proper name alludes to legality, security and safety. Aliases are representative of an alien
internet culture, where hackers and pirates scour the web for your personal information.
Restricted profile access is perhaps Facebooks most distinguishing feature.
Facebooks foundation for building a social network is the friend system. To view a
users profile, that user must grant you access. This access makes you a friend of the
user. While sites like MySpace and Bebo encouraged publicly viewable profiles,
Facebook distinguished itself as privately viewable. Facebook users have the option to
make their profile page public, or to grant access to a wider audience. The options for
restricting the publicity of a users information are extensive, but the emphasis
remains on the privacy of the user.
Facebook has been publicly scrutinized for mishandlings of private information, most
notably with the Beacon scandal (Perez, 2007). Beacon was an advertising program that
sent data from external websites to Facebook. This allowed Facebook to track the activity
of its users and provide targeted advertising to the user and the users network of friends.
Users were outraged (Catone, 2007) by this surveillance of their web activity, and

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eventually a public apology from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was issued. Weve
made a lot of mistakes building this feature, but weve made even more with how weve
handled them. We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it
(Zuckerberg, 2007). Beacon is still a part of the Facebook network, but has been renamed
to Social Ads. Facebook requires users to opt out of Social Ads, which means for
unfamiliar users who have not actively opted out, they are covertly advertising their
consumer and web activity.
Facebook also encourages sociability through its recent redesign. In an attempt to
emulate an operating system interface, Facebook has redesigned its web environment
to resemble a desktop environment by placing social applications in a faux start menu
(Windows)/dock (Apple OS X). This social desktop environment also includes a tabbed
window interface to separate categories of users information, like photos, videos,
events etc. Facebook has also integrated an instant messenger chat client into the web
redesign. This makes Facebook an all-encompassing social web environment. By
offering a rich social experience, Facebook encourages users to focus their computermediated social interactions in a singular web environment.
One of our major activities on Facebook during this study was voyeurism. Viewing
the photos and videos of other users was our most common activities on Facebook. If a
user has a large collection of photos and videos on their profile page, we were more likely
to visit their profile and spend time viewing their media. The more media contained on a
users page, the more likely we were to visit that page and socialize by viewing their
content. Facebook encourages users to upload their photos and videos by having an
intuitive, user-friendly upload interface. This simple upload interface enables users to
share their content, and subsequently generates more viewable content on their profile. It
can be suggested that more content on a profile makes users more likely to visit a users
profile, which is consistent with our Facebook experience. We hypothesize that simple
uploading increases content, which increases profile views, which increases sociability.
To summarize, Facebook encourages sociability by representing your existing real
world social connections in a virtual space. Facebooks web environment creates a
social desktop experience, offering a virtual social operating system as an allencompassing social web destination. The emphasis is on your real world identity
and networks through a safe, private web environment.
MySpace
MySpace encourages sociability by visibility, or representing a users identity in a
public web environment. The emphasis in MySpace is providing a public virtual space
for your public identity, accessible to anyone. Sociability on MySpace is mediated
through both real world connections and virtual connections. MySpace encourages
user interaction through their open, publicly accessible user profile pages. MySpace
also allows users outside of their network to view users profile pages, although with
limited access. This model of sociability is far more public than Facebook and
encourages interaction in several ways:
.

publicly available profiles;

customizable profiles; and

embedded social media.

MySpace encourages sociability through having highly accessible profiles. MySpace

profiles are publicly available over the internet. This also makes MySpace profiles

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publicly searchable. Using a standard search engine like Google returns results of
MySpaces directory of users. For example, using the query myspace edmonton wu
tang clan, we are trying to find Edmontonians who enjoy the band Wu Tang Clan. The
results we are given the profile page of the Urban Marketing and Promotions
representative for Universal Music at www.myspace.com/teajanuniversalurban who is
subsequently promoting an upcoming show for one of the bands members. This is a
fully searchable public database. You can find a user using their city, their preferences,
their age or even their friends. All information on the profile page, which normally
includes whatever information you have entered when creating your profile, is
viewable and searchable.
This searching power allows web users (and more importantly MySpace users) to
quickly locate someone on MySpace. By having publicly accessible profiles, MySpace
users are highly visible, and searchable through popular search engines. This high
visibility on MySpace is particularly attractive to musicians. Both independent and
commercially supported musicians are avid members of the MySpace community. This
group grew so large that MySpace specifically delineated a new profile format
MySpace Music for musicians and other artists (Sandoval, 2008). This became a
popular way for musicians to connect with their fans, offering upcoming concert dates,
information on upcoming recordings and previews of the music. High visibility has
also become a vehicle for fan pages, where fans of a celebrity create a MySpace page in
honor of their chosen celebrity. These can also function as spoof accounts, where
someone assumes the identity under false pretense. Despite the occasional misleading
profile, this public accessibility is a defining feature of MySpace.
However, this is also a major privacy issue. MySpace does allow users to submit any
amount of content they feel deserves public recognition. Also, stricter privacy settings
are offered around uploaded media (photos and video). Users may also set their profile
to private, restricting profile viewing to friends (users granted profile access). Many
MySpace profiles are public, however, making public MySpace users vulnerable to
unwanted groups having access to their information, including potential employers.
Privacy on MySpace and employment was popularly addressed in the New York
Times on June 11, 2006 in For some, online persona undermines a resume.
Apparently, many companies were using social websites to conduct background
checks, in addition to their continual use of search engines:
Many companies that recruit on college campuses have been using search engines like Google
and Yahoo to conduct background checks on seniors looking for their first job. But now,
college career counselors and other experts say, some recruiters are looking up applicants on
social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Xanga and Friendster, where college
students often post risque or teasing photographs and provocative comments about drinking,
recreational drug use and sexual exploits in what some mistakenly believe is relative privacy.

Companies were using these websites essentially to spy on potential employees. By

uncovering details about their personal lives through a publicly available social
website, potential employees were further screened for making appropriate lifestyle
choices. This has tremendous ramifications if an employer discriminates a candidate in
terms of sexuality, lifestyle or even culture. For example, an employee interested in a
dissident culture (anarchism for example) may be seen as a potential threat. Or,
politically active candidates may be seen as volatile for their involvement in unions,
strikes or other labor demonstrations. Poorly managed privacy settings or personal
discretion are hazardous on MySpace.

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MySpace also encourages sociability through customizable profiles. From the URL
of the page to the specific layout of the profile, MySpace is centered on the users
desires. When creating a MySpace account, users must select a unique URL. This can
be anything the user chooses, as long as it does not violate copyright principles. For
example, the first author could register myspace.com/andrewkeenan or myspace.com/
djadvanced or myspace.com/jillfrancis and park his profile under that domain name,
assuming it is unique to MySpace. After choosing the domain name, MySpace allows
him to edit the HTML of his home page, allowing him to reformat my profile design.
This customizability allows users to create their own unique virtual space. From the
URL to the page design, his profile can be distinguished from others very quickly.
MySpace also encourages socialization through media-rich profile pages. Users are
able to post both audio and video on their profile pages using embedded flash content.
This media can also be launched on opening the profile, creating a multi-medium
experience for visiting users. Using embedded audio is a major strategy for musicians,
whose pages often feature rich audio and video content. This entertainment-focused
media immerses users in the favorite songs or videos of the profiles they visit. In an era
when many express their identity through media, MySpace creates a unique layer of
socialization through shared media experiences. This focus has also helped launch the
careers of several emergent musicians and artists. The artist Soulja Boy began
promoting his music on MySpace and was subsequently signed to Universal, released
an updated version of a MySpace-posted song, and subsequently rose to the top of the
popular music charts around the world. Soulja Boys Crank Dat was the number one
single in the United States for seven weeks in September and October of 2007.
MySpace encourages sociability through visibility. The emphasis on MySpace is
making profiles publicly accessible. Users both inside and outside of MySpace can
access profiles, even using popular search engines like Google. MySpace has utilized
this public focus to encourage sociability, and also to encourage user creativity. By
allowing users to edit the HTML of their profiles and choose their own domain names,
MySpace users can create highly personal web spaces, unique from other users. The
site also offers media-saturated profile pages complete with embedded audio and video.
MySpace is the public space of the internet.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn encourages sociability through professional networking. As a businessoriented social networking site, LinkedIn focuses on encouraging professional
relationships. This operates in three major facets:
(1) reconnecting with colleagues and associates;
(2) exploring the hidden job market through your connections; and
(3) making contact with industry experts to learn about a specific topic.
Essentially, LinkedIn attempts to recreate a conference or trade show environment on
the web. Sociability is encouraged through expanding and strengthening your existing
professional network.
Sociability on LinkedIn is one dimensional. As a niche social website, LinkedIn
focuses on business networking and professional relationships. All services on the
website function solely to foster professional relationships. While this is decidedly
useful for its users, LinkedIn represents an increasing drove of highly focused social
websites. Similar to previous incarnations of social websites, niche focused social

websites cater to a specific audience. LinkedIn is decidedly working professional

upper-middle class, or those trying to ascend a professional ladder. This has two major
effects:

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(1) narrowly focusing the community; and

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(2) appealing to specific socio-economic demographics.

Like a previous social website focusing on genre-specific music, niche social websites
have a determined audience and purpose. On LinkedIn, that focus may just get you
your dream job.
Privacy on LinkedIn operates in a unique way. The site uses a gated access approach
you must receive permission from a user to view their profile page. However, summarized
versions of LinkedIn profiles are publicly searchable. LinkedIn has created a unique
option for users to make contact with potential associates or other useful professionals.
Using a web of relationships, LinkedIn allows a users connection (LinkedIns term for
friend or approved user) to introduce mutual connections. Similar to Kevin Bacons
degrees of separation, users separated by two degrees of separation can be introduced
through a mutual connection. This allows users to network with potential colleagues
through mutual connections, a feature unique to LinkedIn.
Unlike the other websites surveyed for this study, LinkedIn also features a pay
version of the site. The pay version promises to facilitate business relationships and
new jobs more effectively. Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and
discover ways to use their existing network to connect with employers. Essentially,
LinkedIns pay version is offering insider information on upcoming jobs to give
candidates an advantage. This pay for features model is unique amongst the websites
in this survey. At LinkedIn, sociability is also facilitated through payment.
Twitter
Twitter encourages sociability through simplicity. According to Twitters home page
Twitter is a service for friends, family and co-workers to communicate and stay
connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question:
What are you doing? This highly streamlined social website focuses almost
exclusively on quick 140 characters or less updates. These updates have been dubbed
as tweets. Twitter is decidedly simple, which makes interacting with the interface
tremendously easy and intuitive for users familiar with social networking websites.
Like LinkedIn, Twitter is a niche focused website, but instead of focusing on a niche
community, Twitter focuses on a niche technology. Twitter has streamlined their
technological approach by focusing specifically on SMS-length updates, essentially
creating web-broadcast micro-blogging. Niche technology is inherently more inclusive
than a niche community. Unlike niche communities, there is no alienating cultural
element with niche technology. While some might argue that not owning or accessing
said technology is alienating, these are web-based communities running web-based
applications. Participation in the community requires a user to own said technologies.
Therefore, these technologies are inclusive. By focusing on niche technology, Twitter
has streamlined its technological approach, creating ease of use and user familiarity.
Users subscribe to other users tweet feeds to receive their updates. Other users or
friends are added either by email or by invite. Twitter can parse your web email
accounts to see if any of your current contacts are Twitter users. Before becoming
friends with another Twitter user and subscribing to their feed, you must receive their
permission. From a privacy perspective, Twitter has variable privacy options. Users

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are able to protect their Twitter updates by altering their privacy settings, but the
default account displays Twitter updates publicly. Users are also able to respond to
their friends tweets and create a threaded conversation.
Twitter also features integration with mobile networks and handheld devices. The
reason Twitter updates are capped at 140 characters is that SMS messages are also
capped at 140 characters. This allows Twitter updates to be sent to mobile devices. This
encourages sociability by placing users in constant contact with the Twitter network,
even without an internet enabled mobile device. The phenomenon of quick updates has
been dubbed as micro-blogging. During the 2008 US Presidential Election, microblogging was documented by Rhett Smith in Exposing ugly: Twitter and Facebook
status updates on election night (Smith, 2008). Smith argues that micro-blogging gave
her a glimpse into the political beliefs of her friends and associates, some of whom shared
adulation for Obama and others who expressed scorn or even highly racist remarks. This
micro-blogging phenomena is present on other social websites (Facebooks What are
you doing now), but Twitter has turned it into a self-contained phenomena.
Twitter is the fastest growing social network in the world (Snyder, 2008). The
phenomenon of micro-blogging is exploding, and we argue it is because of its
simplicity. It is simple to read a 140-character message delivered directly to your
mobile device. Twitter is quick, direct and multi-modal. In an era when sites like
Facebook and MySpace seem to have the social web covered, a simplified service like
Twitter offers a unique alternative offering sociability though simplicity.
Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to explore how sociability is enacted and encouraged on
social websites. Sociability is enacted in a number of different ways. The larger social
websites (Facebook and MySpace) encourage sociability by offering a meta-social
environment. These websites offer users a variety of options for interaction including
media sharing, blogging, public discussions, events and a host of other features.
Facebook and MySpace have a large user base to facilitate this multitude of features, and
also allow users to develop their own applications within the meta-social environment.
The major difference between Facebook and MySpace is privacy vs publicity. Facebook
encourages private socialization. Participating with Facebook users requires their
permission. If you are not designated as a friend, your participation is drastically
limited. MySpace encourages a more public model of socialization. Profiles on MySpace
are publicly accessible, even outside of MySpace, unless the user alters their privacy
settings. Their focus is on the visibility of their user base.
Smaller social websites (LinkedIn and Twitter) encourage sociability by offering
specific types of sociability. LinkedIn follows a more traditional model of social
websites by focusing on a specific community professionals looking to network with
fellow professionals. This targets LinkedIn to a specific demographic and user base.
Twitter has adopted a unique approach by focusing on a specific technology SMS. By
restricting user interaction to quick status updates of 140 characters or less, Twitter
has successfully integrated mobile updates along with their standard web updates. By
focusing on a niche technology, Twitter has attracted a large user base in the highly
competitive and often highly segmented social web. While most users flock to either
MySpace or Facebook when joining a social web community, Twitter has created the
intriguing space of micro-blogging by focusing on a specific technology.
From an interactive perspective, sociability on social websites is largely determined
by the design of the website. MySpace encourages users to share their online persona

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publicly, which has applications for publicity, but does include a privacy feature. From
film to television to music, the presence of popular media outlets on MySpace is
significant. The design of the website, with a focus on media-rich profile pages, makes
MySpace a superb vehicle for public promotions. Similarly, Twitters exclusive focus on
SMS-length updates translates into a simple user interface. Twitter users do not require
the multiple tabs, windows and features of larger social websites. Instead, Twitters main
page is simply a list of recent status updates from your friends. From an interactive
perspective, Twitters design quickly articulates the purpose of the site quick updates.
From a content perspective, sociability on social websites is also largely determined
by user content. Facebooks attempts to create a social desktop (or faux-operating
system on the web) have manifested as complex, information rich user profiles. For
Facebook to function as a one-stop social resource, the content must be comprehensive.
Thus, Facebook has attempted to create an experience to encourage users to upload
personal media and share detailed contact information. Facebook will even scour your
email accounts to add current users and invite new users to Facebook, given your
permission. Similarly, LinkedIns focus on professional networking is the basis for the
site, and thus content is generated by the professional accolades and achievements of
each user. Rather than profile pages focusing on personal interests, LinkedIns content
centers on professional credentials. A LinkedIn profile looks like a resume, while a
Facebook profile looks like a personal scrapbook, diary or even a blog.
In the emergent social web, interaction and content has become an immersive
experience. Facebooks recent addition of an in-browser instant messenger client allows
users to chat instantly with any friends online. This is both an interactive feature and a
content feature, encouraging users to socialize through both the technology of the
system and the content of the conversation. Immersive social features like in-browser
instant messaging are transforming the social web into an all-encompassing webbased social interaction.
This exploratory study is an initial overview of sociability on social websites. The
future research possibilities for sociability online are numerous. One possible avenue for
further studies in sociability is user studies. User studies can document which social
features are most frequently used or considered to facilitate sociability based on user
behavior. Another possible avenue for research is interviewing social website designers
and documenting their methods for encouraging sociability. Finally, researchers could
develop a theoretical social application and test its effectiveness in encouraging sociability
amongst a test group of users. This data could be used to develop new social applications.
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Corresponding author
Ali Shiri can be contacted at: ashiri@ualberta.ca

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