Online Networks: Formsping

This is a screenshot of my Formspring; as you can see there is a function there which enables you to ask your followers a question. I have only created it recently for my main blog, so I don't have that many followers yet, but I hope most of 56 people will get back to me on a question I am going to post.

Online Networks: Facebook Page

Here is a screenshot of my personal blog's Facebook fan page; its statistics show the demgraphic location of people who "liked it" and as we can see they are from many different countries that I have no connections with, which means they joined my network and they are being weak-ties in it, 650 weak-ties to be exact- superb for my research!

Online Networks: Personal Facebook Profile

Here is the diagram that was created using myFnetwork app on Facebook that my course colleague Jessica has kindly shared with me. Mine didn't come out as busy since I've got under 200 friends as opposed to her almost 900 friends, but I love the fact that you can clearly see all the names and connections- it was quite entertaining to have a look at!

What's funny is the fact that you can note few busier groups of connections that represent my Estonian childhood/school friends, followed by my English colleagues from college and university which split into two smaller groups- Fashion and Photography courses, and last but not least- my husband's family and friends. I would have never thought of it this way! Most of these nodes would be strong-ties in my network though, therefore they are not very good to approach for my given assignment.

Online Networks: Personalizing

Having taken a collage from previous post as an example, I have filtered it and personalized it in order to match my own networks. Having put them in the organized groups I can now easily see which group I can use for a specific target. For example:

• Publishing - Blogspot can be used for approaching the readers of my personal blog
• Micro-blogging - Twitter can be used for asking for a feedback from my Twitter followers
• Crown Sourcing - these websites will be good for creating my surveys and online questionnaires
• Social Networking - Facebook can be good for creating my own groups, finding useful groups that already exist and taking/sharing information; Odnoklassniki.ru is a Russian analogue of Facebook which provides the same opportunities; Formspring works on question-answer base and can be good to ask an open questions to my followers

Of course I should not forget a good old email- a good way to have an expanded interview with somebody.

Online Networks: Organizing

Another useful collage I found on the Internet. Unlike the first one, this collage "organizes" the social websites in groups, making it easy to see what each of the group is responsible for. Looking at it, I can now clearly see which social networks I should pay more attention to in order not only to complete the whole assignment, but also deal with its individual parts. Social Networking, Micro Blogging, Publishing, Crowd Sourcing and Conversation Apps are the ones I will be working with the most, opting for a particular one in accordance to the data that I may need to collect, eg. interviews/questionnaires etc.

Image source:

http://www.motherhoodthetruth.com/social-media-you-must-engage/

Online Networks: General

This is one of the collages that came up on the Internet when I searched for "Online networks" and let me tell you, I was very surprised how many of them there are these days! When during the class we were asked to name a few, as a group we barely came up with 10 names, but despite the huge amount of networks that there is, I have to stay focused not to get lost within this social web. For that I will have to refine the networks and decide what are the ones that will suit my given assignment and set aim the best.

Image source:
http://www.viralblog.com/social-media/build-your-own-social-network/