Alan Dix > 2011

Anatomy of an Early Social Networking Site

Alan Dix1,2, Russell Beale3, Nadeem Shabir1 and Justin Leavesley1

1 Talis, Birmingham, UK
2 School of Computing and Communications, InfoLab21, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
3 School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

Paper presented at HCI 2011, Newcastle, UK. 6-8 July 2011.

Download draft paper (PDF, 773K)

Abstract

Social networking software is ubiquitous, from Facebook to Flickr, defining the internet for many users. However, this is a recent phenomenon. Is the timing due to socio-technical determinism, inspiration of individuals, or sheer chance? While much has been written about recent successful social networking sites, this paper takes a different approach and examines vfridge, a social networking application developed 10 years ago, well before the current explosion, which, despite a vision that now seems prescient, was unsuccessful. The reasons for failure are partly about timing and market conditions, but also yield valuable lessons for future innovative applications.

Keywords: social network, adoption, web2.0, web architecture

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Full reference:
A. Dix, R.Beale, N. Shabir and J. Leavesley (2011). Anatomy of an Early Social Networking Site. In Proceedings of HCI 2011. pp.243–252.
http://alandix.com/academic/papers/
hci2011-vfridge/
more ...
download draft paper (PDF, 773K)
slides (2up, PDF, 522K)
try out vfridge facsmile (retro 2000 style!)
 

 


Fig1. Facebook Growth 2004–2010 – millions of users (data from Facebook, 2011).
[zoom image]

 

1999–first implementation – stand-alone Java app with bespoke server later first web version using applet
2000–dot.com crash but seed funding for vfridge.com
2002–vfridge mothballed
2010–‘facsimile’ version reproduced in PHP!

Fig 2. Timeline of vfridge.

 


Fig. 3: Market ecology – tracing the
network of influences between
different stakeholders

 


Figure 4: vfridge screenshot
[zoom image]

 


Fig. 5: Close up of notes on a fridge
[zoom image]

 


Fig. 6: Conferencer
[zoom image]

 


Fig. 7: 'List View' – multi-column layout

 


Fig. 8: List view close-up (three columns)
[zoom image]

 


Fig. 9: Seeheim for Web Applications
(from Dix, 2011)
[zoom image]

 

 

 

 

http://www.hcibook.com/alan/papers/hci2011-vfridge/

Alan Dix 6/5/2011