Analysis of Social Network Sites and Supporting
Functions
Rebecca L. Anderson
University of Tennessee
1345 Circle Park Dr. Ste. 451
Knoxville, TN 37996
rander32@utk.edu
ABSTRACT
Social network sites are quickly becoming ubiquitous
across the Internet. While research has explored user
behaviors in relation to the sites, supporting functions,
largely has been overlooked. However, the functions
encourage or prohibit user behaviors. In this paper a matrix
of social network sites and functions is identified. This
illustrates the functions common to these websites. This
further illustrates which websites house what functions. A
definition for functions is provided. All websites contain
profiles, picture management, email, network management,
and search, while only four utilize instant messaging, event
planning and blogs. It is important to understand the
technological landscape of social network sites in order to
get a better understanding of how the sites are used.
Keywords
Functions, social network, human computer interaction
INTRODUCTION
Social network sites (SNS), such as Facebook and
Myspace, have become widespread on the Internet. Their
usage by American adults has grown from 8% in 2005 to
46% in 2009, according to Lenhart (2009). Further,
Lenhart (2009) shows that usage trends of SNS in 2009 are
consistent with usage trends of the Internet as a whole.
This means that as of 2009 adult users are diverse, with no
significant differences between gender, race, education
level or region. As more people utilize these websites it’s
important to understand how they’re being used. To do
this, it is first necessary to understand what social network
sites are.
SNS have been defined by Boyd and Ellison (pg. 211,
2008) as:
“…web-based services that allow individuals to (1)
ASIST 2010, October 22–27, 2010, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
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construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded
system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they
share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of
connections and those made by others within the system.”
To engage in any of these activities, users must access to
supporting functions within the system. SNS can’t exist
without supporting functions. Research has examined
psychological and sociological issues; relegating the
functions to a minor or non-existent role. However, it is
important to investigate these functionalities as they
encourage or prohibit particular behaviors, based on their
designed processes and features and the designs can
change. For example, all communication transactions
occurring through Facebook were asynchronous until their
system developers’ added instant messaging (IM) functions.
Supporting functions is defined here as one or more
processes with a common user interface that perform one
specific task. It is a technological artifact working within a
bounded system. For example, Facebook employs such
functionalities as email messaging and status updates. Both
of these are separate artifacts working within the bounded
Facebook system. The purpose of this study is to create
taxonomy of functions according to common SNS uses.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Leitner and Grechnig (2008) created taxonomy of
supporting functions according to usage, with three
categories: frequent, normal, and rare. They found that 70%
of all functions fell in the frequent group; 30% - 70% fell in
the normal group; and < 30% fell in the rare group. While
useful, the authors do not associate the functions with the
specific SNS, nor do they illustrate the relationship between
functions and uses.
Skog (2005; 2006) investigates the impact of technology on
behavior. The author provides an ethnography of a
Swedish SNS describing a nook (Skog, 2005), which is
comparable to a profile, and a Lajv (Skog, 2006), which is
comparable to a chat room. These studies take a first step
at illustrating the relationship between SNS uses and SNS
functions. Further analysis of remaining functions is
needed.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The next step in understanding these websites is identifying
their supporting functions.
RQ1: Which SNS house what supporting functions?
RQ2: Which functionalities are most common across SNS?
METHOD
This study conducted a content analysis of nine SNS to
identify and describe common functions. Popular SNS
were determined by the scale of their user base and
included general interest and niche topic sites by Lenhart
(2009). These sites are Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn,
Yahoo!, YouTube, Classmates.com, BlackPlanet, Orkut,
and Hi5.
The researcher signed up as a user with each site in order to
examine and interact with the supporting functions. Each
technical artifact was utilized in order to classify and
describe it. The researcher went through the site twice to
insure that all functions was included and thoroughly
documented in the analysis.
RESULTS
Fourteen technical artifacts were found to exist on the
examined SNS (see Table 1). Profiles give users a space to
display personal information, such as interests and hobbies.
Picture management allows users to upload pictures and
create photo albums. It also allows users to modify and/or
delete pictures. Email allows users to communicate
asynchronously through private messages to one or more
members of their network. Network management gives
users the ability to add and delete friends. Some systems
also allow users to give permissions to particular network
members for particular information, such as pictures.
Search gives users the ability to find people registered with
the system. Most systems include filtering options, such as
age and location.
DISCUSSION
This is a study in progress. The next step is to empirically
demonstrate the relationship between the uses provided by
Lenhart (2009) and the common SNS supporting functions.
Future research should build upon this data to consider the
relationship between psychological and sociological issues
and supporting functions. This is only a snapshot in time of
any of the examined SNS. They are perpetually morphing
phenomena, encouraging and prohibiting behaviors with
every innovation.
REFERENCES
Boyd, D. & Ellison, N. (2008). Social networking sites:
Definition, history and scholarship. Journal of ComputerMediated Communication, 13(1), 210-230.
Leitner, P. & Grechnig, T. (2008). Social networking
sphere: A snapshot of trends, functionalities and revenue
models. IADIS International Conference on Web Based
Communities, 187-191.
Lenhart, A. (2009). Adults and social network websites.
Pew Internet & American Life Project, January, 14, 2009,
http://www.pewinternet.org/Infographics/Growth-inAdult-SNS-Use-20052009.aspx, accessed on March 28,
2010.
Skog, D. (2005). Social interaction in virtual communities:
The significance of technology. International Journal of
Web Based Communities, 1(4), 464-474.
Skog, D. (2006). You must be over 18 to read this – how a
technological intervention backfired. Paper presented at
Annual Conference of the Association of Internet
Researchers.
Profile
Comment
Wall
Pic
Mgmt
Email
IM
Status
Mgmt
Rec
Sys
Event
Plan
Net
Mgmt
Group
Mgmt
Blog
Video
Tags
Search
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Facebook
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
LinkedIn
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Yahoo!
X
X
X
X
X
Classmates
X
X
X
X
X
YouTube
X
X
X
X
BlackPlanet
X
X
X
X
X
X
Orkut
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Hi5
X
X
X
X
X
X
Myspace
Table 1. Supporting functions of social network sites.
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X