The Rise and Fall of Social Networking Sites： A Comparative Study of Cyworld and Facebook

This study examines why some social networking sites （SNSs） stagnate while other SNSs grow by comparing Cyworld with Facebook. Cyworld was one of the most successful SNSs in the world, but its international expansion efforts failed. Facebook＇s open technology has had considerable influence on various sectors of the economy and society and allowed it to become a dominant SNS at the global level, whereas Cyworld has remained a local SNS. Facebook＇s open platform and application programming interface （API） pose a serious challenge to Cyworld＇s walled-garden approach. Cyworld is based on strong ties fostering close relationships, whereas Facebook expands social networks through its open and weak ties and has more network power than Cyworld. Therefore, openness is the main reason behind the rise of Facebook and the fall of Cyworld.

Privacy disclosure in Chinese social networking sites:An investigation of Renren users

Purpose:This study was conducted to investigate the current situation of privacy disclosure(in the Chinese social networking sites.Design/methodology/approach:Data analysis was based on profiles of 240 college students on Renren.com,a popular college-oriented social networking site in China.Users’ privacy disclosure behaviors were studied and gender difference was analyzed particularly.Correlation analysis was conducted to examine the relationships among evaluation indicators involving user name,image,page visibility,message board visibility,completeness of education information and provision of personal information.Findings:A large amount of personal information was disclosed via social networking sites in China.Greater percentage of male users than female users disclosed their personal information.Furthermore,significantly positive relationships were found among page visibility,message board visibility,completeness of education information and provision of personal information.Research limitations:Subjects were collected from only one social networking website.Meanwhile,our survey involves subjective judgments of user name reliability,category of profile images and completeness of information.Practical implications:This study will be of benefit for college administrators,teachers and librarians to design courses for college students on how to use social networking sites safely.Originality /value:This empirical study is one of the first studies to reveal the current situation of privacy disclosure in the Chinese social networking sites and will help the research community gain a deeper understanding of privacy disclosure in the Chinese social networking sites.

Exploring the Reasons for Selfie-Taking and Selfie-Posting on Social Media with Its Effect on Psychological and Social Lives:A Study among Indian Youths

‘Selfie’taking was introduced to the common people by smartphones and has become a common practice across the globe in no time.With technological advancement and the popularity of smartphones,selfie-taking has grown rapidly within a short time.In light of the new trend set by the generation,this study aimed to explore reasons for selfie-taking and selfie-posting on social media and their effects on the social and psychological lives of young adults.A purposive sampling method was adopted to select 20 Indian citizens,between 18 and 24 years.The data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed using thematic analysis.Selfie-taking and posting on social media give positive feelings,and it acts as a mood modifier dependent mostly on the favourability and feedback about the post which in turn affects emotions and self-satisfaction.

The Promise and Dilemma of the Mediated Parent-Teacher Relationship in the Age of Social Networking Sites

Based on an ethnographic study on two cohorts of teachers and parents in China,this article reveals that social networking sites(SNS)have widened the channel for parents and teachers to establish and maintain a relationship,and has formed an online“community of practice”to promote such collaborations.Yet,this could be accomplished only at the expense of teachers’professional and personal boundaries becoming increasingly blurred,which has emerged as a potential risk for their professionalism.Moreover,such a“community of practice”has also opened up a new space for winning or losing at the educational game for parents from different background,which has inadvertently led to widening the arena for the operation of old mechanisms of social inequality.This study suggests that further investigation should be conducted to examine the potential of SNS in the parent−teacher relationship.

Factors influencing knowledge contribution:An empirical investigation of social networking website users

Purpose: In the Web 2.0 era,leveraging the collective power of user knowledge contributions has become an important part of the study of collective intelligence. This research aims to investigate the factors which influence knowledge contribution behavior of social networking sites(SNS) users.Design/methodology/approach: The data were obtained from an online survey of 251 social networking sites users. Structural equation modeling analysis was used to validate the proposed model.Findings: Our survey shows that the individuals' motivation for knowledge contribution,their capability of contributing knowledge,interpersonal trust and their own habits positively influence their knowledge contribution behavior,but reward does not significantly influence knowledge contribution in the online virtual community.Research limitations: Respondents of our online survey are mainly undergraduate and graduate students. A limited sample group cannot represent all of the population. A larger survey involving more SNS users may be useful.Practical implications: The results have provided some theoretical basis for promoting knowledge contribution and user viscosity.Originality/value: Few studies have investigated the impact of social influence and user habits on knowledge contribution behavior of SNS users. This study can make a theoretical contribution by examining how the social influence processes and habits affect one's knowledge contribution behavior using online communities.

Anomaly Detection in Social Media Texts Using Optimal Convolutional Neural Network

Social Networking Sites(SNSs)are nowadays utilized by the whole world to share ideas,images,and valuable contents by means of a post to reach a group of users.The use of SNS often inflicts the physical and the mental health of the people.Nowadays,researchers often focus on identifying the illegal beha-viors in the SNS to reduce its negative influence.The state-of-art Natural Language processing techniques for anomaly detection have utilized a wide anno-tated corpus to identify the anomalies and they are often time-consuming as well as certainly do not guarantee maximum accuracy.To overcome these issues,the proposed methodology utilizes a Modified Convolutional Neural Network(MCNN)using stochastic pooling and a Leaky Rectified Linear Unit(LReLU).Here,each word in the social media text is analyzed based on its meaning.The stochastic pooling accurately detects the anomalous social media posts and reduces the chance of overfitting.The LReLU overcomes the high computational cost and gradient vanishing problem associated with other activation functions.It also doesn’t stop the learning process when the values are negative.The MCNN computes a specified score value using a novel integrated anomaly detection tech-nique.Based on the score value,the anomalies are identified.A Teaching Learn-ing based Optimization(TLBO)algorithm has been used to optimize the feature extraction phase of the modified CNN and fast convergence is offered.In this way,the performance of the model is enhanced in terms of classification accuracy.The efficiency of the proposed technique is compared with the state-of-art techni-ques in terms of accuracy,sensitivity,specificity,recall,and precision.The proposed MCNN-TLBO technique has provided an overall architecture of 97.85%,95.45%,and 97.55%for the three social media datasets namely Facebook,Twitter,and Reddit respectively.

Improved Key Node Recognition Method of Social Network Based on PageRank Algorithm

The types and functions of social networking sites are becoming more abundant with the prevalence of self-media culture,and the number of daily active users of social networking sites represented by Weibo and Zhihu continues to expand.There are key node users in social networks.Compared with ordinary users,their influence is greater,their radiation range is wider,and their information transmission capabilities are better.The key node users playimportant roles in public opinion monitoring and hot event prediction when evaluating the criticality of nodes in social networking sites.In order to solve the problems of incomplete evaluation factors,poor recognition rate and low accuracy of key nodes of social networking sites,this paper establishes a social networking site key node recognition algorithm(SNSKNIS)based on PageRank(PR)algorithm,and evaluates the importance of social networking site nodes in combination with the influence of nodes and the structure of nodes in social networks.This article takes the Sina Weibo platform as an example,uses the key node identification algorithm system of social networking sites to discover the key nodes in the social network,analyzes its importance in the social network,and displays it visually.

Interactive English Reading Community Based on Social Network Sites

One of the major trends in the reform of English language teaching is the application of network technologies. This paper discusses the application of social network sites in building an interactive English reading community under the guidance of the constructivist learning theory and its influence on the learners＇ English reading. This SNS-aided reading community puts the students as the center and the teacher the guide, embodying students＇ subjectivity, equality, and interactivity. The study shows that the interactive English reading community can motivate students to read, improve their reading skills, and thus develop a new SNS-aided English reading model for English learners.

The Impacts of Social Network Sites on English Teaching and Learning in China

This article mainly studies the impacts of social network sites on English teaching and learning from several aspects,such as the background knowledge of social network sites(SNSs),definition and types,as well as the common use of SNSs in China.The article uses a special view to analyze the possibility of using social network sites on English education.

How Do Companies Achieve Their Marketing Goals With Social Networks？

This work examines the role of social network sites as a tool used by companies to achieve marketing goals. As known from the main business literature, the social network represents one of the most important instrument to improve the company fame by strengthening the affection of customers to the brand. For this reason, some companies use these tools to build relations and contacts with customers all over the world. The population of social networks users is made, for the most parts, of youngsters （people belonging to the 13-30 years old cluster）. In the last years, with the social web networking, social communication lost the exclusive social meaning and social network sites become strategic instruments for the construction of powerful relations that connect people with people and people with firms. This work is aimed at clarifying the genesis and the evolution of the relations between companies and potential customers, focusing on the tools used by the firm to achieve their marketing goals through social network sites （SNSs）. First of all, the work proposes the recognition of some studies about the origin of web social network and their links with marketing strategies. Secondly, it considers marketing goals achieved from any companies through social networking with a particular focus on advertising through web social networking.

Detecting Information on the Spread of Dengue on Twitter Using Articial Neural Networks

Social media platforms have lately emerged as a promising tool for predicting the outbreak of epidemics by analyzing information on them with the help of machine learning techniques.Many analytical and statistical models are available to infer a variety of user sentiments in posts on social media.The amount of data generated by social media platforms,such as Twitter,that can be used to track diseases is increasing rapidly.This paper proposes a method for the classication of tweets related to the outbreak of dengue using machine learning algorithms.An articial neural network(ANN)-based method is developed using Global Vector(GloVe)embedding to use the data in tweets for the automatic and efcient identication and classication of dengue.The proposed method classies tweets related to the outbreak of dengue into positives and negatives.Experiments were conducted to assess the proposed ANN model based on performance evaluation matrices(confusion matrices).The results show that the GloVe vectors can efciently capture a sufcient amount of information for the classier to accurately identify and classify tweets as relevant or irrelevant to dengue outbreaks.The proposed method can help healthcare professionals and researchers track and analyze epidemic outbreaks through social media in real time.

The Role of New Media in Communicating to Beneficiaries of Ngos Working in Kajiado County, Kenya

Organizations serving rural communities in Kenya have found use for media as a tool of replacement for personal interface in the daily communication with the beneficiaries of their programmes in deprived areas. The interactions between two non-governmental organizations （NGOs） and rural beneficiaries in Isinya, Kajiado County, provide case studies of how NGOs modernize their outreach via new media and how beneficiaries respond to the change. The research was not only concerned with the presence of information technology （IT） and online facilities in remote and deprived locations. It also evaluated responses to the replacement of person-to-person contact with technologies, such as social media, the Internet, Compact Disc-Read Only Memory （CD-ROMs）, and Digital Versatile Disc （DVDs）. Conducted in four focus groups, the research evaluated the uptake of new media technologies by beneficiaries following the transition, asked whether beneficiaries engaged with the materials being communicated, and assessed whether this confluence of technology and culture had eased the flow of communication, or unsettled it. Evidence of discomfort among the older （over 50-year-old） beneficiaries stemmed from fear of failure to master the technologies and a desire for a continuation of regular interpersonal interaction with the NGO field officers （whose field trips were scaled back in preference of computer-mediated communication）. However, younger （under 40-year-old） beneficiaries were less insistent on regular interpersonal visits and were appreciative of the use of technology, and of the building of Maarifa Centres to give the beneficiaries free access to internet, DVDs, and hard drive-based information materials. Another demographic, beneficiaries aged between 40 and 50 years old, said they were not comfortable with the change and wanted the interpersonal interaction to continue, but were open to a longer-term transition once the beneficiaries were all conversant with the uses of the new technologies. The study recommends a better managed transition that accommodated the beneficiaries’ fears, misgivings, and cultural preference for verbal, face-to-face consultation.

Bloggers, Vloggers, and a Virtual Sorority： A Means of Support for African American Women Wearing Natural Hair

Non-acceptance of natural African American hair is evident in mainstream media, and within the African American community. As a result, many Afi＇ican American women lack knowledge about how to care for their naturally kinky hair because straightened hair has been the standard and norm. Therefore, women wearing natural hair had to seek support and education outside of their immediate community via social networking sites. Through a participatory culture framework via an Afrocentric lens, the results revealed that producers of these sites became the needed support and comfort that the natural hair community was missing. Through communication with these producers and their sites, a space was created where women began to appreciate and love their natural hair.

Kaixin001 Network with Random Hierarchical Model

A new random hierarchical model to describe the neighborhood properties of Kaixin001 network is developed in this paper. The degree distribution of this network model follows P（k） k-γ with y = 1. It means the network model has a power-law distribution. Through calculating the clustering coefficients and average path length （APL）, the result reflects that the model has the properties of high clustering coefficients and low APL.

A Qualitative Analysis of How and Why People Use SNSs： A Cross-cultural Comparison of Korea and the U.S.

While participation in Social Network Sites （SNSs） has grown rapidly in recent years and is a highly popular and global phenomenon, only few research examined how the different cultural values and attitudes impact the way people adopt and use this new media platform. Employing qualitative approach, this study attempts to uncover the cross-cultural differences in motivations and behavioral patterns for using SNSs among the Korean and American users. The finding of this study shows the explicit differences in the motivations and strategies for using SNSs between Korean and American users, which is supported by the independent and interdependent self-construals theory proposed by Markus and Kitayama （1991）. The motivational themes and usage patterns emerged from Korean participants are more other- or relationship-focused, pursuing social/emotional support, while those of Americans are more ego- or self-focused, pertaining to entertainment or information seeking.

The rise of the digital economy:Thoughts on blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies for the collaborative economy

This study highlights the potential impacts of blockchain technology on the collaborativeeconomy(CE),colloquially known as the sharing economy.This conceptual review firstanalyzes how the CE intersects with the blockchain technology.Collaborative consumptioninvolves an intensification of peer-to-peer trade,underpinned by robust digital in-frastructures and processes,hence an increased use of new technologies and a redefinitionof business activities.As an inherently connected economy,the CE is,therefore,prone tointegrating the most recent technological advances including artificial intelligence,bigdata analysis,augmented reality,the smart grid,and blockchain technology.This reviewthen furthers the examination of the organizational and managerial implications related tothe use of blockchain technology in terms of governance,transaction costs,and userconfidence.A closing case finally examines the role of a prominent social networking site(i.e.,Facebook)in the CE-blockchain nexus.