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SEKE 2012 Proceedings - Knowledge Systems Institute

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OSN Social Feed Unique Features Connections Prof le #Users<br />

Facebook Status, media, Groups, events, Bi-directional Name, contact info, 845M+<br />

friend posts, notes, “Like” brands friendship family, education,<br />

external sites, and Web pages,<br />

work history, interests<br />

application alerts service integration<br />

Twitter Tweets, retweets,<br />

mention tweets<br />

Google+ Status, media,<br />

friend posts,<br />

external sites<br />

LinkedIn<br />

Status, resume updates,<br />

discussion<br />

posts, application<br />

alerts<br />

YouTube Uploaded, subscribed,<br />

and<br />

favorite videos<br />

Orkut Status, media,<br />

friend posts,<br />

application alerts<br />

Public access social<br />

feed<br />

Social circles,<br />

groups, “+1” brands<br />

and Web pages<br />

Groups, message<br />

boards, share<br />

professional recommendations<br />

Age, country, occupation,<br />

education, interests<br />

Share video channels<br />

and playlists,<br />

public commentary<br />

on videos<br />

Integrated applications<br />

Uni-directional<br />

subscriber<br />

Bi-directional<br />

friendship<br />

Bi-directional,<br />

professional<br />

connection<br />

Uni-directional<br />

subscriber<br />

Bi-directional<br />

friendship<br />

Real name, location 200M+<br />

Name, contact info, education,<br />

work history,<br />

interests<br />

Name, work history,<br />

education, professional<br />

accomplishments,<br />

goals, skills<br />

Name, contact info,<br />

pets, family status, romance<br />

views, drinking<br />

habits<br />

Table 1. Purpose, popularity (# of users), and features of OSNs<br />

90M+<br />

150M+<br />

490M+<br />

120M+<br />

rough measure of the strength of an API along each dimension,<br />

and report their approximate rather than exact values.<br />

Next, we compare the APIs along these dimensions to understand<br />

their similarities and differences.<br />

3.1 User information<br />

We def ne nine categories to homogenize the disparity in<br />

the types of data that users can upload as seen from Table 1,<br />

in order to meaningfully compare the OSN APIs.<br />

• Profile: Personal details such as hometown, date of<br />

birth, gender, and other information.<br />

• Social Message: Text posted to users’ social feeds, appearing<br />

in the news feeds of their connections.<br />

• Media: Photos, videos, and music.<br />

• Friend: First-degree connections.<br />

• Friend-of-friend: Second-degree connections.<br />

• Brand Page: A page dedicated to a branded entity,<br />

such as a company, a business, a movie, or a band.<br />

• Event: Event details such as name, place, and time.<br />

• Group: Membership details of users’ groups.<br />

• Note: A long post concerning a specif c subject; typically<br />

more detailed than a social message.<br />

The number of unique methods for each data type are:<br />

Prof le (94), Social Message (10), Media (23), Friend (23),<br />

Friend-of-Friend (21), Brand Page (7), Event (7), Group (5),<br />

and Note (7). Table 2 lists the number of methods and coverage<br />

for each OSN. It shows that because Google+ implements<br />

only 9 methods for Social Messages, although it<br />

could feasibly implement 10, its coverage for this data type<br />

is 90%. If an OSN does not provide any method for a given<br />

data type, a 0 appears in the corresponding cell in the upper<br />

table (Google+, Friend-of-friend). Additionally, if a OSN<br />

does not implement any of the feasible methods for a data<br />

type, a 0 appears in the corresponding cell in the lower table<br />

(Google+, Friend-of-friend). Finally, when no methods<br />

are feasible for a given data type for a given OSN, a 0 appears<br />

in the upper table, and a “−” appears in the lower table<br />

(YouTube, Events). 4 For each data type, the number of distinct<br />

methods is less than the total number of methods across<br />

all OSNs; 92 distinct methods collect prof le data, but a total<br />

of 209 prof le access methods exist across all OSNs.<br />

All APIs offer high coverage for prof le data. This is expected<br />

from Facebook, Orkut, and LinkedIn because their<br />

primary purpose is sharing of personal information. Surprisingly,<br />

YouTube makes many user details available, although<br />

its main objective is open, public sharing. Twitter, Facebook,<br />

and YouTube APIs can retrieve nearly every attribute<br />

of media and social messages, leading to very high coverage.<br />

Although Google+ does not provide access to media, this is<br />

planned. 5 Most APIs only expose names and prof le pictures<br />

(if any), of f rst- and second- degree connections. Ta-<br />

4 Tables 3 and 5 have the same interpretation of 0 and -.<br />

5 http://siliconf lter.com/google-gets-an-api-for-photos-and-videos/<br />

402

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