Introduction

The following is a project by Jermaine Landon Caldwell called "A Look at The Facebook" done for Virtual communities, an upper-level course in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The texts discussed in the presentation include Jenny Preece's "Online Communities," Howard Rheingold's "The Virtual Community" and Nan Lin's "Social Capital."

This project was used for a presentation about the Web site given Nov. 23, 2004.

Jermaine Landon Caldwell can be contacted at jermainelandon(at)gmail(dot)com.

The Tutorial

Welcome to Thefacebook
The Facebook is self described as "an online directory that connects people through social networks at colleges." It began as a project by a team of Harvard undergraduates.

Facebook takes college students and links them to one another via profiles. You invite someone to be your friend (or vice versa), and you begin to build a social network among people whom you to go school with. You might see these people everyday. You might have never met them. You could be mistaking them for someone else. Or you just might think he or she is cute.

Facebook is limited only to the students or alumni of the particular university. Members are only allowed limited searches of other universities.

The Interface
The front of Facebook (housed at http://www.thefacebook.com) is a streamlined and simply designed web space, which may fool those accustomed to overdesigned and ultra-busy sites. The site greets you almost pictureless. This makes it not-so-overwhelming to the not-so-Internet-savvy.

Your Space within Facebook
Your "Home" in Facebook is a page that houses access to your friends, messages you may have waiting for you and other such reminders. From here you can check on your friends, search for new ones, send messages and etc. It's this homebase for navigating through your Facebook space. It also houses your profile, the main feature of The Facebook.

Me, Myself and I
Facebook is a profile-based site, where you sell yourself by telling others who you are. It gives you everything from basic information all the way to who's dating whom. Everything is linkable in ones profile. This is to aid in ...

Finding a Friend
Most people are invited by a close friend to join Facebook. Members can simply type in the e-mail address of a person and an invite will be sent to them saying you invited them to join Facebook.

Once inside, you know you have at least one friend. And once you're friends with someone, you have complete access to his or her profile, along with his or her friends. Chances are, you have at least one other friend in common with the person that invited you. And this is where the "befriending" or being "Facebooked' begins -- as you search through friends of friends to find the people you know. The "befriending" or being "Facebooked" is a simply process in which an e-mail is sent to the person you want to befriend asking them to confirm or deny your friendship.

Commonalities
Sooner or later, however, you've "Facebooked" all the people you know could find but still feel the need to branch out and get even more connected. Facebook allows you to search newly added people, look to see who's in that big lecture class of yours, find people with common interests, find old high school friends, see who's listening to the same music and so forth. The search function is a powerful one with both basic and advanced searches.

And all the while, people are doing the same thing, increasing the chances of someone finding and contemplating whether or not to "Facebook" you.

Soon you have a group of friend that you can actually visualize.

Grouping Each Other
While it may seem like Facebook is just an amped-up online version of an address book or an online yearbook in which you get to choose who's featured, the site offers organizational tools that allow you to structure and maintain your social network in ways that aren't possible elsewhere or in real life.

One can create a group surrounding a specific topic and then invite friends in. (People can also search for these groups). Within these groups, you can e-mail members, post on a bulletin board and peruse the other group members' profiles. This allows you to make different segments within a large friend base.

Facebook also automatically groups you by college course when you tell them what classes you're enrolled in.

Facebook Fun
The Graffiti Wall and Poke features add a little level of light-heartedness to the experience. While allowing users to access friend information offline (via text messaging) adds a serious, more useful tone for belonging to the Facebook.

But is The Facebook a Virtual Community?

Although the debate seems like it's never-ending (what's a community, what's not a community, is this a virtual community, if so why, etc?), by looking through our three main course books (Jenny Preece's "Online Communities," Howard Rheingold's "The Virtual Community" and Nan Lin's "Social Capital") and assessing the ins and outs of Facebook I have concluded the following:

Facebook very much maintains virtual community-like features such as grouping by commonality, search functions, sending messages and so on. However the site falls short of actually reaching "virtual community status" because of a lack of truly sustainable computer-mediated communication. This, however, is not a bad thing.

Facebook "recommunitizes," restructures and reinvigorates our realistic community, which people have been saying needs a little jump start. It gives members a visualization of their community. And it gives some a new appreciation for the community in which they exists.

It is my belief that no one community (on or offline) will satisfy all human needs. Therefore it is necessary that we not only look at communities in relation to one another but also that we identify and evaluate that which make our communities richer. The Facebook is just that.

Preece and Facebook

Quotable
"Developing online communities is a complex practical activity, and developers need a definition that guides practice. " (Preece)

In "Online communities: Designing Usability, Supporting Socialbility," Preece sets out a guide from which online communities can be both built and evaluate. She begins with some essentials to an online community.

"An online community consists of:

• People, who interact socially as they strive to satisfy their own needs or perform special roles, such as leading or moderating.
• A shared purpose, such as an interest, need, information exchange, or service that provides a reason for the community.
• Policies, in the form of tacit assumptions, rituals, protocols, rules, and laws that guide people's interactions.
• Computer systems, to support and mediate social interaction and facilitate a sense of togetherness."

Facebook hits all four of the points Preece points out as being necessary to be a valid online community.

People
Facebook IS people. However, it lacks a constant interaction component. Facebook doesn't satisfy interaction-type needs that people couldn't get elsewhere. For example, take a site for lovers of a specific computer game. The site can connect people from around the world and give them an outlet in which to converse. This outlet is irreplaceable. Such is not the case with Facebook. While irreplaceable items (such as the graffiti wall and search function and so on) would no longer be accessible, members wouldn't be losing out on a big sense of belonging if the it were to not exist. Without Facebook, members are still members of the UNC community. It just doesn't have its online manifestation.

Purpose
The main purpose Facebook serves is as an information exchange, an online social networking tool. As you will see in the user interviews, people see it and use it as such.

Policies
Facebook is equipped with easy-to-find and understandable policies. Preece notes that it's important for a community member to know what his or her membership means. Members want to know what others have agreed to by joining the community.


Usability and Socialbility
"Community developers also have to design software with good usability so that people can interact and perform their tasks intuitively and easily. Software with good usability supports rapid learning, high skill retention, low error rates and high productivity. It is consistent, controllable, and predictable, making it pleasant and effective to use. "Sociability focuses on social interaction; usability focuses on human-computer inter- action. Understanding a community's needs is essential for developing communities with good sociability and usability

Facebook is thought of as the ant-Friendster. Both have similar Planned Sociability -- create a network of exchange within circles of friends and those with which one finds similar. But they have very different execution or Design Usability. Most people find Facebook easier to use. Faster. More user-friendly. Such testimonials can also be found below in the user interviews.

Talking points, which wins out, Facebook or Friendster?:

1 - Visual appeal
2 - Sense of plan
3 - Privacy and membership
4 - Feeling truly social
5 - Reaction to user needs
6 - User reaction
7 - Real life application
8 - Foreseeable Future

Assessment
Facebook seems like a place where you can go and meet people. It also gives you multiple easy-to-navigate pathways to find new friendships. Such socialbility and usability give The Facebook virtual community-like characteristics.

Rheingold and Facebook

When you take Facebook and combine it with Rheingold's theories about what makes a virtual community and also compare it to the virtual communities, Facebook wouldn't have all the necessary legs to stand on in order to be classified as a bonafide online community. Below are Rheingold analyses.

Is Facebook a Third Place?
Rheingold makes the allusions to the Third Place as a way to describe a virtual community. He quotes Ray Oldenburg as saying "within these places, conversation is the primary activity and the major vehicle for the display and appreciation of human personality and individuality." (Rheingold, 10).

Facebook doesn't serve as such a space. There's not much "casual conversation" being held there. People don't become members of Facebook in order to find a community to join. They use it to bolster up their First and Second Places. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Rheingold goes on to say: "Perhaps cyberspace is one of the informal public places where people can rebuild the aspects of community that were lost when malt shop became a mall."

Information Exchange?
"Virtual communities are places where people meet, and they also are tools' the place-like aspects and tool-like aspects only partially overlap." (Rheingold, 45)

While here Rheingold was specifically about tools of knowlegde (getting expertise advice, discussing topics with people who have experience, etc), I think this Rheingold quote also speaks to the nature of Facebook. The power of the information exchange within this web space is unparalleled. I can export all the contact information of my 135 friends to my e-mail account. If I'm away from a computer, I can text message The Facebook site and request pieces of someone's information.


Rethinking VCs
When Rheingold looks back over his analysis of virtual communities, he makes a little more room for such places like Facebook. He quotes a Barry Wellman study that says:

Relationships are rarely maintained through computer-mediated communication alone, but are sustained through a combination of online and offline interactions. Despite the ability of the Internet to serve as a global communication technology, much online activity is between people who live (or work) near each other, often in Netville itself. In Netville, the local network brought neighbors together to socialize, helped them to arrange in-person get-togethers ...

Assessment
So while the Facebook doesn't carry with it the characteristics of what was thought to be a virtual community as defined by Rheingold, a look within his language shows that Facebook isn't just an online directory. It's not The Well, by any means. But there's something priceless there.

Lin and Facebook

Quotable
"It has been proposed that social capital, as an investment in social relations with an expected return in the marketplace, should be defined as resources embedded in a social structure that are accessed and/or mobilized in purposive actions. In this definition, three critical components present themselves for analyses: 1) the resources, 2) being embedded in a social structure, and 3) action" (Lin, 29)

Lin's Model applied to Facebook
1) resources - Your Friends (and their friends and their friends, etc) are your social capital.

"Members supposedly see the intrinsic value of a resource." (Lin, 30)

Having a lot of friends means something to members of Facebook, as you will see in the user interviews. This is why Facebook is friend-focused and promotes the idea of the extended network

2) embedded in a social structure - The site (what Lin would describes as a "social network.")

"Social networks represent a less formal social structure in that there is little or no formality in delineating positions and rules and in allocating authority to participates." (Lin, 38)

The lack of hierarchy in Facebook makes it less structured. However, resources are still embedded within the frame. Profiles are constantly being updated. New members are always being sought out. New groups arrive every day, etc.

3) action - Its use

"Individuals, like groups and organizations, gain and maintain valued resources in purposive action to gain additional resources."

Examples 1&2: The 501b group is centered on an apartment that has wonderful parties. Student groups use their personal lists to promote organization events. See Fall Ball Announcement.

(See Lin, p. 40 and 189 for charts)

Example 3: Who I know. "The saying 'It's not just what you know but who you know' suggests that social capital should provide benefits for an individual who acts for a purpose." (Lin, 41)

IM conversation:

friend: there's a new garrett?
jermainelandon: yeah. kinda sorta.
jermainelandon: i can't remember where he came from
friend: goes here?
jermainelandon: yup
friend: interesting
friend: cute?
jermainelandon: hold
jermainelandon: http://unc.thefacebook.com/profile.php?id=XXXXXX
friend: how much do i love the facebook?
jermainelandon: we all do

Assessment
The Facebook operates in ways similar to what Lin describes in Social Capital. You can see this in how Facebook continues to get more popular. People put themselves into this structure because they feel they have something to get out of it. And while it may just be an invite to a future party, resources are being exchanged and acted upon within the web space, making it a viable candidate for study when talking about virtual communities.

Four Member Interviews about Facebook

The following section is filled with user interviews conducted by me, Jermaine Caldwell, about Facebook. It includes everything from funny stories to defining some unspoken rules to who to "Facebook" and who not to.

These interviews took place over AOL Instant Messenger. Screennames have been omitted and replaced with user1,2, etc. Parts of the conversations that revealed identies also were taken out.

user1
user1: Anyway, question one, facebook is an online community, which serves as a scope book. In the old days we had a scope book with people grouped by sex and first name so we could try and spot people by what you could remember when you were drunk. Did that make us a community, well yeah because the scope book was specically for granville residents, and so facebook is a community, what I do with that information i don;t know, maybe just set the stage for what is next, you know, I resist the notion that it sets the stage, I say it is just part of an etiquette, but that seems a little understating it too, so i say it is another way of catching someone's attention, and the true value of the gesture may not be known for several months or even years in the future, of course the immeidate sexual outcomes could precipitate if there is mutual attraction, and in that case I see as just an ice breaker. No matter what, whether people ask someone to be a friend, the community is searched for a lot of different reasons from procrastination to justs plain nosiness.

user1: question 2, i gain a lot i guess, being one of the first on the chapel hill system was an unexpected benefit, I did not have to make many friends actually to have thousands in my network. I think the people that got added because of affiliation with the Matt Calabria campaign and chase foster are extra special close today because of dual process of electon antics and the novelty of facebook. If anyone has any sense they will back up this network and archive it so it can be rekindled in the future when alumni try to get a hold of lost friends and relive their glory days. In other words, this network will come to life again, when alll of us are in the old folks home instant messaging the last days of our lives

user1: 3 no horror stories, no whore stories, no nothing like that.


user 2:
user2: ive gotten a ton of IMs from random gay freshmen who search for men who are interested in men and find my profile
user2: and they usually say something about how they found me and "thought i was cool"
user2: something im not sure you could accurately determine from an online profile
user2: especially mine, which is only loosely based on myself and largely sarcastic
user2: but that hasnt happened in a while
user2: im having a facebook meet to IM conversation right now, actually
jermainelandon: ah, so you befriended eachother and then switched over the IM communication, eh? how's that going?
user2: we have seen each other in public and probably only recognized each other b/c of facebook
user2: we've sent a few messages back and forth over facebook, but those were few and far between
jermainelandon: what are the chances you think this communication would take place without facebook?
user2: then i just im'd him, and im having one of the longest IM conversations in memory
user2: i dont think i would have felt comfortable IMing him w/o facebook
user2: the only other way to get someone's screenname would be from a third party or by looking it up...both of which seem sketchy
user2: but with facebook ive already kinda met him
jermainelandon: is it because of the profile setup?
user2: and ive seen him in person, and we've said hi
user2: i think it's mostly the picture and the basic info
user2: i dont really read things like music tastes and stuff like that
user2: only rarely will i read what the person writes in "about me"
jermainelandon: why's that?
user2: i guess b/c i dont think it's ever really an accurate representation of their personality
user2: it's completely artificial and impersonal
user2: when do you ever actually say the things out loud that you write in your profile
user2: and it's only a few sentences
jermainelandon: true true. i see.
jermainelandon: what does the amount of friends someone has on facebook say to you about someone, if anything
user2: how awesome they are
user2: /i have over 325 somehow
jermainelandon: yes you do.
jermainelandon: then we can conclude
jermainelandon: user2 = awesome
user2: i think a little bit of it is how hipster you want to see yourself as
jermainelandon: more friends more hip then
user2: it's only an illusion of hip
user2: with no benefit in reality
jermainelandon: does this have to be validated in reality?
user2: of course not
user2: when is it ever mentioned except when directly talking about facebook
user2: people with huge numbers of facebook friends may or may not have that many friends in life
jermainelandon: do you appreciate the greater access of friendster?
user2: yes, but it's intolerably slow
user2: ive since quit using it
jermainelandon: because of its design?
user2: and all of my current friends go to unc anyway, so facebook makes that much more sense
user2: b/c of the speed
jermainelandon: speed is essential. i think they're trying to get better. but i, too, don't use it much.
jermainelandon: how many of your facebook friends would you say you have strong ties with?
user2: define strong?
user2: i think i can be strongly connected with someone without having seen them in a long time
jermainelandon: that's okay. interactions like such fall under strong ties.


user3:
jermainelandon: do you have any profound thoughts about facebook?
user3: hmm
user3: i dont know. at times im obsessed with it but other times i feel it wholly unnescessary
jermainelandon: why obsessed some times?
user3: i dont know. i get hooked. like i look at my friends friends
user3: and then there friends
user3: its just looking at people. its not even like, oh, i want to meet this person. or, oh, they're interesting
user3: its just like a virtual people watching
jermainelandon: virtual people watching, eh? anything ever come of it? find an old friend. flirt. etc?
user3: not really old friend or flirting. but its random, sometimes someone i knew from high school will just add me and we talk for like half a day and thats it
user3: it almost seems like a status thing. like who has the most friends or who knows the best people from other schools
jermainelandon: talk about that someone. is it good to have a lot of friends?
user3: also, i search for people who like the same interests as me.. just to see who they are and how many people
user3: like the same band or something
user3: i mean, its good. but i find it kind of obscene when someone has like 300 friends
user3: who could have 300 friends
jermainelandon: what do you think of people with that many friends?
user3: they're a little full of themselves
user3: they want to project that they are important
user3: when in reality, its just facebook
user3: its like boosting their ego
jermainelandon: what number is too many friends?
user3: people who have like over 200
jermainelandon: gotcha. so you don't think these are actual friendships but just mere acquaintances?
user3: i think like 1/5 or so may be real friendships
jermainelandon: that's a good number /slash/ analysis
user3: sometimes i look at other gay people just to see who they are and what they are like...because im not in touch with the gay community really
jermainelandon: that's what a lot of people say. what does that allow you to do? does it help out?
user3: i mean, im not sure what its helping
user3: i guess knowing that they are out there is good
jermainelandon: does it make it seem like there's a realistic gay community? puts faces with names and friends with friends?
user3: well i guess it does seem like its realistic
user3: theres more than i thought


user4:
user4: a funny story is this girl i know who was the facebook for halloween... she had a profile on her shirt and was going around poking people saying "You have been poked by ME!"
user 4: if you need to get in touch w/ people i think it's a great tool... (a friend) lost his atm card and some girl looked him up on facebook and got it back to him
jermainelandon: really? excellent. do you see it as a place mainly for information exchange or does it have some sorta social component for you?
user 4: social too, i love getting facebook invites. when you meet new people at parties, it's like, "I'll totally facebook you when I get home" so you a) have them as online friends in writing/print, and b) so you have their cell/IM
jermainelandon: how often is that information used. or more specifically how often do these facebooks friends become more than that?
user 4: well i don't like to be facebook friends with someone unless i know them in person
user 4: and from there
user 4: it's just a way to pass the time once you get the core info like contact info... but it's fun to browse friends' friends etc., do searches for people meeting certain criteria
jermainelandon: do you feel a greater sense of community at UNC because of facebook?
user 4: not necessarily a greater sense of community, but i'm really surprised by its prominence, like me and my friends bring it up in convo a lot, lots of time as a joke e.g. "I'm totally facebook'ing him later" or whatever, but you hear other people talk about it too
jermainelandon: what does the number of friends someone has mean?
jermainelandon: (to you)
user 4: it's not so much a commentary on how many friends you have, but how many people you know / how visible you are on campus
user 4: and that's true most of the time, but then there are people who facebook anyone and everyone and that defeats the rule
jermainelandon: gotcha. so that's like a unspoken rule of facebook use. befriend who you know and don't go crazy with it.
user 4: i think so
jermainelandon: how can one tell the difference?
user 4: if you want to facebook the chancellor or something like Registered to Vote, go for it... but leave Tyler D. or The Thundercats out of it
user 4: and from personal experience, it's offensive when someone you don't know facebooks you, and you say, "Do I know you?" and they say, "No, but I thought we could be facebook friends anyway" -- true story
jermainelandon: haha. how did you respond?
user 4: i clicked a little button i like to call "Reject"
jermainelandon: how many people have you rejected?
user 4: oooh i dunno, not too many, i try not to 'cause it's almost offensive to. if i def. don't know them, i'll reject them. if i had a class w/ them or something they can stay, that's fine
jermainelandon: gotcha. do you feel like too much of your information is out there for the public to see?
user 4: i can take any of it down if i ever feel that way
user 4: i'll get stray IMs here and there which are weird, but unless something major happens, i'll keep it up
jermainelandon: understandable
user 4: i did get someone IMing and being like, "are you gay? i want to make fun of you" and i feel like they got my info from facebook... but i blocked them and that was that, no worries
jermainelandon: the random IMs are the worst part of facebook. i get them, too. will facebook be useful for you post-graduation?
user 4: absolutely, i'm hoping people will keep their info up to date and it'll make it really easy to stay in touch
jermainelandon: excellent. i personally love facebook. didn't think i'd get much use out of it. but i'm pretty obsessed nowadays. especially with this project i'm doing /slash/ hoping to finish soon. fingers crossed.
jermainelandon: oh
jermainelandon: last question, promise
user 4: okiedoke
jermainelandon: what do you think about facebook's usability? do you find it easy to navigate? does it have the tools you need, etc?
user 4: definitely, yeah
user 4: i can't think of something i wish i could do that i can't...
jermainelandon: do you use facebook or friendster more often?
user 4: facebook by far, i don't really do friendster anymore

What It All Means

Preece, Rheingold, Lin and others have taught us that a virtual community is a place that gives a user a sense of home, a sense of ownership and a feeling of belonging. It's a place where people can go to get away, even if just for a second. It's a place where we can communicate with others and connect with those near and far, similar or dissimilar. A virtual community is also a place where an exchange is taking place. An exchange of information. An exchange of words and pictures. An exchange of capital.

Now whether that means The Facebook is a virtual community is still purposefully unclear. I hope the debate will still drive on.