The Impact of Design Features on the Social Network Formations on Twitter and Plurk

Milwaukee.
The final speaker of this final session at AoIR 2009 is Raquel Recuero, who shifts our focus to Brazil and its adoption of Twitter and Plurk (another micromessaging tool, but one which has a horizontal rather than vertical logic and enables replies within the message - Google Wave-style, it seems). How is the appropriation of these different social network sites influenced by the conversations that these platforms enable; how do the conversations reveal different types of social networks?

Raquel's study examined the conversational structures in these sites using social network analysis, but also engaged in content analysis and ethnographic research. Of the two sites, Plurk makes it easier to track continuing conversations, but there is less multimodality; there are often more participants to conversations and more recurrent participants (at an average of nine), conversations are more coherent and synchronous, and extend over more conversational turns (at an average of 15). On Twitter, the process is more disruptive - it is difficult to keep track of conversations, and they are less synchronous; conversations have an average of only two turns, and indeed there are fewer conversations in the first place, with fewer participants (at an average of two).

Users on Twitter seem to have a much larger social network, but engage less in conversations; on Plurk, they have a smaller network, but conversations tend to happen more frequently, are longer, and engage more users. This may simply be a design issue, but also points to the fact that Twitter is more an informational than a conversational tool, even if conversation also happens; the balance is reversed for Plurk. Plurk is also used more for social networks characterised by stronger, more intimate ties, and is more symmetrical as a result. This influences users' adoption of these tools for particular purposes.

And that's it! Great conference as always - congratulations to the organisers!

Technorati : AoIR 2009, Brazil, Plurk, Twitter, design, features, social network, uses
Del.icio.us : AoIR 2009, Brazil, Plurk, Twitter, design, features, social network, uses