On Social Network Web Sites: Definition, Features, Architectures and Analysis Tools

Development and usage of online social networking web sites are growingrapidly. Millions members of these web sites publicly articulate mutual friendship relations and share user-created contents, such as photos, videos, files, and blogs.The advances in web designing technology and fast growing usage of onlineresources prompted web designers to improve features and architectures of socialweb sites. This paper, with the experience of the authors in developing the IranianExperts Social Network containing above 120,000 official members, describes thefeatures of Social Web Sites (SWSs) and proposes a taxonomy and comprehensivedefinition in designing such social networking tools. We then present different SWSarchitectures and also introduce some useful tools for social network analysis.

Keywords:

Social network web site , Social media web site , e-society , Social NetworkAnalysis