Exercise 5.2: Social architects and online games

Social Architecture

Andrew Gent in the 'Incredibly Dull' website offers the following definition:

Social architecture is the conscious design of an environment that encourages certain social behavior leading towards some goal or set of goals.

http://incrediblydull.blogspot.com/2009/04/social-architecture.html

Facebook - Objectives, rules of engagement and unique features

Facebook received its first investment of US$500,000 in June 2004 from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.[33] This was followed a year later by $12.7 million in venture capital from Accel Partners, and then $27.5 million more from Greylock Partners.[33][34] A leaked cash flow statement showed that during the 2005 fiscal year, Facebook had a net loss of $3.63 million.

In August 2009 Facebook acquired social media real-time news aggregator FriendFeed, a startup created by the former Google employee and Gmail's first engineer Paul Buchheit who coined at Google the phrase "Don't be evil"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Financials

Facebook follows two core principles:

1. You should have control over your personal information.

Facebook helps you share information with your friends and people around you. You choose what information you put in your profile, including contact and personal information, pictures, interests and groups you join. And you control the users with whom you share that information through the privacy settings on the Privacy page.

2. You should have access to the information others want to share.

There is an increasing amount of information available out there, and you may want to know what relates to you, your friends, and people around you. We want to help you easily get that information.

Facebook - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Whyville objectives, rules of engagement and unique features

Whyville was launched in 1999 by Numedeon, Inc. to apply over 20 years of research in education and cooperative learning to develop new web-based tools for education.

Researchers have identified the middle school years as a time when children, especially girls, lose their interest in math and science. Studies suggest that exposure to engaging educational and in particular scientific activities during this critical period can substantially influence future academic and career choices. We launched Whyville as a virtual city, which engages young people in constructive educational activities while promoting socially responsible behavior. It is an outgrowth of the company's extensive research and practical experience related to learner-centered, hands-on, inquiry-based education.

http://www.whyville.net/smmk/nice

Conclusion - Are they true social architects?

In my view, both sites are true Social Architectures according to Gent (above). In order for the sites to develop they need finance and resources. The pressure for these sites to remain true to their principles while looking for a revenue model than is sustainable is immense. Both sites require advertising to underwrite their development and what they offer to advertisers is exposure to their enormous communities. Facebook claims a user base of 45 million. As with all modern sites, both are database driven and provides the capability of delivering highly targeted advertising because the choice of advertisements is determined by user choice through search and other navigation throughout the site.

Having joined and experienced both sites, I believe that they both are true to their principles and despite being at best revenue neutral, they DO offer value (not $) to their users and stakeholders. I also believe they provide a positive difference to their communities.