WHAT IS “SNS” NETWORK MEMBER’S ACTIVITY AND ATTITUDE?

Takatsugu Aoki
Waseda University
The graduate school of commerce
Nishi-waseda 1-6-1,Shinjuku-ku,Tokyo,JapanABSTRACT
Will not social networking services “SNS” be different in a certain kind of network
characteristic in comparison with the internet community and the real community as aconventional real social relations?
As the reasons we assume that it has three unique characteristics of SNS network as follows;
1. SNS basically consists of “strong interest for a person” and “relationships of mutualtrust”.
2. In SNS, real human relations and virtual human relations coexist.
3. In SNS, there is a unique and variety about the connection with other people.
In addition, it is thought that an activity of SNS members will vary with psychologically andintention of members from a property by ethics and a function in the unique world.
Therefore, how will SNS affect it for the interactivity and the spread of information and theword-of-mouth communication in inside if activity of members changes variously?
This study consists of two parts. First part is structural analysis of SNS network. In second
part, how will a property of a virtual network based on real relations of SNS affect for"activity of relation to information" "activity of reliability" and "consumption activity"? We
carried out quantitative investigation for an actual mixi members ―even though mixi has
members of the biggest scale in Japanese SNS―after having shown a hypothesis and weprocessed the data which we acquired and statistically analyzed to see correlation of avariable of “a characteristic to be based on real relations" "A characteristic to be based onvirtual relations" and "an activity variable in a hypothesis"
Both of part1 and part2 are based on "mixi" which is the representative and the biggest
SNS network in Japan.（Over 10,000,000members at May .20.2007 ）This study
presentation mainly consists of the part 1.
Keywords: SNS; a real characteristic; a virtual characteristic; information spread;
word-of-mouth communications; reliability

1What is the SNS Network Member’s Activity and Attitude?

SNS environment in Japan and “mixi”

1) Difference Internet Community and SNS
Negoro / Ebine (2000) define the internet community as follow. "A place on the network
where people are interested in a certain kind of value gather" They denote the4characteristic, ⅰ).An information exhibition, ⅱ).An information accumulation, ⅲ).An
initiative of the information dispatch and the information receipt, ⅳ). A mutual referenceof the information Therefore, It clearly different from the conventional real community,and do not depend on "regionality" and "presence of a bond" as a general rule. Furthermore,
They point out that it have " The characteristics of the information accumulation " and "Ancharacteristics that it is asynchronously possible for dispatch, receipt, reading". On theother hand, SNS is a network based on real acquaintance relations unlike the internetcommunity which have anonymity basically as the mainstream. By adding the virtual
relations that is the friends of friends or the unknown people into SNS network, it would
have a structure unlike conventional internet community. Furthermore, it is thought that adefinition of SNS becomes apparent by trying to replace a part of "value" in the definitionof the above-mentioned Internet community in "Involvement to a person" "Interest to atheme".

SNS(mixi etc.)

The real world
Reflecting
a real network

A real networkadds on a virtualnetwork

A virtual
network is
partlyreflected
into a realnetwork

Figure A.

2What is the SNS Network Member’s Activity and Attitude?

2) Comparison of American SNS and Japanese SNS

In U.S.A. where SNS was born, there are service brands such as Friendster and Orcut,MySpace. Ｔrying to observe a characteristic of MySpace which is the largest network inU.S, We will understand that they do not adopt “an invitation system” Therefore it is notalways that is the network model which depended on the real friends. There is main activityof the members for the purpose of being connected to the same hobby-oriented virtualmembers. In addition, these SNS have abundantly exhibition function of a song or acustomized function of an original page, therefore, the entertainment tendency isremarkable. On the other hand, as for Japanese SNS, the largest mixi or GREE adopt "aninvitation system". This is because mixi refers to a service model of Orcut and started up inJapan. These SNS are the network based on the real friends by "an invitation system". Asfor the activity of the participants, communication with a friend by "a diary" function plays
a key role. In addition, mixi equips the function which can controll in detail the information
disclosing range and "ASHIATO; means footprints in Japanese" function which canascertain an access history of another person. Individually, giving a network action ofmembers some choices and it does not damage a network. Furthermore, it is characteristic
to include a function of monitor to another person who is unknown.

3) Structure of mixi

Showing an example of the individual page screen of mixi to Figure B. Called friend
relations on mixi "My mixi" and you can find the relations of the friends.In addition, tell
you by an alert and give it when comment from a friend for your diary in mixi, and amessage as an email function reaches it. Furthermore, you need not to be peeped out
indefinite people with a profile and a diary because to be able to set in detail setting of a
profile exhibition and a disclosing range of your diary.

3What is the SNS Network Member’s Activity and Attitude?

Ad

New message,
Alert ofcomment

There is one new message.
ProfileSelfintroducing●●●●●さ ん(36)Myselforiginalexpression

マイミクシィ

RecentdiarySelf
introducing

My mixi (My friends in mixi)

Recent diary●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●

コミュニティ

●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●The latest●●
recommendation●

Recommended
review
Introduction fromyour friend

A list of registration
community

Figure B.

Figure C made human relations in mixi a chart. Although an interchange range is the wholein mixi as a general rule, by an access control function, you can limit it. Though based on
the real friends relations, but actually, as for "My mixi", unkown person is registered withthere basically, too. In other words, real relations and virtual relations coexist.

4What is the SNS Network Member’s Activity and Attitude?

Strong virtual tendency “Real and virtual mixture”
Strong Real tendency

Strong Real tendency
The Outside ofa mixi network

RealRealcommunity
community

ActuallyActuallyknown
knownfriends
friends

My mixi

Friends of my mixi

Myself
MyselfActuallyActuallyunknown
unknownfriends
friends

The whole mixi
(Includes non-real community)

Strong virtual tendency
Strong virtual tendency “Real and virtual mixture”

Figure C. The Structure of mixi Member’s Relation

Factor analysis to determine an action of mixi members
In mixi, members oneself can control an exhibition of information by the recommended
tacit rule and a function equipped with, and can know access from strange people promptly.
In addition, stem from “trust of the relations” that acquaintance relations link to by "aninvitation system". These have a profound effect on the psychological side for aentrybarrier to mixi of a participant and an activity barrier in mixi of a participant. In otherwords, it is mixed with a tendency to actions such as an open tendency or closed tendency
of a participant and determines an action in a network and complicates it. It is thought thatmixi differs essentially from the conventional virtual net community in that network
characteristics (Figure 4)

5

What is the SNS Network Member’s Activity and Attitude?

Table A.

Barrier down
Entry barrier

Systems property
Recommended
rule inmixi

Opentendency

Closedtendency

Activity barrier (In mixi)
Opentendency

An effect of "asystematicproperty"* Grasp of ananother person
attribute* Reduction ofuncertainty* Specification of a
suspicious
individual* The formation of
a closed network
which you intended

Real name exhibition

Profile exhibition

Invitation system
Networking selfcontrol
Functioncharacter
istic

Closedtendency* Monitor of a
suspicious individual* Grasp of an anotherperson action* A message of silence

Mutual reference ofthe visiting track

Mutual reference of
the access log* Grasp of ananother person
actionMutual confirmationof a comment note
(RSS function)* Grasp of an anotherperson action* A message of silence

Barrier up
As a result, theproperty that is brought* The formation of "realoriented" a trust / arelief network* Improvement ofreliability of information* Self-propagation of atrust network

Influence to a consumption action (Practical use to the marketing)
The Information of mixi members interacts variously. In mixi inside, the information
which is affecting consumption actions such as evaluation about a product and service
circulates.How much influence will these information give members aspect each other asexpected?It followed that we showed it in Graph A as a result of questionary survey formixi members.By influenced from the evaluation of a friend of direct acquaintance and theevaluation of indirect-known people such as the friends of a friend, this graph denotes over
25% ratio that purchased an object product and service at least one time.It extrapolates that6What is the SNS Network Member’s Activity and Attitude?

the influence of information of known people is actually strong more than the informationof strange people. Reversely, it is thought that the minus effect is strong in the same way.

Influenceof diaryマイミクシィの日記情報 8.7% 11.9%
information of “mymixi”

About 25% ratios, mixi
user is affected by diary
79.4%
information
andpurchases and uses it.

Influence of diary
友だちの友だちの日記情報
information of94.4%

3.2%“Friends of mymixi”
2.4%
0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

I knew it from mixi diary information and purchased it.
日記の推奨情報ではじめて知って、その影響で購入(利用)した。
Already known it, but purchased it under influence of mixi diary

すでに知っていたが、日記の推奨情報の影響で購入(利用)した。
information.
I have not purchased it under influence of mixi diary information
日記の推奨情報の影響で購入(利用)したことはない。

Graph A.

7100%

What is the SNS Network Member’s Activity and Attitude?

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