CS 581 Online Social Networks
The technical issues involved in modern internet and online social networks. Basic social network terminology; properties of social networks: connectivity, long tail, network effects; and how these properties affect real life software systems, e.g.: blogs, wikis, social bookmarks and tagging, folksonomy, and online social networks. Students will learn programming with online social networking APIs: OpenSocial, Facebook, and Twitter. They shall also develop an appreciation of ethical, legal, and technical issues like privacy, anonymity, and authentication inherent in online social network applications. Course includes a term project resulting in a social networking application that uses the social networking APIs to operate on one of the popular social software platforms.