Application Of Skill-oriented Social Networking

Abstract

Social networking services (SNS) plays an important role in future evolution and has highly impacted the way people communication on the Internet. Since its inception social networking has been undergone through many changes and what it has evolved into today, however improvement is a never-ending cycle. The design of social networks influences the habits of people interaction with each other online and shapes our society. It brings many benefits to the users and has become an indispensable part of our life, these advantages include the personal experience and knowledge sharing to marketing of products and services to professional and enterprise level purposes. In this project, I am going to design and develop such a social networking platform that provides a way to register users who want to demonstrate and earn from their skills and expertise and other people will be able to search and contact those users with needed skills in order to fulfil their on-demand work and service requirements. Such a model of social networking service would provide a way to promote the skills and expertise of any professional, hobbyist and individual as well.

Statement of Problem

There are quite a lot of social networking services that connects people with each other. Such services include Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Pinterest etc. There are also different kinds of on-demand services platforms such as Freelancer.com, DoorMojo, Wesabi, Agriya’s service, TaskBob, BIZZBY, Helpr etc. However, both of these types are very different in nature, first type of service is primarily used for messaging, sharing posts, marketing etc., whereas latter focuses solely on providing on-demand jobs and home services which are limited in terms of locations, category of services offerings and moreover many of those operating within a certain business entity with third-party involvement. So, there is a need of such a social networking platform that acts as an online networking place where people who need a particular sort of service or job can search and connect other people with that specific type of skill and knowledge to meet their needs in a peer-to-peer fashion.

Project Overview

Everyone has a special skill, hobby, or passion about some kind of work, this project will provide a way for people to share their knowledge, expertise and if possible, provide some professional assistance or work and may be able to earn on the side through some online social networking applications like WhatsApp, Viber etc. However, this application will be different in such a way that anyone who registers will need to provide their skills, abilities and areas of knowledge while creating their profile and even add their own works (personal or professional) that demonstrate their skills in the form of visuals or media. Users with professional experience can also specify their charges or fees, e.g. Rate/Hour etc. depending on the nature of work and the type of service it offers. With that, People would be able to search profiles based on specified filter criteria with type of skill(s) and knowledge. For instance, if I need someone who has developed Android applications of financial category so that I can contact him/her, discuss about my particular type of application requirements, and even hire to do my job and if he/she fulfills my requirement, I can provide feedback to his/her profile about their skills and abilities. Take another example, if I need a carpenter for kitchen cabinets then I can search them and see their prior works (if they have uploaded any). So basically, it will be a Skill-Oriented Social Networking Application that will provide a platform to register based on skills and search profiles based on skills and expertise.

Project Objectives

This project will be developing for the following purposes and considerations:

1. To develop a social networking service on a newer model for productive use.
2. To digitize on-demand service needs availability through an online platform.
3. To provide an easy way of finding and connecting skilled and professional people to meet any kind of needs without any third-party involvement.
4. To make such a platform where we can provide feedback and suggestions for any kind of work and service we have availed/used to help others to choose the best possible option.

Project Hardware and Software Requirements

• Mobile Application development upon Android platform.
• Android-based Smartphone with 7.0 (nougat) or newer versions.
• Cloud-based or database server for data storage.
• Internet connectivity.
• SMS gateway service (optional).

Project High-level Use Case Diagram

Tentative Timelines

Figure 1. Schedule for completion of the project. The first presentation will be on 2nd or 3rd week of January, and the final presentation and demonstration will be conducted on last week of May tentatively.

Literature Review

There are numerous researches and worked done on different kinds of social networking platforms, their impacts and future trends of social media.

Social networking services gives power to people to keep in touch with friends, making communities of people who share same interests and activities, facilitates communications, interaction and information sharing among them, these services can also be useful for events such as discussions, asking advice, counselling and sharing experiences with other people, etc. [1].

The theory of social media believes that the world is a network of social actors and connections, that connection is a medium of social resources, and actors look for opportunities, can exchange information and make use of those resources [2].

Most of the social networking platforms such as Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram can be accessed via smart phones. In 2009, a mobile-based social messaging platform “WhatsApp” was launched to make social networking activities much easier and supported all the basic features of any social networking application, i.e. to communicate with others personally and in a group, share photos, documents, location, and status updates etc. WhatsApp has revolutionized the way people connect and communicate with each other. The future trends of social networks will focus on the different ways to share a dynamic content i.e. real-time photos, videos, statuses, visits etc. As seen from the current trend of social networking, the amount of dynamic contents generated on social networking is very large and becoming larger as more users joining these social networking sites [3]. Nowadays, there has been a huge rise of social media data.

5-Oct 25-Oct 14-Nov 4-Dec 24-Dec 13-Jan 2-Feb 22-Feb 14-Mar 3-Apr 23-Apr13-May

Requirements Identification

Requirements Analysis

Solution Design and Documentation

Review and changes

Development and Implementation

Testing

Deployment

Final Documentation and Report preparation

Final Presentation and Demonstration

For instance, figures show that in every minute of 2017, there are half a million new tweets over Twitter and about 50 thousand of new photos posted on Instagram. We are therefore witnessing a technological trend heading towards social media personalization [4].

The true strength of social media, compared to passive mass media, is that it can be used by any individual or self-organizing group for a common purpose. Empowered users, knowing that their contribution can make a difference, are more committed and more satisfied than passive viewers [5].

Online social interactions are evolving to address the growing needs of its users’ communities and making entries into many aspects of our lives. This evolution may well be amongst the most exciting ones of our times where every individual and community has the power to contribute and share information, experiences, ideas, knowledge and expertise. Improvements can be shaped by a better understanding of user needs and behaviors and it may be possible through the seamless integration of technologies, new applications, new domains, and search capabilities. Some of these changes will undoubtedly permeate into and change the way we work [6].

References

1. A. Nguyen and N. Crespi, ‘SOCIAL-DTN: Why Social Networking Services is more fruitful to Mobile Delay-Tolerant Networks?,’ 2009 International Conference on Ultra Modern Telecommunications & Workshops, St. Petersburg, 2009, pp. 1-2.
2. Y. Guo and J. Chen, ‘A Case Study: Social Network and Knowledge Sharing,’ 2010 International Conference on E-Business and E-Government, Guangzhou, 2010, pp. 1715-1718.
3. E. Baatarjav and R. Dantu, ‘Current and Future Trends in Social Media,’ 2011 IEEE Third International Conference on Privacy, Security, Risk and Trust and 2011 IEEE Third International Conference on Social Computing, Boston, MA, 2011, pp. 1384-1385.
4. F. Persia, M. Ge and D. D’Auria, ‘How to Exploit Recommender Systems in Social Media,’ 2018 IEEE International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration (IRI), Salt Lake City, UT, 2018, pp. 537-541.
5. S. Bresciani and A. Schmeil, ‘Social media platforms for social good,’ 2012 6th IEEE International Conference on Digital Ecosystems and Technologies (DEST), Campione d’Italia, 2012, pp. 1-6.
6. Ajita John, Lada Adamic, Marc Davis, Frank Nack, David A. Shamma, and Doree D. Seligmann. 2008. The future of online social interactions: what to expect in 2020. In Proceedings of the 17th international conference on World Wide Web (WWW ’08). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1255-1256.