Title: Developers' social networks - tools analysis based on the 3Cs model

Authors: Hani Bani-Salameh; Clinton Jeffery; Maen Hammad

Addresses: Department of Software Engineering, The Hashemite University, Zarqa 13115, Jordan ' Department of Computer Science, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844, USA ' Department of Software Engineering, The Hashemite University, Zarqa 13115, Jordan

Abstract: Social networks (SNs) have the potential to fundamentally change the nature of our social lives and interactions, both personally and at the community level. They affect the way people interact no matter who they are (students, instructors, lawyers, programmers, or distributed developers), and no matter where they are (co-located or geographically distributed). SNs can be either general purpose social networks (GSNs) that attract diverse audiences or specific purpose social networks (SSNs) dedicated to the interests of a group or a small community. This article focuses on a popular type of the specific purpose SNs which are the developers' social networks (DSNs). This article defines social networks and developers' social networks. Also, it outlines social networks' evolution, and gives examples of existing social media tools and social networks targeted at developers and software development communities. It compares DSNs to GSNs, and bases its comparison on a new set of common metrics. Finally, it applies the feature-oriented domain analysis (FODA) and 3Cs collaboration model to classify and analyse the collaborative tools supported in DSNs.

Keywords: general purpose social networks; GSNs; specific purpose social networks; SSNs; developers social networks; DSNs; virtual communities; 3C collaboration model; feature-oriented domain analysis; FODA; social media tools; web based communities; online communities.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNVO.2013.059685

International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations, 2013 Vol.13 No.2, pp.159 - 175

Received: 27 Jun 2013
Accepted: 30 Nov 2013
Published online: 19 Jul 2014 *

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