Social Networking
As part of the new convergent experience of Xbox Live, Mircrosoft have made two social networks available on the Xbox Live System: Facebook and Twitter.
Facebook is now the world’s biggest social networking site with over 400 million active users (Facebook, 2010), while Twitter is the fastest growing, with a growth rate of 1382% from 2008 to 2009 (McCarthy, 2009).
The Xbox Live Facebook service uses Facebook Connect to link your Facebook profile to your Xbox Live gamertag. This won’t give you full access to Facebook, but rather a limited version of it. Facebook on Xbox Live will only allow you to view Facebook profiles, update your status and look at pictures. However Xbox Live also does uniquely allow you to update your profile to let your friends know about your in-game achievements and easily post in-game screenshots (McElroy, 2009). It will also allow you to see which of your Facebook friends are on Xbox Live so you can add them, which will be an opt-out service (McElroy, 2009).
Twitter on Xbox Live will post your gamertag status on your twitter account, which will be automatically updated every few minutes (Miller, 2009). It will also allow you to post and view tweets on your television through the Xbox Live network.
The ability to use these social networking services through your Xbox is an important feature of the increasing convergent nature of the Xbox Live platform. Greater study needs to be taken to fully understand how the introduction of this new feature of the Xbox Live system allows people to connect in new and different ways.
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