This report is the added and altered version of the author's presentation at the 2012 preconference hosted by the Society of Socio-Informatics task force for young researchers support (aka "SSI-BJK"). The author and the members of the SSI-BJK actually used the LinkedIn, globally renowned as the SNS for professionals, in order to explore the possibility of its academic use. The findings show both the positive and negative sides of the LinkedIn. The author argues that since the LinkedIn is suitable for academic use but not a all-in-one SNS, with certain costs, a continuing comparative review of conceivable SNSs by the SSI will be desired.

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Social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn has been popularized. In the social media times, many people become more active between online and offline. Personal branding is very important strategy in order to use individual strong points. In this paper, actions of the author about practical use of social media and personal branding are introduced. It is expected that this paper will contribute to proper use of social media for each purposes and adoption of a communication design.

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This paper aims to outline the social backgrounds, circumstances and effects of the establishment of real name verification policy on Internet in South Korea. Real name verification law was introduced in order to encourage user's undesirable online behavior and responsible discussions. In 2005, the government and political force led the enactment of the law applied to election-related web sites. There seems to be underlying motive for controlling the influence of online media emerging as a strong means of political participation. In contrast to the law regulating limited online boards, the extended form of real name verification law applied to web sites in general was built with favorable consensus in 2007. There was a wide body of opinion that supports the implementation of rules since cyberspace crime was rampant. To analyze the effects of real name verification system, this study focuses on quantitative changes of the number of comments in a leading portal site DAUM. After the policy comes into effect, the number of comments has decreases obviously in the short term and it is thought that there is continuous decline in the long term. The results suggest that the enforcement of the law might cause chilling effect on online communications using comments.

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In this study, semi-structured interviews were carried out to fifteen high school students to find out negative experiences connected with "SNS Fatigue". From interviews, we collected thirty-six episodes concerned about negative experiences with SNS uses and we obtained a figure by classifying these episodes. As the result, most of students mentioned negative experiences as receivers, especially messages of slander and approaches from strangers on the Internet. Therefore, some of them felt tired of only receiving messages from other people on SNS sites. Moreover, most of them also mentioned negative experiences concerned about friends and acquaintances on the real world. Although they had negative experiences by using SNS sites, it looked difficult for them to retire from these sites. The reason was that they worried about bad influences on human relationships because they mostly used SNS sites to communicate with friends and acquaintances on the off-line world.

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In this study, semi-structured interviews were carried out to fifteen adolescent girls to clarify processes of online-dating. As the result, there were eight girls that had experienced online-dating and seven girls that had not experienced it. From interviews, experienced girls met boys by using the Instant Messenger, SNS, "Mail Box" and BBS. Although some experienced girls had negative feeling toward online-dating as well as non-experienced girls, experienced girls met boys because of positive reasons that were brought characteristics of the Internet. Moreover, they could meet boys because they freely used the Internet without web filtering services. Therefore, we ought to educate them and realize parental control with caring about adolescent psychology to avoid troubles and problems of online-dating.

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This study examines how Japanese newspaper companies utilized social media such as Twitter during and after the Great East Japan Earthquake to report earthquake-related news to the public . It is believed that newspapers play an important role at the time of a disaster by reporting vital information to audiences . However , few studies have focused on Japanese newspapers and the effects of using social media at the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake . Therefore, interviews of national and local newspaper companies located in the disaster-affected areas were conducted in this study . The findings suggest that the utilization of social media by companies that were interviewed and number of Twitter followers of the companies significantly differ , which 15 not based on customer-based corporate scales , but on frequencies of daily update and other operational methods . In addition , since the number of social media users 15 expected to increase in the tuture , it 15 crucial that newspaper companies utilize social media platforms to transmit information on a regular basis and assign personnel to effectively manage such operations .

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What could the small and medium-sized enterprises which cannot afford global expansion do, while many major companies continue to expand into foreign countries with lower labor costs in the globalized economy? Under such environment, the small and medium-sized enterprises with no core business are trying to realize "acquisition of competitive advantages", and "continuity of business" by complementing with management resources that other company has through networking to resolve those social challenges. These days, the inter-firm networks have developed into the new stage which is often characterized with the concept of "place" and "platform". In this papers, the current of the inter-firm networks rectified with the concept of "platform" and "place" is analyzed and considered, and the validity of the concept pointed out by the previous work are projected on the example of the inter-firm network currently built in actual small and mediumsized enterprises. We try to show the potential of a network solution for the small and medium-sized companies.

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