Recent works have highlighted the complementary advantages and disadvantages of web search and social media question asking (SMQA), and there has been a growing interest in merging these two. To make this idea a success, understanding the context of questions in social media is a prime concern. Yet existing works give us a hint that the positivist approach towards the context of questions is not sufficient in achieving this, and we need to revisit the concept of context regarding SMQA. In this paper, we took a practice based lens [1] to examine existing works along with real-life data of queries in a popular social network to see if it explains the broader contextual factors and associated values. Our data highlighted the importance of understanding the complex social relationship that people make within the structure of social networks, and suggest design strategies to support this through iteratively progressing.

Social media question asking (SMQA) is an interesting application where users ask factual or subjective questions through social networks, also make invitations or seek favours, among other types of queries. Topics like what we ask, what motivates us to answer, how to integrate the traditional search engines with SMQA, etc. have been well investigated. However, the effect on tagging particular people in queries is yet to be explored. In this work, we focus on targeted queries in social networking sites, where people tag some of their friends, but also remains open to others who might want to respond. We conducted a two-phase study to investigate users tagging behaviour based on question topic and type, their rationale behind tagging those particular people, and corresponding outcomes of tagging. Our result contradicts with the existing works that tried to use automated tagging in social networks and identify design opportunities that need to be considered while developing new solutions to assist in this regard.

Using Social Network Sites (SNS) as an information source has drawn the attention of the researchers for a while now. There have been many works that analyzed the types and topics of questions people ask in these networks and why. Topics like what motivate people to answer such queries, how to integrate the traditional search engines and SNS together are also well investigated. In this paper, we focus on a relevant but novel issue - how SNS search varies in developed and developing regions of the world and why. Analyzing 880 status messages collected from a widely used SNS, we have observed that, unavailability and inadequacy of information on web in developing countries play a significant role to motivate users using SNS for information retrieval. With established statistics of Internet usage, e-Governance, and our experimental data analysis, we have tried to emphasize the differences between social search and traditional web-search and provided insight that one might require to consider while developing any application for SNS based searching.

Using Social Network Sites (SNS) as an information source has drawn the attention of the researchers for a while now. There has been many works that analyzed the types and topics of questions people ask in these networks and why. Topics like what motivate people to answer such queries, how to integrate the traditional search engines and SNS together are also well investigated. In this paper, we focus on a relevant but different issue - how SNS search varies in developed and developing regions of the world and why. With established statistics of Internet usage, e-Governance, and our experimental data collection, we have tried to emphasize the differences among them and provided insight that one might require to consider while developing any application for SNS based searching.

The last decade has seen the emergence of the social networking sites (SNS) and researchers are investigating the useful applications of this technology in various areas apart from its recreational value. Ubiquitous presence of SNS has enabled us to obtain customized information seamlessly from our acquaintance. There have been many works that analyzed the types and topics of questions people ask in these networks and why. Topics like what motivates people to answer such queries, how to integrate the traditional search engines, and SNS together are also well investigated. In this research, we focus on the use of this technology in underdeveloped parts of the world and the new doors it has opened for its inhabitants in terms of obtaining information. Analyzing 880 status messages collected from a widely used SNS, we have observed that, unavailability and inadequacy of information on web in developing countries play a significant role to motivate users using SNS for information retrieval. Based on a structured survey on 328 persons, we have tried to emphasize the differences between social search and traditional web search. Our statistical analysis finds the correlations among different relevant parameters and provides insight that one might require to consider while developing any application for SNS-based searching.