Fitcolab Experimental Online Social Networking System

Scholars have recently started to explore specific characteristics of increasingly popular online social networks. This paper presents Fitcolab online social network (OSN). This real life, modern OSN was created as an experimental research network which should allow for examination of various phenomena pertaining to network structure of online social networks. The main goal of the paper is to thoroughly describe and document Fitcolab OSN so that it can be easier referenced in future research work, as our research results that follow will be based on the wealth of collected data from this OSN. Additionally, anonymised network data will be gradually released to research community. The paper first presents users' wider environment and describes development process of the OSN. It then focuses on description of the final version of the system which was used to collect research data. Lastly, network boundary specification is carried out.