The Development and Experimental Study on Social Networking Website with A Matchmaking System for Knowledge Exchange

The growth of social media leads to increased user activities on social media sites. However, some of these activities are observed to be unproductive. Therefore, a social networking website with a matchmaking system named NULE was designed to enable users to exchange knowledge to create a more effective social media platform. NULE was developed with the RAD methodology. PHP was chosen as the programming language to develop the website. Meanwhile, the system is modeled with UML 2.5 diagrams. In order to determine the system's effectiveness, an empirical study was conducted to compare the results of knowledge exchange with Facebook, an existing social networking website without a matchmaking system. The tested variables are communication easiness, learning effectiveness, and learning satisfaction. Based on the results, NULE with the matchmaking system was found to be more effective for knowledge exchange than Facebook. (Abstract)