|
« November 2003 | Main | January 2004 » December 31, 2003roleplaying in social softwareRoleplaying in social software is not contained to just Friendster. I remember being quite humored to find that both Saddam and Dubya had LiveJournals during their tiff. This morning, i got a note from a fellow researcher, Anindita Basu, responding to my postings of Live Journal statistics: oh, reminds me-- i meant to respond to your post about lj stats. i'm not sure about this, but i don't think they're taking roleplayers into account in their stats, and they're (or rather we're) probably throwing numbers off. that's what i'm looking at now, research-wise. blog-based roleplaying. communities appropriating online technologies to co-construct stories. there are a lot of young teenage girls who've set up blogs as harry potter characters, for instance, saying they were born on july 31, 1980 like harry potter and live in the UK. so male/female numbers are off as well as ages and locations. besides the whole harry potter community, there are a bunch of others, including buffy, lord of the rings and even pop icon based ones. i'm not sure how many are out there, if the numbers are significant enough to skew their stats out of their million users, but it's something to take note of. I have *no* idea how many roleplayers exist within the world of LJ, but i'd bet that it's no small number. Yet, all too often, these subcultures go unnoticed by the larger tech world. This behavior is quite reminiscent of that vast community of fan fiction and slash fans. When i started working with Henry Jenkins, i was astonished to hear how many people produced fan fiction online. For those who don't know what fan fiction/slash are, imagine watching a TV show (like Buffy) and then writing back stories about what is really happening behind the scenes. Using the characters from the show, people would produce thousands of subplots, stories of the characters when they were younger/older, etc. Slash is a particular subform of fan fiction where underlying homoerotic/sexual subplots are revealed. Before the net, people were using zines to write fan fiction. Now, fan fiction writers from all over the world are connected via the Internet. Fan fiction is a fascinating form of participation in media consumption. The audience participates on a deeper level, engaging with the characters and building a community of like-minded folks who help each other with writing, personal struggles, etc. Not suprisingly, quite a lot of fan fiction is created by individuals trying to work out their own demons. Of course, here's where the lawyers have a field day (oh, Creative Commons...). The first issue is not surprising... Some have charged that this reappropriation of characters violates copyright/trademark. But, here's a beaut... Often, teens are using fan fiction to explore their sexuality. When 14-year olds write fiction about sex, is it child porn? Even worse, when 14-year olds write about imagined sexual encounters with teachers (i.e. in the context of Harry Potter), is it pedophelia? Henry is having a field day looking into these claims. But it certainly puts a nice twist into the process. Btw, for those who find this topic fascinating, definitely read Textual Poachers by Henry Jenkins. Oh, and Henry blogs in collection at Technology Review. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 12:41 PM | TrackBack (0) December 30, 2003developing digital and physical architectureBless Ross for pulling together all of the conversations that emerged from Cory's 2004 wish. After pulling together the strands, he offers his own perspective and i particularly like his commentary on openness and control. When we refer to the regulatory forces that include "code," we're almost always referring to Lessig and his book of that title. In it, he references code as the architecture of the digital world. It's a great metaphor, but perhaps we should consider some of the physical issues that surround physical architecture. [If there are any architects out there, pipe in!] When an architect designs a physical space, there is rarely iteration. I don't mean to suggest that buildings don't learn; of course they do. What becomes extensible about a physical architecture is how it can be repurposed. See, the designer, creator and constructor of a physical architecture usually turns over the creation to the users. This is not to say that there's not a manger of physical architectures, but the manager is rarely the creator. At most, the manager calls upon the constructor to fix or alter something. Seriously, how many architects are there that obsessively design, fix, maintain and control a building? The distribution of creation, control and use of physical architectures is a truly distributed process. Many architects are probably a bit horrified by how their constituents use their constructions, but they don't play wack-a-mole with their users (although it is funny to imagine the ghosts of architects past coming out of the walls screaming that a painting is NOT supposed to be placed there). And users are certainly never fully pleased with the creators. I can't tell you how many Media Lab students damned I.M. Pei and that darn artist who made it impossible to get light in the building or create a feeling of connectivity. It's funny because we don't ask architects to iterate on their creations based on use, but we do ask that they create structures that allow for a variety of different uses. When they don't, their creations become outdated and unusable. How much of this applies to code? While the metaphor of code as architecture certainly makes some sense, there are lots of ways in which software architects are not similar to physical architects, both in how they treat their creation, its longevity, its users, etc. But perhaps there are some ways in which they could learn from one another... Category:
Posted by zephoria at 12:49 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0) December 29, 2003Kuleshov effect and remix cultureOne of the weirdest things about December and May is that my brain is always so full of academic concepts that they somehow manage to get integrated into many conversations. At the Creative Commons party, i found myself talking to lawyers about the Kuleshov effect and its relevance to remix culture. Or more accurately, the problems that emerge because of it... Lev Kuleshov was a Russian filmmaker. Because of the political climate of Russia, he was left without access to actual film. Instead, he constructed films by splicing film and telling his story in a collage-esque manner. In addition to his style of film, he's known for something called the Kuleshov Experiment. In this experiment, an image of a man's face is shown juxtapositioned with various other images immediately following. Viewers thought that the man's emotion changed even though it is exactly the same shot. This creates an interesting dilemma for remix culture. What happens when an artist's construction is repurposed to convey something different than intended? Does an artist have control over the context in which their material is used? How might this affect how people are willing to distribute their material? Category:
Posted by zephoria at 1:14 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (6) December 28, 2003social norms are not behind other points of regulationIn weaving a response to me, Joi connected my arguments with Wendy Seltzer's commentary on the norms of publicity. In reading her argument, i found that i take issue with some of her assumptions so i'm putting them here for discussion. We early adopters know how referer logs work... We know how to write .htaccess files, or at least whom to ask for something similar, if we want better (though still not total) privacy. We've internalized the norm that conduct not marked private is public. There is no doubt in my mind that the self-referential "A-List" blogger knows this and WANTS their conduct to be public, but there is a second form of early adopter that is getting swept away by the blogging phenomenon. Live Journalers and other pseudo-private bloggers were also part of this. Many of them do not know how to work an .htaccess file or even manage the LJ Friends lists. Over and over again, i run into people who are outright shocked that their material is on Google. For them, their website is not public; Google is public. And they don't understand how their private ramblings ended up on Google. As technologists, we have a tendency to mock this population, arguing that it's their own fault for being stupid. Well, this is foolish. The technology is not being devised by them or for them. They are getting swept away by decisions in many ways propagated by the A-List blogger-esque community that WANTS to be public, seen and heard. Furthermore, when they do realize things are public, they often don't care so long as it doesn't affect them locally. This is not because they are stupid but because the mass populous does not fear Big Brother and that is their conception of why they should care about privacy. In many ways, us technologists do a disservice to the population when we ask them to rebel against these technologies because of how institutions might treat them. They WANT to sell their data for the chance of winning a Porsche. They WANT the Easy Pass because they don't think that the government cares; they're law-abiding, right? People care about local vulnerability... things that will affect them personally. That's what Garfinkel and others have noticed that people perk up when their identity is stolen or when their boss finds out about their digital behavior. People don't think about how the technology is evolving because it's not evolving in a direction that meets their needs. Thus, it is unfathomable. I wondered at first if privacy tensions would ease as more people became more technically sophisticated, but I'm inclined to think that gaps in understanding will just move with the tech, and social norms will follow still further behind. I think it is quite dangerous to believe that social norms are "falling behind." Social norms aren't behind; they're baffled at the direction in which things are going. They're pushing for a different direction and they aren't being heard. People are using technology to meet their needs, but they are not prepared for how the architecture is pulling them in a different direction. Arguing that social norms can fall behind suggests that there is a hierarchy to the four points of regulation. Those points are valuable in discussion because they provide tensions. Social norms pull in different directions than the market, the law or the technology. This does not mean that it is behind. Quite often, social norms leapfrog everyone else. For example, social norms pushed Napster into creating an architecture that challenged the market and the law. It wasn't that the market was behind, but that it was pulling in a different direction and with a new tension, things need to be worked out. Thus, rather than thinking about how social norms are behind, i truly believe that we should be understanding why social norms are pulling in a different direction. What does this say about the population being served by the technology? Category:
Posted by zephoria at 4:36 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (3) graffiti archaeology in WiredYay Cassidy!!! Cassidy's Graffiti Archaeology project was just featured in Wired. For anyone in San Francisco, Cassidy will be speaking at the upcoming Dorkbot on January 14 at False Profit - come check it out! Category:
Posted by zephoria at 4:15 PM | TrackBack (0) December 25, 2003The Year in Phrases: FriendsterWhile i don't have a lot of respect for Fox News, i'm quite humored that they included metrosexuals and Friendster in their year in phrases: Friendster: Like an online dating site ... but for friends. The site allows people to form networks with their friends, their friends' friends and so on, and is largely used as a hook-up vehicle for single, urban 20-somethings. Several celebrities have confessed to being Friendster addicts, and the site was so popular this year that it was often impossible to sign on. Category: yasns
Posted by zephoria at 2:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) December 24, 2003competition vs. collaboration: events, people & ideasAn old lover of mine once told me that there are people who talk about events, people who talk about people and people who talk about ideas. Combine this with collaboration vs. competition and here is another set of axes along which we can consider bloggers. A friend of mine conveyed a story to me of an incident when he and another pundit blogger were talking about a concept. Suddenly, they both had a look in their eyes, read clearly by each other as a battle cry to see who could blog about it first. Time and trackbacks are the classic weapons used by pundit idea bloggers. They want to get their ideas out there, validated and linked to. The pundit blogger is competing for attention, for validation, for uniqueness. The sociable blogger talking about life is not in a race against time or for greater trackbacks. S/he knows that there are a million different perspectives, all of which are valuable. There is no one truth, only opinions. What makes an event or a person or an idea more valuable in this community is that variety of different opinions on the matter, the variety of different perspectives. Together, as a community, this brings life to something. There are two different ways to talk about events, people and ideas and you see this played out by bloggers. Some events are discussed because each parrt of the community wants to bring life to their perspective on the matter. Nowhere is this more true than something that affects everyone differently. Take 9/11. Everyone blogged/journaled about it, each with their own voice. What was powerful was to get a fleshed out view of the event from so many different perspectives. Some events are published in competition. How many bloggers do you know who speak of a private event to prove that they were there, to draw attention to their status? There are a variety of reasons for which bloggers talk about people. Bloggers show their respect and adoration through links to other people (or their ideas). Bloggers compete with others through similar mechanisms. In some cases, bloggers mock others to prove their self-importance, to increase their stature. The list can go on and is awefully similar to RL. Just as we name-drop in RL, we name drop on blogs. Then there are ideas.... Blogs are a public forum. For some, they are a publishing forum. As such, people want their ideas to be unique and first. For others, it is a space to flesh out ideas and thus they put their ideas out there to be discussed, improved upon and dissected. Others put their ideas out there to help shape other known theories. The latter two approaches are collaborative while the first is very much competitive. Anyhow, cross collaboration vs. competition with events, people and ideas and you have an interesting lens through which to consider different blog posts. Of course, most bloggers cannot be simply labeled as competitive or collaborative, but a combination of both. Still, there are trends, and this helps explain some blogging habits. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 2:25 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0) die puny technologistsOn Die Puny Humans, a selection of folks have created statements for 2004. I was pleasantly surprised to read Cory Doctorow's call to the toolmakers of 2004: Stop making tools that magnify and multilply awkward social situations ("A total stranger asserts that he is your friend: click here to tell a reassuring lie; click here to break his heart!") ("Someone you don't know very well has invited you to a party: click here to advertise whether or not you'll be there!") ("A 'friend' has exposed your location, down to the meter, on a map of people in his social network, using this keen new location-description protocol -- on the same day that you announced that you were leaving town for a week!"). I don't need more "tools" like that, thank you very much. Now, i don't know much about science fiction, but i read it once in a while to understand the models that technologists are trying to mimic. When i asked Cory about the relationship between scifi and technology, he told me that scifi is not supposed to be prescriptive. Scifi is modeled after what exists today and is not a representation of the future. Quite often, very little in the way of technology is fully fleshed out. In this regard, he's quite accurate. Even his own Whuffie (which i hear about in way too many meetings on reputation) is barely detailed in "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom." Still, while scifi shouldn't be prescriptive, many technologists interpolate the ideas presented and flesh it out to be beyond problematic. Often, they have the nerve to refer to the fiction books as their model for why it is a good idea. Given his role as a science fiction writer, i'm quite pleased to see him call out to technologists. All too often, the omniscient technologies that appear in the science fiction novels are not representations of good things, but embedded in a discussion of the pros/cons of changing social interaction through technology. Take Cory's Whuffie and his examples of people scorning others because they are not worthy enough of interaction. C'mon now. All of us geeks have experienced a form of that, being chastised for not being cool enough, good looking enough, whatever enough. Why on earth would we want to develop a technology that encourages that? Oh, right, because if _we_ build it, we can be the ones in power, right? Hrmfpt. Seriously now, such a creation creates a whole new level of social awkwardness, new hierarchies that constrain us. Just because it's an idea for a novel does not make it an idea for life. So, in fleshing out Cory's call to technologists, i'd ask all technologists to consider not only what problems a technology solves, but what new ones could emerge. Start thinking like a writer or an abuser of technology. Imagine how people could misuse a technology to hurt others. Consider who gains and loses power from such technology. It's a fascinating exercise and far more fulfilling than just thinking about who benefits from something. And besides, then you won't always be thinking "but the users shouldn't do THAT with this technology." Category: digitalness
Posted by zephoria at 12:49 PM | Comments (17) | TrackBack (3) December 23, 2003location trackingMany bloggers post about where they are as they travel - especially the business people and the wandering backpackers. Well, for those who love to be tracked, Yuri put together a simple location tracker for MT. If this sounds like something you'd like, use it and give him feedback. [I, for one, like to hide... but i know that i'm not entirely normal.] Category:
Posted by zephoria at 3:36 PM | TrackBack (0) inappropriate bloggingAs i meet more and more of the uber-bloggers, i continue to get more horrified as they play out their catty games in a public forum. It's one thing to critique a product, an idea, someone's politics and philosophies. It's another thing to pull up private matters into a public forum or to mock people's struggles to overcome their own self-defeating habits. What's worse is that i watch bloggers write this material to elevate their own position in the eyes of the person they are mocking. So counterproductive and insulting. I've been trying to tease apart the difference between LJ folks and the uber bloggers (particularly those who blog about people, not simply ideas/links). At first, i thought it had to do with content, but the more i think about it, the more i think it has to do with audience. At this point, i expect journalers to talk about their STDs, their cheating, their love life and all other made-for-Jerry-Springer content. But i expected public bloggers who make a name out of blogging to be a bit more sophisticated. Unfortunately, their content is often just as catty, only its self-importance tries to make it seem otherwise. The bloggers want the whole world to see their opinion of other bloggers... so that the hierarchy is created publicly. Thus, rather than just creating personal content for friends, the bloggers are going for others' public throats. Erg. I'm a bit too cranky from reading my RSS feed this morning. Of course, here i am, feeding into the flurry by talking about what i observed in a meta-fashion. I just don't feel right directly pointing at people. But seriously, if you read this and you write about other people, think about it for a moment. Get out of the "this is truth" mentality and really question how others might read what you just said. Is it really necessary to lambast people's personal shit on a blog meant for the world to see? It makes me cringe and it's not even about me! Category:
Posted by zephoria at 12:34 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (1) December 22, 2003dark side of digital utopiaThe BBC is reporting on the dark side of digital utopia, revealing the underground behavior that has emerged in SIMS Online. Alphaville has generated child prostitutes, sadomasochists, mafia thieves and shadow governments. Lesson in life: give people freedom and everything will not be all cheery, no matter how hard you try to configure it that way. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 9:49 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) tracking conversation threadsMore from Microsoft Research.... Gina Venolia (brilliant & awesome designer) is working on people-centric threading for conversations in mail. I can't wait to see what this looks like. Publication on the topic: Understanding Sequence and Reply Relationships within Email Conversations: A Mixed-Model Visualization Category:
Posted by zephoria at 9:45 PM | TrackBack (0) December 17, 2003Jon Udell on LinkedInAn entry of Jon Udell's today talks about the problems with LinkedIn, namely in defining relationships. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 3:57 PM | TrackBack (0) live journal statsFor all of you researchers out there, BoingBoing posted that Live Journal is now publishing demographic data. It's probably not surprising that 63.5% of users are female and the mode age is 18 (with the median and mean a bit higher). Category:
Posted by zephoria at 3:35 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) urban tribes top fiveEthan Watters (Urban Tribes) went a little crazy with the top five lists. If you want to laugh, check them out... Category:
Posted by zephoria at 10:33 AM | TrackBack (0) social networking overloadI read this article about social networking entering the enterprise and i couldn't help but hold my head in dismay. I love social networks. They are a part of all of our daily lives and i'm in awe of the sociologists who have dedicated themselves for so many years to figure out how people negotiate them. But as more and more technologists take on the social networks meme, they continue to mutate the concept and thus destroy much of the underlying theory that relies on certain fundamental ideas about interaction. For me, this creates a linguistic-conceptual nightmare. With every meme that emerges in the tech world, i'm amazed at how much gets attached simultaneously to one concept or phrase. Identity, blogging, social networks... My auto-reaction is to constantly and continuously unpack what people _mean_ when they use these terms. This has become quite challenging lately because the reason people collide them in their heads is to make metaphors work. I never realized how important these metaphors are to people's ability to construct technology. The first two of my examples are easier than social networks. As a term, identity is often used to mean authentication. Sometimes, it is meant to mean social stature; sometimes, reputation; sometimes, the more classic psychological notions of one's id/entity. Blogging has come to represent people who blog, people who journal, people are embedded in the blogging culture (and lately, i've watched it get further extended to discuss anyone who updates a site regularly). [One thing that continues to amaze me as i meet self-described 'bloggers' is how often they don't realize that most people's goals in blogging are vastly different than their own...] Social networks are harder to tease apart because it's the framework that's different, yet there is an expectation that the classic theories apply. Until new theories are developed to address the digital social network tools, it's quite a bit harder to unpack this concept, to discuss why it's different online than off. Of course, that's my job.... Category:
Posted by zephoria at 2:35 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (3) airplane chaosIt's been a while since i flew on an almost empty airplane. The kind flight attendants told me that there were only 35 passengers in coach (and it was one of those planes with 7 seats per row). The business class folks were crammed compared to us in sardine class. So, Joi wins... plane travel is much better with the proper equipment. The little Shure earphones (while still not entirely fitting my small ears) made the baby non-existent (as well as the flight attendants who were awefully confused by my inability to hear them as they hovered above). IMing on the toy up until takeoff felt much less offensive than my normal chatter-box approach to the airport. And love to the Mac with an extra battery. So, i lounged, read 1.5 books, listened to music and felt yummy getting off the plane, where i rented a car and drove for 4 hours revelling in the wonderfulness of I-95 (with new pavement). Of course, i got out at my usual Exit 40 CT stop (24 hour Wendy's) only to discover that ice still exists on the east coast and i still always find it and slip. Hrmpft. It's funny... i'm having complete deja-vu. I'm back on the east coast, touring between family and friends in the middle of winter, driving up and down the coast and even my dear friend who through my goodbye party last year is hosting a potluck this year. Ah, nostalgia. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 2:24 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) YASNS tool barriersChristopher Allen blogged notes on his experiences with various social network software tools, highlighting the barriers to entry and participation. Category: yasns
Posted by zephoria at 2:04 AM | TrackBack (0) December 15, 2003more F.I.S.T. statisticsRyan (F.I.S.T.) did some more data crunching for me based on his network. I will analyze them with greater detail later, but in short, 8% of Ryan's Friendster network identifies as queer (mind you, not everyone identifies because of it having to do with being in a relationship). 13.3% of Ryan's Friendster network is from Philippines. Anyhow, check out the numbers. Fun fun. From Ryan: "You are connected to 2,228,509 people in your Personal Network, through 278 friends." Highest ID number in the New People display: Nadiah (4527170) * 0.93 = 4,210,268 Percentage of total friendsterspace covered by personal network: 53% Category:
Posted by zephoria at 11:33 PM | TrackBack (0) all of your memoriesSteven Johnson just wrote an interesting article in the NYTimes that is quite relevant to my latest commentary on Vannevar Bush, the Memex and trails. Offloading Your Memories Can your computer be enlisted to help you remember all the details of your life? In a way, it's already starting to do that. Your e-mail files contain a good portion of your personal communication, and your calendar software has a record of every dentist appointment and staff meeting you've had in the last few years. But while it's easy to track down an address that your colleague e-mailed you six months ago, it's a bit more challenging to reconstruct a joke your friend told you during a phone call sometime in the late 90's. So why not take matters a step further and record everything? Now that most of our information streams are built out of zeros and ones, it's vastly easier to capture all those bits for posterity: every phone call, every passing conversation, every book you read or face you see -- the totality of information that flows through a human life. In the past year, a handful of separate research projects have surfaced, all sharing the same goal: offloading our memories to machines. Sunil Vemuri, a graduate student at the M.I.T. Media Lab, has spent the last two years wedded to a voice-activated microphone that makes a digital recording of every conversation he has and then transmits it to a computer, where it is cataloged and permanently stored. Advertisement
In effect, what Bell and others are creating is TiVo for real life. Whatever flows through your perceptual systems can be rewound and queued up for viewing at a later date. Arguing with the barista over whether you specified soy milk in your latte? Trying to determine who actually came up with that brilliant money-saving idea in the staff meeting six months ago? No problem -- just go to the tape! A skeptic might object that 99 percent of the information captured by these personal archives is useless, filed away on the digital equivalent of a cobwebbed library stack. And the skeptic would be right: think of all those spam messages and telemarketing calls you would record for future historians to be annoyed at all over again. But such an extreme ratio of noise to signal is a problem only if storing the data has real costs associated with it and if your ability to find what you're looking for decreases as more junk is added to the database. The cost side of the equation is the easy part. Bell estimates that if you were to capture a relatively healthy daily diet of information -- 100 Web pages, 8 hours of audio, 100 e-mail messages, one-tenth of a book, 10 photos, 5 scanned pages -- it would take you five years to fill up an 80-gigabyte drive that now sells for approximately $100. By the time you maxed out that drive, you would be able to buy a drive with more than 10 times as much capacity for the same price, giving you 60 years of storage, competitively priced at one penny a day. Of course, if you can't find what you're looking for, the dream of total recall becomes little more than fantasy. Are our current search tools up to the task of scouring 60 years' worth of spoken conversations for every reference to French philosophy or Yankees second basemen? In a word, no. But five years ago we were all complaining that we could never find what we were looking for on the Web. Now we have Google. There's no reason to suspect that a comparable needle-searching revolution won't happen to our own private haystacks. If these personal archives do become commonplace, the outcome, after decades of dark prophecies about the end of privacy, will be a curious one: you will turn out to be the one recording your every move, not the National Security Agency or Equifax or John Ashcroft -- a surveillance society of one. We have met Big Brother, and he is us. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 11:21 PM | TrackBack (1) nytimes: social networksHere's a fun little NYTimes commentary on the emergence of social networks as a hot topic. December 14, 2003 By JON GERTNER Just a few years ago, the network was what people tapped into at parties or business conventions or what they called upon if the market turned sour or they were in desperate need of a job. In the time since, a coterie of ''network thinkers'' have begun to extend the language of the network -- ''nodes'' and ''hubs'' and ''links'' -- to phenomena ranging from the workings of the world economy to the possible spread of a dangerous pathogen. Several network theorists, most notably Albert-Laszlo Barabasi of Notre Dame and Duncan Watts of Columbia, have recently discovered that varieties of systems display a common architecture that governs their dynamics and structure. The way a cluster of neurons fires, for instance, has marked similarities to the way a disease like SARS travels the globe or the way a contagious idea disperses. Apparently, lots of complex networks look like lots of other complex networks (the Internet and the North American power grid, for example). And apparently the idea that everything is connected to everything else no longer seems so far-fetched. Many software and Web applications now allow us to explore our nearly infinite social connectivity. The most hyped and widely known is Friendster.com, which went online in March and allows users to meet people up to four social degrees away. There is also Tribe.net, which started in late July and focuses less on dating and more on utilizing social networks for professional relationships, as well as Tickle (another dating service) and LinkedIn (another professional contacts service). All are in hot pursuit of market share -- a good indication that treating the human community as a network may be profitable as well as innovative. Tribe's backers include The Washington Post Company and Knight-Ridder, and Friendster has a number of Silicon Valley's top venture-capital firms betting on it. Users see dollar signs, too. A new social network software application called Spoke, for example, allows businesses to mine their computer databases so that a company's sales force might tap into co-workers' relationships for contacts, thus saving them from the inefficiency of cold calling. Meanwhile, several Democratic contenders, notably Howard Dean and Wesley Clark, have used in-person networking sites like Meetup.com to amass contributions and arrange rallies. At last count, the Dean bloc on Meetup had grown from a small but enthusiastic faction to more than 150,000. Some of the fledgling social-network companies may indeed mature into powerful business hubs like eBay or Amazon. Yet the more intriguing prospect, from a sociological standpoint, anyway, is whether these applications will actually transform our lives. Ever since the publication of ''Bowling Alone,'' we've been flooded with even more data about the end of community and lamentations for its return. At least in theory, a readily accessible social network would enable more of us to bond with people we regard as far less anonymous than strangers. The larger possibility, that plugging into our social networks might somehow remedy a profound national loneliness, is even more enticing. What seems just as likely, however, is that social-network applications will further fracture life into disparate spheres -- the online and the offline. Jonathan Abrams (the C.E.O. of Friendster) and Mark Pincus (the C.E.O. of Tribe Networks) see their creations ultimately as a means to enrich offline experiences. But this fact is incontrovertible: technology has outpaced our physical ability to manage the social network. Duncan Watts, author of this year's book ''Six Degrees,'' has wondered whether our primitive ancestry gives us a hard-wired tendency to attend to only our immediate associates, like family and friends. Our online persona may be rich with friends and contacts; it may make us feel popular and deeply valued as we trade tips about the best Australian Shiraz or converse about the best way to get to Burning Man. But our offline persona still gets stuck in traffic on the way to the liquor store. Our online persona may manage a Web-based cocktail party of three degrees -- a party that would include our friends, the friends of our friends and the friends of our friends' friends. But our offline persona, juggling the demands of family and work, can barely return the telephone calls from the first degree. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 11:17 PM | TrackBack (0) twitching from the internetI spent a lovely weekend offline. While i was ecstatic to take a genuine break from my email disaster, i was quite humored to listen to friends who were less than thrilled to be offline - the twitches started early on. No wifi, no high speed, no cell phone coverage... Then, upon going back to my email disaster, another group of friends told me about WiFi-SM. It's a device that sends electric impulses every time the news reports on violence and anger around the world. Little reminders to make you feel the global pain. Somehow, i suspect that my friends who twitch from being offline would love these little connections to their blog world... This would definitely be the way to create a group of SM boys.... ::giggle:: Category:
Posted by zephoria at 4:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) December 11, 2003friendship amongst womenThanks to Chris, i just found this UCLA study on how friendships between women are special. Hmm... given the state of my current stress, maybe i should go out and hang out instead of locking myself in my room. Category: gender & sexuality
Posted by zephoria at 5:49 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (1) cracking the social codeHere's a neat (older) article by Stowe Boyd on a few social issues that complicate the social networking software space. Category: yasns
Posted by zephoria at 11:50 AM | TrackBack (0) December 10, 2003a call to amazon, and publishersAs i swooned earlier, Amazon's decision to allow text-based search was brilliant. Unfortunately, not all publishers have agreed. Currently, i am sitting amidst 15 (yes, i counted) anthropology, rhetoric and philosophy books. I own these books; i have read large chunks of these books, underlining points that were relevant then. But here i am, trying to construct a meaningful response to whether or not culture is an ensemble of texts (recursively), frustrated. Why am i frustrated? I am frustrated because i _know_ that the tool to find the various quotes floating in my head to support my argument exists, but that publishers have prohibited it. (A moment of silence for ignorance is bliss.) Here's what i propose. Amazon, you know what books i've bought, or at least a large chunk of them. You currently use this to successfully incite me to buy more books. Why not let me search _my_ books, regardless of the publisher's opinion? One might ask why Amazon would want to do this. Silly, silly. This would motivate me to buy ALL of my books from Amazon, particularly those dense theoretical texts that are dreadfully indexed. One might ask why publishers would want to do this. Why? Because i'm now keeping tabs of which publishers are cruel and am far more incented to buy books when i know that i can search them. This actually affected my decision between two anthologies last week. The biggest uproar over Amazon's decision is one of copyright fear. Fine. I understand if a publisher is worried that the searchability of certain types of texts might discourage someone from buying the book, but in the purchasing of my books, i already have permission to the copyright. Now, i simply want easier access. Trust me, folks, if you can give me 'grep' on my books, i'll never switch to a digital format. The smell of paper is just too enticing. ::sigh:: Because of Basic Books and The University of Chicago Press, i'm back to screaming 'grep' at Geertz and Levi-Strauss. This could be a lot easier... Category:
Posted by zephoria at 10:41 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack (2) repurposing 80s fashionFirst, i am *not* thrilled that 80s fashion is coming back. I don't want to wear scrunchy socks, deal with shirts that snap at the crotch or ever see those horrid tight jeans with their roll-up ever again. And furthermore, scrunchy leather boots with heals is not attractive. That said, most people know that i've been wearing jelly bracelets around my wrists for 3 years. This wasn't a return to the 80s. It was because i don't like seeing my neck or wrists without adornments and jelly bracelets were the first things that i could wear that didn't impede my typing - i could just push them back. Well, apparently the press is hyping the idea that these jelly bracelets are sex bracelets and that if you break them, the person has to give you a sexual favor in return. Hmm. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 6:29 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) memories of non-existent events'We can implant entirely false memories' is an intriguing review of the research of Elizabeth Loftus. Ideas about memory have always intrigued me. I've been thinking about memory lately because i'm adamently opposed to the concept of trails put forward by Vannevar Bush in "As We May Think." I know that the construction of our past is not always the same as the actual reality, but i prefer it to the realistic portrayal of experience. Personally, i'm quite happy to not have easy access to the replay of mistakes made. I realize that the memories that i hold are not only the actual events, but the embellishment of the good and the dismissal of the bad. I have a tendency to store all of these details and emotions around joyful activities, while i conveniently forget much beyond the facts of negative ones. I tend to consider this a good thing, although it can cause problems when i cannot stay mad at someone, even when i should for my own sake. But, it always pains me to interact with people who only hold on to the bad. This research makes me think crazy thoughts. If you can implant a memory, can you also eliminate memories? For example, what would it mean if someone conveniently forgot that they were abused. Would this be a relief? In what ways are memories a protective force vs. a limiting force? Sadly, this all comes down to a philosophical debate about what is best for an individual and society. Do we believe in constructing 'happiness' or 'truth'? And what on earth does either one mean? Category: social observations
Posted by zephoria at 2:53 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0) December 9, 2003gonzalez supporters are stunningIn an attempt to spend the day writing, i turned off both phones and IM (and tried to avoid email, sorta). Yet, i did not expect the number of door visitors i would get today. Not only did the UPS delivery man ask me if i had voted, but i received visits from five Gonzalez supporters asking me if i had voted (one covered in Gonzalez stickers from head to toe). I really wonder what this turn out will look like. Normally, rainy days for a non-Presidential election are a disaster at the polls. But the whole city is abuzz with election fever. Normally, when i go to the polls, there are very few people voting. Sadly, most of my neighborhood is ineligible to vote (or doesn't speak English so very well). Thus, i was pleasantly pleased to go to the polls this afternoon and find it !full! of voters (rare at 2PM). One cluster pleased me the most. The older ones didn't speak English but the younger ones were helping explain the process to them. This totally made my day. One thing will be interesting... right after the first round of the mayor election, many Gonzalez supporters invaded my neighborhood to get people to register to vote. (Everyone in my neighborhood despises anyone situated in the Marina.) I'm guessing that most of those registered didn't speak English, and most of the discussions i overheard were in Spanish. I wonder how many of my neighbors were eligible and came out today for the first time. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 7:15 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0) on friendstershipI really liked this blog entry concerning the Esquire article on Friendster. (Yes, it's finals time.. that's the level of thought going on in my head.) Category:
Posted by zephoria at 2:01 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) December 8, 2003absurdity is wonderfulSo, i was a bit dazed after my exam today and i responded to my advisor's query with a rambling spillage of the process my mind was going through in response to his question. I realized after i sent it that i had answered the question three times, differently, most undoubtably causing confusion. He responded with this link "to help get me through a bad week." That made me giggle in that the world is bizarre kind of way. Sometimes, absurdity helps. Especially check out "Change." I love people who see the world as a bit peculiar and absurdist. Speaking of which, San Francisco election tomorrow. Y'know... i think it's outright hysterical that the entire city is up in a tiff over a Democrat vs a Green. And what's even better is that none of my friends would dare vote for anyone other than Gonzalez. I love San Francisco. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 10:37 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) December 7, 2003Friendster whore statisticsRyan has been running statistics on his network on Friendster. (I've been meaning to do this, but he has far more patience than i.) "Friendsterwhore Institute of Statistical Trends (F.I.S.T.)" has run queries on musical taste, interests, sex, and a whole lot more. Based on 2,097,997 users, some of the simplest but still fascinating are:
Since Blogspot's direct links tend to be spotty, here's a reprint of some of FIST's entries: "You are connected to 2,092,944 people in your Personal Network, through 266 friends." Highest ID number in the New People display: Rea (4283881) * 0.93 = 3,984,009 Percentage of total friendsterspace covered by personal network: 53% In all cases, the first number is the result when doing a search on my gallery; it is followed in parentheses by the estimated percentage of Friendsterspace that matches that result. People who indicated that they were men: 862,398 (41%) People who indicated that they were women: 835,240 (40%) ... which means that 9% weren't really sure WHO they were... People who are "just here to help": 327,533 (16%) People who are looking for activity partners: 932,953 (45%) People who are looking for friends: 1,339,616 (64%) "You are connected to 2,097,997 people in your Personal Network, through 266 friends." Highest ID number in the New People display: Celestine (4294446) * 0.93 = 3,993,834 Percentage of total friendsterspace covered by personal network: 53% A few more fun stats from the Friendsterwhore Institute of Statistical Trends (F.I.S.T.): People who are looking for a date with a woman: 394,641 (19%) People who are looking for a date with a man: 298,385 (14%) People who are looking for a serious relationship with a woman: 289,652 (14%) People who are looking for a serious relationship with a man: 216,602 (10%) People who are single: 1,067,620 (51%) People who are in an open marriage: 48,444 (2%) People whose name is "Kevin Bacon": 33 (0.002%) People whose name is "George Bush": 28 (0.001%) People whose name is "Jesus Christ": 147 (0.007%) And people whose name is "Ryan Schultz": 14 (0.0007%), hmmm, maybe we should start a very exclusive club :-) .... "You are connected to 2,104,547 people in your Personal Network, through 266 friends." (* ...and a voice from the back yells: "MORE STATS!" *) Number of people who live in the New York City area (within 25 miles of Manhattan): 150,803 (7.1%) Number of people who live in the San Francisco area (within 25 miles of the Castro): 130,341 (6.2%) Number of people who live in the Los Angeles area (within 25 miles of Beverly Hills): 146,626 (7.0%) ...and number of people who live in the Winnipeg area: 1,375 (0.065%) Number of people who list "wine" as one of their interests: 22,361 (1.1%) Number of people who list "beer" as one of their interests: 23,066 (also 1.1%) Number of people who list "milk" as one of their interests: 1,818 (0.086%) Number of people who list "reading" as one of their interests: 193,545 (9.2%) Number of people who list "shopping" as one of their interests: 108,703 (5.2%) Number of people who list "sleeping" as one of their interests: 77,421 (3.7%, including Jonathan Abrams) Number of people who say Celine Dion is one of their favourite singers: 3,174 (0.15%) Number of people who say Barbra Streisand is one of their favourite singers: only 566 (0.027%)! "You are connected to 2,121,826 people in your Personal Network, through 269 friends." Highest ID number in the New People display: Dan (4337879) * 0.93 = Percentage of total friendsterspace covered by personal network: Pt% FINALLY... two relatively uninterrupted hours of friendster-time while all the West Coast people are sleeping off their Friday night partying :-) ... here are some stats from the Friendsterwhore Institute of Statistical Trends (F.I.S.T.) on the favourite music of Friendsters (hey, what good is a network of 2.1 million friendsters if you can't learn something from it???). Keep in mind that I couldn't do some searches: words too short ("U2", "Mya"), or words too common ("Michael Jackson", "James Brown"), or just plain ambiguity ("Elvis" pulls up both "Elvis Presley" and "Elvis Costello"; "Pink" also pulls up "Pink Floyd"). Radiohead: 65,131 ...and finally, Category:
Posted by zephoria at 1:52 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) blog survey resultsHere are some fascinating blog survey results. (via Dina) Category: blogging
Posted by zephoria at 1:40 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (1) December 5, 2003configuring usersI've got my head buried in texts for finals and i realized how valuable one of my pieces would be for many technology creators, HCI folks and the like so i thought that i'd share it: Grint, Keith & Woolgar, Steve. 1997. Configuring the user: inventing new technologies. In Grint & Woolgar, The machine at work: technology, work, and organization (pp. 65-94). Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. This article addresses how technologists configure the user. In other words, what expectations do creators build into the technology and what are the implications when the users do not view the technology from the same perspective. It's a great article, teasing out why you can't expect users to do what you want them to, and why you shouldn't. Technologists should *listen* to what their users are doing, not try to educate them to do what they want them to do when they give them feedback. When users are having difficulty doing something, it's not because they don't get it, it's because they read the technology in a different way than intended. Given feedback, the responsibility of a technologist is to try to see why this misperception occurred and try to fix the technology to shift behavior. Simply telling them that they're wrong won't do much good. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 5:30 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) |
