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« July 2006 | Main | September 2006 » August 31, 2006HT06, Tagging Paper, Taxonomy, Flickr, Academic Article, ToRead
Category: tagging Posted by zephoria at 8:02 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0) oh dear cute chumby
I will not play with the chumby until i unpack, i will not play with the chumby until i unpack.... Category: techno doom Tags: chumby Posted by zephoria at 12:10 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0) August 29, 2006updated Ani lyrics pageFor the Ani fans out there, i've updated the Ani DiFranco lyrics page. Three new unreleased songs are up. I've also added all of the lyrics to the latest album "Reprieve." Sorry that this took me so long to do. Enjoy! Category: fun links Tags: anidifranco Posted by zephoria at 2:07 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0) August 28, 2006change in feed and other blog bits
While i'm on the topic of my blog, does anyone have a good chunk of Javascript that might reduce the archive clutter over there on the left? Ideally, i could just list years and then you could click to open up the months per year. Except maybe the current year which would show all of the months. I keep procrastinating taking care of this so i thought i'd see if someone else has done it already. Category: techno doom Posted by zephoria at 9:22 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0) open hack day at Yahoo!
Continuing on the geek thread, i'd like to invite everyone to Hack Day at Yahoo! on September 29. The way hack days work at Yahoo! is that you come with an idea of how to mashup different tools at Yahoo! and then you hack like mad for 24 hours. It's super fun and very geeky. You have to signup to go so make sure to visit the website! Note: much to my utter sadness, i won't be able to go since i will be presenting a paper in New York that day. Category: web2.0 Posted by zephoria at 5:36 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) geeks and werewolves (some notes on FOO)
While i may have hosted far too many hours of Werewolf, i did also help host a session on teens misbehaving and attended many other talks. My favorite was a broad discussion about the future of IM hosted by Master Artur. I also got a prototype of a Chumby to hack. I haven't fucked with it yet but i'm super impressed by the cutsie-ness of the device, the shwag, the octopus, the name. There's just something that's so endearing about it. And it's fuzzy! Speaking of fuzzy, how much do you love Tim wearing my hat?? But anyhow, i will play with the Chumby and get back to you. To get to FOO this year, i did a roadtrip with Kareem and Graeme from Fox. The conversation was unbelievably fun and uber geeky (in that delicious kind of way). Plus, we stopped at In-N-Out twice and i got to play with a really fun GPS toy that Kareem calls Peaches. Returning for a moment to the issue of elitism, i want to highlight Bar Camp. Bar Camp started out as an alternative for FOO and some framed it as the gathering for people who are not "cool enough." There was animosity, jealously, and disappointment attached to it. It made me feel all guilty for going to and loving FOO. And then i moved to LA and connected to the Bar Camp folks here who have used that concept to build a community of geeks who gather monthly for food and are stoked to find ways to connect. Regardless of its origins, Bar Camp is an unbelievable mechanism for members of local communities to get to know the geeks amongst them. I'm completely in awe of how rapidly this meme has spread to cities around the world. During Bar Camp Earth this weekend, there were Bar Camps in Lithuania and India! In the next couple of months, there will be Bar Camps in places like Johannesburg and Shanghai. There may even be one near you. One of the main reasons that FOO is closed is that it needs to be small to work. It was definitely pretty big this year, but still manageable. But it wouldn't work with 1000 people even though there are certainly thousands of geeks who would benefit from such community building. The cool thing about Bar Camp is that it's allowing many more people to enjoy the #1 benefit of FOO: connecting with interesting people. While FOO certainly has many Internet celebrities, Bar has people in your local community. The biggest value of both types of events is that they are doing so much to develop and enrich the geek community. While blogs and online connections are great, there's nothing like physical co-presence. Update: For those interested in what was contained in this year's scavenger hunt, Jane posted the complete rules as part of her write-up on FOO: Please find the following objects: Rules:You have 60 minutes to “find” these objects.You can only use the 10 objects your team already has—no trading, no substitutions.You can hack and mod your objects any way you want.You cannot use an object to represent more than one item on the list. Category: web2.0 Posted by zephoria at 1:42 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0) August 23, 2006heckle driveI hate driving. Or rather, i hate when people are on *my* road. I spend a lot of time talking to them, even though they can't hear me. I've always wanted a way to express what i'm really thinking. "Turn off your damn high beams." "You should have your lights on." "Do you need to tailgate?" Etc. According to Popgadget, there's a perfect tool for my road rage: a href="http://www.au-my.com/english/Drivemocion.htm">Drive Mocion.
It's kinda like a hecklebot for the road, no? Oooh... i want one! (Tx Amy) Category: fun links Posted by zephoria at 11:10 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0) August 19, 2006Research on Social Network SitesUPDATE: This page is out-of-date. An updated list can be found here: Thank you! I want to track down everyone who is actively doing research on social network sites. (Clarification: i'm looking for folks that are publishing in peer-reviewed spaces, not just researching for their company or blog.) Nicole Ellison and i are plotting to bring ways to bring everyone together. I'm also looking to create a list of all known publications. I know there's more than what i'm listing so i need your help. Please!
Publications and Presentations
Category: yasns Tags: research Posted by zephoria at 4:59 PM | Comments (59) | TrackBack (0) Save Your Space Save Your Space is a website created by a Southern California organization called "The Friends of MySpace" (not affiliated with News Corp). They have put together a petition against DOPA and they're trying to collect signatures of people of all ages who are opposed to the legislation. If you are (and you damn well should be if you're reading my ramblings), please take a moment to sign. And then pass it on. Category: youth culture Tags: dopa Posted by zephoria at 12:06 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) August 14, 2006AIM and PlaxoI just installed AIM for the first time in a bazillion years having used nothing but Adium and Trillian for forever. And what did i find? Apparently, Plaxo has teamed up with AIM for this Universal Address Book. My first reaction was to panic - i want nothing to do with the evil spamming service that has been the bane of my existence since it started. For years, i've gone out of my way to provide fake data every time someone sends me a Plaxo invite in an attempt to ward off stalkers and folks who want to connect the dots. As i've said before, i want nothing to do with Plaxo (see [1][2]). And then i started breathing and tried to remind myself that companies change, maybe it's not so bad anymore. To catch my breath, i logged into Bloglines to surf for a few moments before continuing with the signup process. What did i find? Micki's essay on how Plaxo is holding her data hostage. Back to panic mode. Why why why can't Plaxo go away? I don't want it to connect the dots between who i AIM and who i email and who has me in their addressbook. I don't want a universal addressbook controlled by some external organization that i don't trust that spams my friends and keeps data hostage. I don't like the lack of transparency and the massive amounts of data that they have. I do not trust them, Sam I am. Gah. And i can't figure out how to finish installing AIM without making a Plaxo account. ::wimper:: Category: privacy Tags: plaxo spam AIM addressbook Posted by zephoria at 10:38 PM | Comments (18) | TrackBack (0) August 13, 2006youth and those crazy hormonesWhen discussing the plight of teenagers with adults, i'm often chastised for viewing teens as mature humans capable of making reasonable decisions. All too often, people point to all that psychological research that indicates that teens are experiencing extensive hormonal rushes that impair their judgment. And then i go home to my 30-something friends who see a baby and start cooing as their biological clock begs for attention. And then i talk to people my mom's age going through menopause and being about as coo-coo as they come. And then i get calls from my older male friends who are experiencing their midlife crisis and think that trading in their wife for people my age is a good idea. I don't think that teenagers are the only population facing impaired judgment. In fact, i'm curious at what age one's judgment is really all that functional. What fascinates me in watching teens is to see biology and culture at complete odds. Their bodies are screaming SEX! REPRODUCTION! NOW! while adults are screaming abstinence. Evolution does not think that waiting until you have your career settled before giving birth is a good idea regardless of what culture says. Personally, i think teens are doing an astounding job at quelching bodily urges in favor of societal norms. I think we should give them a lot of credit for their strength! I'm not saying that teens are all-so-mature but as one of my colleagues points out, the best part of being a 30-something year old guy in today's age is that it's assumed that you still haven't matured beyond fart jokes. Maturation is a progression - we build on things we've learned in the past in order to grow. Every significant experience teaches us something as we grow older. Hopefully, we won't throw away those lessons and regress to bullying and gossip mongering but sadly, many do. The problem is that we need to face those challenges in order to learn from them. The more that we're coddled, the less we learn. I have to admit that when it comes to teaching in a college classroom, i far prefer the street kids to the protected ones. At least the street kids know why they're in school and it's not simply to get away from their parents. Their experiences have been rough but they've learned a lot and it shows. Even worse than protected college students in the classrooms is spoiled ones in a foreign country. ::shudder:: That's when it becomes painfully obvious how little freedom we've given our youth compared to other cultures. As best as i can tell, the last big cognitive issue is the ability to think abstractly, negotiate social categories, and recognize that there are multiple possibilities to a situation based on your actions. Ideally, you should be able to get that there are multiple interpretations to a situation but i don't think that most adults get this so i doubt that i can hold that as a standard for maturation even though it would be nice. Once you get this around adolescence/puberty, it's building time from that point forward. Experience, risk-taking, and consequences matter. The crazy hormones surge at all different times to get in your way but like external crises, you gotta learn to recognize and deal with hormones. Locking up folks who are going through hormone rushes is never a good idea even if i had the urge to lock mom up for a few years. There should be a list of things that youth should learn as young as possible to be a part of society. If i were to start a list, it would probably include:
Obviously, some of these are taboo and others really shouldn't be planned for but still, i have to say, this is what i'd want my child to know before being on their own. I have to give my mom props for making certain i knew many of these things. My favorite was the fact that she made me work in fast food to learn why i was getting a college education. Anyone else have favorite lessons that they wish all young people learned? Category: youth culture Tags: lessons hormones maturity Posted by zephoria at 12:48 PM | Comments (26) | TrackBack (0) August 10, 2006Henry Jenkins and Convergence CultureWhile i was off playing this summer, one of my dear mentors (and a good friend) went off and started blogging. There are few people that i respect more than Henry Jenkins and i'm *sooo* stoked to get a daily dose of Henry insightfulness - i deeply miss that from my days at MIT. I feel bad for not being around to properly welcome him to the blogosphere. **WELCOME!** I strongly encourage everyone to check out Henry's blog - i'm sure you'll find it as mentally yummy as i do.
His latest work is particularly relevant to those interested in what's going on with YouTube and MySpace, Lost and American Idol. Henry just published a book called Convergence Culture which provides a set of case studies where media is converging in interesting ways. Video games are telling the backstories to movies. TV has become participatory. Etc. This is precisely why i find LA fascinating - old media and new media are converging because the consumers are making them. This is a must-read book for folks trying to understand why and how people are engaging in all sorts of new media practices. PS: Henry also has a really good article on Four Ways to Kill MySpace for you MySpace folks... PPS: In case you missed it before, Henry and i co-authored a piece on MySpace and DOPA... Category: culture Tags: henryjenkins convergence Posted by zephoria at 9:58 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) passwords through favorites = bad ideaMy credit union decided to change their password recovery system today. Now, you have to choose three questions and answer them. The problem is that they are all "What is your favorite n" where n is restaurant, band, movie, song, actor, book, drink, food, place, past-time... Uhh... have we not learned anything? People's favorites change over time. This is not something that a customer will remember and if it is stable, it is probably all over the web on their profiles for dating and social network sites. So not only is this not a reliable way to help customers, it's about as insecure as you can get. Furthermore, the likelihood of a person writing this down is *huge* because it's not something that they know by heart (like "where were you born" or "what's your first pet's name"). Can people please stop using favorites in the password recovery process? Pretty please with a cherry on top?? Category: privacy Posted by zephoria at 1:20 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0) August 9, 2006pick me! sxsw voting is openIf you are going to SXSW this year (which you should), voting for panels is now open. I'm telling you this in part for selfish reasons. I want you to pick me! More specifically, i want you to pick the panel that Andrea Forte is moderating entitled "Under 18: Blogs, Wikis, and Online Social Networks for Youth." It's near the bottom so make sure you read till the end. Andrea rocks and it's her idea but it will involve my big mouth so if you love me, you'll pick this, right?? ::wink:: Category: fun links Tags: sxsw Posted by zephoria at 9:22 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0) August 8, 2006crazy radio stationsI swear that everytime i turn on the radio i hear Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy." If you've managed to miss this song this summer, you're living in a black hole cuz the song is catchy as hell. The problem with my feeling of being inundated is that there is no way to test this. Is it really being played that frequently? Or is it just that catchy? And then i found Yes.com which lists the Top 10 of different radio stations. Sure enough, "Crazy" is in the Top 10 of every radio station i listen to in SF and LA. Of course, it's never #1 which makes me think that there are many songs that i don't even recognize are being played all the time. I guess they're not as catchy. But the best part about Yes.com is that the front page shows a visualization of songs as they come on the radio all around the country. It's totally mesmerizing. Category: music Tags: radio visualization Posted by zephoria at 3:44 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0) August 7, 2006number games and social softwareOver the last month, i've been driving Mimi's Hybrid on and off. One of my favorite things about the Hybrid is that it tells you how many MPG you're averaging over time. I find myself driving around town trying to maximize that number, getting uber excited when it goes up and super sad when it goes down. It reminds me of when i used to try to maximize my miles per hour when going from Boston to New York only this is more environmental. Yet, it's not the environment that i'm concerning myself with - it's all about number games in the same way that people obsess over every pound on the scale or the calories in every bite. Then i was thinking about Tantek and Jason raving about Consumating. I love the fact that it's a lot of cool geeky people but i can never get over the lameness that i feel when i log in and look at my score. And yet, i can't be bothered to answer the questions that make me feel all uncomfortable in the hopes that someone will like my answers and rate me higher. It's a catch-22 for me. Yet, i totally understand why Tantek and Jason and others absolutely love it and why they go back for more. And then i was thinking about the people on Yahoo! Answers who spend hours every day answering questions to get high ranks. It's very similar to Consumating only it's not all embarassing because it's not really about you - it's about the answers. There's no real gain from getting points but still, it's like a mouse in a cage determined to do well just cuz they can. This all reminds me of a scene in some movie. I can't recall what movie it was but it was about how you just want to be the best at *something*, anything... to have something to point at and say look, i'm #1! The validation, the proof of greatness! Even if that something is problematic attention getting like being the #1 serial killer. (Was it Bowling for Columbine?) I started wondering about these number games... They're all over social software - Neopets, friends on social network sites, blog visitors, etc. Who is motivated by what number games? Who is demotivated? Does it make a difference if the number game is about the group vs. the individual, about one's self directly vs. about some abstract capability? Are there some number games that work better than others in attracting a broader audience? I'm thinking about Orkut here... if the game is to get as many Brazillians on the site as possible, you only need a few obsessives to be the rallying forces; everyone else is part of the number game simply by signing up. So there are tons competing in the number games but only a few invested. Does anyone know anything about how these number games work as incentives? Category: social software Posted by zephoria at 11:45 AM | Comments (15) | TrackBack (0) August 3, 2006customized MP3s: alternatives to DRMIn the midst of all of my movement, i forgot to highlight the fact that Jessica Simpson released her latest single "A Public Affair" as an MP3 for $1.99 via Yahoo! Music. This may not mean much to you but it's actually quite significant... Here is a pop star releasing a single without DRM. And she's still making money off of it. How? It's a personalized MP3 so that you can get one that's meant for you. In this way, Yahoo! and Jessica Simpson are trying to show that DRM is not the only way to make a profit when it comes to music. What is required is some innovative thinking about how to serve consumers as well as artists. Anyhow, if this is of particular interest to you, you defeinitely should check out Ian Roger's blog post about it. He describes the details far better than i do (and there's an intense conversation in the comments). For those who aren't aware, my move to Venice also means a move within Yahoo! I am no longer at Yahoo! Research Berkeley but have instead moved to Yahoo! Media Group. I am still a Social Media Researcher but i'm focusing more on the relationship between new media and old skool media of all sorts. Personally, this is a very welcome change. I have to admit that i got a little burnt out by the tech industry proper. I have a hard time engaging in yet-another of anything and that was swirling all around the Valley. I'm not particularly interested in the technology of knock-offs although i will continue to follow user patterns. To shake myself up a bit, i decided i needed to dive into something new. In reflecting on this, i realized that i kept getting sidetracked by Henry Jenkin's arguments concerning Convergence Culture. Although this relates to my dissertation, i don't know shit about Hollywood or the culture around movies, music, gaming, TV... I certainly don't understand why user-generated content is such a big deal. But i'm learning. And Yahoo! Media is the perfect place to think through the relationship between old and new media. I'm quite excited to see what i can learn and how i can help YMG. Maybe if i'm really well behaved, i'll even get to meet Lloyd Braun... cuz one has to give respect to the man who got fired for standing behind Lost. Category: music Posted by zephoria at 6:08 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0) moving update
In the midst of all of this, i got to meet many of my neighbors and tour my neighborhood. I'm *so* excited by my neighborhood. It's unbelievably diverse. There are families and hipsters, churches and swank restaurants, modern uberpricy houses and shacks. There are people of all ages, races, cultures. And everyone is unbelievably nice. It's kinda surreal really. Today the movers come. Let's just hope that this is the last of the true chaos and we can settle in and make it home. Category: reflections & rants Posted by zephoria at 9:49 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0) drug dangerousness rankingFolks over at Mind Hacks found a UK report ranking drug dangerous. The rank is based on a combination of physical damage, social harm and addictive properties. The order is quite fascinating given the legal status of each one listed: 1. Heroin Category: altered states Posted by zephoria at 9:13 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0) |
Moving has been unbelievably chaotic. The packing process took more out of me than i could've imagined and i managed to re-injure my elbow. Then i lived in an empty apartment while people came and cleaned and painted and Marbellio screamed. Then i took her to a friend's house for the night where she screamed most of the way through the night. Then there was the painful car ride down to LA where i landed in the midst of them painting my house for two days. The first night, i slept in my sleeping bag on top of plastic in the middle of the paint zone. The next morning, Marbellio ran out the back door when the cable guy appeared. We searched everywhere but couldn't find her. Just as all of this was happening, the nice man from the Financial Times landed at LAX to come interview me. After four hours of searching (while telling the FT guy all about social media), we put up flyers all around the neighborhood. The Kinkos guy was super cool - once he realized what we needed copying, he gave us half off and made us promise to report back. Around 5:30PM, while i was getting photographed, she walked in the back door and meowed. I nearly fainted. She was filthy but home.