Daily Archives: September 4, 2003

200 cap on Friendster

Well, i finally hit it. A colleague of mine added me as a Friendster and i went to approve him, but i received a nice little message telling me that i have too many friends. Apparently, 200 is the cap (although i have 215). Of course, i can only assume that Jonathan is intending to block Fakester behavior through this cap, but i find it hysterical that in doing so, he’s actually blocking me, particularly since i’ve been so vigilent about only linking to people that i actually know (well, except for “Brown” who has done me well by letting me find old friends.).

As someone who has been on the darn site for ages and is constantly in communication with folks about it, it shouldn’t be surprising that i know more than 200 people on the system. I have all sorts of colleagues on there (law professors, gender theorists, social software folks, software engineers, etc.). Friends from all aspects of my life are there now. Basically, my account is a funny hodgepodge of a diverse population.

I remember a few months back when one of my friends was asked if i was a Fakester because i seemed to be such a ridiculous hub. ROFL. Perhaps by being too real, i’ve moved into the realm of absurd and thus fake?

social construction of technology

In class today, we were introduced to the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) framework/methodology. I am certainly not an expert on this approach, but i’m quite curious to learn more as it’s the first direct methodology that i’ve seen to address the socio-political impacts of technology creation and adoption. All too often in tech-land, we think of efficiency and desire as our metrics of the success of a piece of technology and its adoption. But there’s so much more to how and why these items are created and popularized.

Update 11/06/03: Ack, given that this is way too high on Google’s search for SCOT, i thought i’d give some proper references on the topic. Anyone who is interested in knowing what SCOT is (not just my version) should read:

Bijker, W. E. (1995). King of the road: the social construction of the safety bicycle. In Of bicycles, bakelites, and bulbs: Toward a theory of sociotechnical change (pp. 19-100). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Pinch, T. (1996). The social construction of technology: a review. In R.Fox (Ed.), Technological change (pp. 17-35). Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers.