Monthly Archives: December 2003

Friendster whore statistics

Ryan 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:

  • 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%)

  • 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%)

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configuring users

I’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.

presence in IM

I’ve seen this kind of post before.

E said that her instant messaging program lets her know when J’s computer has been idle more than a certain number of minutes, this being information she uses in her speculations about whether J is talking to, emailing, or having sex with the other woman.

I suggested the obvious: Delete him from the program.

She responded with the obvious: This is her only remaining connection to him.

But even the second time around, it’s really important to think about this relationship between two people and a technology. Presence changes behavior, allows new ways of interacting with people. Yet, what are the psychological and sociological consequences of this? Fascinating.

# of friends & popularity issues

Originally, Friendster listed who the most popular people were in your network. Quickly, Fakesters such as Burning Man and Ali G rose to the top and the community worked to push them there.

Due to the tribes component, Tribe.net has not had the dramatic number of “Fakesters.” Recently, they implemented a new feature that, at first past, seems to imply the same popularity contest. They indicate under every user’s post the number of Friends that s/he has.

A brilliant discussion by the users has emerged over this topic, revealing why this is not identical to the Friendster phenomenon.

Some Tribe users clearly note that they find it sketchy for a user to have either too many or too few friends. The former makes them look like they need to collect friends for some personal reason and the latter makes them look like they are too much of a lurker with no friends. Of course, the numbers are read in line with how long someone has been on the site and the reasons for which s/he is here.

It’s also utterly fascinating because it’s a conversation about users challenging how they are perceived, how they perceive, how they are configured, how they present their identity. It’s all done without the moderation or guidance of anyone – emergent reflexivity. Yummy – that’s the best.

NOT a sociologist, NOT a geek

I was telling my roommate about the various feedback i’ve gotten from folks in my different fields concerning the NYTimes article. I’ve heard sociologists say that i’m not a sociologist and geeks tell me that i’m not a geek. This isn’t news… i’ve been hearing it for a while. He reminded me of the quote that got me feeling like an imposter: “A sociologist among geeks and a geek among sociologists.”

::laugh:: It is true. The geeks see me as a social scientist and the social scientists see me as a geek. And of course this is the space i inhabit since i’ve never known how to stand solidly in an identity continuum, if only to prove that it is a continuum and that i can stand in the middle. Of course, i always feel like i’m ducking punches in the middle.

Life is quite odd sometimes… it’s amazing what pushes folks’ buttons. I think that i’m moving towards an absurdist view of life faster than i should.

drugs, drugs and more drugs

I don’t know what my friends were thinking today, but every article they sent me was somehow related to drugs. [Hmm.. is that a hint?]

Research Ecstasy is Clouded by Errors – they were testing methamphetamine, not MDMA

Snortable Spirits – snorting Vodka without the liquid creates a quick high… this very much cclouds the bridge between “alcohol” and “drugs”

Search Engines Limit Ads for Drugs but Ease Rules on Sex

So, basically, three articles… one about the politics of drugs vs. sex, one about the blurring of the boundary between alcohol and hard drugs and one about the illegitimacy of scientific studies on drugs. Glad to know that everyone’s boundaries are getting toyed with.

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what’s in a name…

Today’s worthless word of the day is “codswallop: nonsense, drivel; rubbish.” This made me look up wallop (the name of the MS project) and learn that it means “to hit with force; to thrash soundly; to beat by a wide margin; to move with reckless or disorganized haste.”

Sometimes, words just humor me… if you wallop with a cod, you get reckless rubbish that hits with a force. Hmmm…

Of course, i still like the fact that YAFRO stands for Yet Another Friendster Rip Off. Not nearly as eyebrow raising, and utterly to the point.