Author Archives: zephoria

venting my contempt for orkut

As i write this, it’s down again. But that doesn’t mean that i haven’t been thinking about it. And dear god, everyone and their mother has written about it. At the bottom of this rant, i’ve included some of the ones that have been making me think (and i’ve been reading a *lot*).

OK… so my take on Orkut.

1) What the hell is up with the elitist approach to invitation? That’s just outright insulting and an attempt to pre-configure the masses through what the technorati are doing. Social networks are not just a product of technologists. Everyone has a social network and what they do with it is quite diverse. To demand that they behave by the norms of technologists is horrifying.

2) Are trustworthy, cool, and sexy the only ways that i might classify my friends? (Even Orkut lists a lot more in his definition of self.) And since when can i rate the people that i know based on this kind of metric?

And goddamnit CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT. Cool as a techy? Cool as a party kid? Trustworthy along what fucking axes?

3) Explain to me why one must be a friend to be a fan of someone? The role of fan is inherently a power differential, not an equalizer. (Don’t get me wrong: on Orkut, there’s definitely pressure to reciprocate.) The people that i’m a fan of are not my friends; they’re idols; they’re people that i read on the interweb but do not know.

It is sooo weird to read which of my friends are a fan of me. Does that mean that the rest are only following social custom in linking to me? Does that mean that they don’t really respect me? [Or does it mean, like it means to me, that it’s too bloody weird to consider checking off that fan bit?]

And worse… i can see who is a fan of others. This means that i can check on my friends and figure out that they’re using the fan feature… just not on me. Hello, socially awkward.

4) What’s up with the popular crowd hierarchy both in visual and Friends/Communities listing? Have we not learned that this motivates bad behavior?

5) Hell, haven’t we learned ANYTHING? We still have articulation. But worse, now that everyone is paying attention to this, the network isn’t growing naturally. You jump on. Fast. And connect to everyone you recognize. WTF? And what the hell are you supposed to DO once you get on the damn thing?

6) And boy is it irritating that everything is broken. I know it’s an alpha, but it’s too popular to withstand the interest. Can’t change picture on certain parts. Can’t delete account. Can’t get rid of picture. And what’s up with the regular crashes?

7) And then there are the Terms that show contempt for academics. There’s a blanket ban on robots, collecting information, reverse engineering, and other “unauthorized” use (hello, fair use). You can’t even link from the damn thing (i.e. i can’t identify myself outside of the constraints of Orkut… like on my own site or identifying a research project in which i’d like people to participate. Thus, i can’t use a social networking tool to fucking social network). Of course, there’s not much appreciation for anyone else either. THEY OWN EVERYTHING YOU POST!!! You CAN’T OPT OUT! Complete registration only.

And don’t worry… they can modify the ToS without any notice.

I’m sure more rants are to follow. But in the meantime, tell me why i’m wrong. Cause i’m cranky and disappointed. Everyone’s all excited because it’s Google. But i feel like i just met Jar Jar.

…….

Boris – traffic stat comparisons of Orkut vs. other sites

Anne on why she deleted her account. [Also, i want to read the link to the failure of social networks, but they’ve reached their bandwidth limit. Stupid fucking ISP.]

Jill on the patchwork view of one’s network

Jay on a fantastic metaphor, paralleling Orkut with a hotel lobby or cruise ship

Foe Romeo on a social network ideal

Anti-Mega on why Orkut lacks innovation

David on the politics of the ToS wrt ownership of identity

Marc Canter on being banned from Orkut

Wired on Social Nets Not Making Friends

Liz – an Orkut analysis

Ross on why Orkut doesn’t work for him

Weinberger on the problems with the expectation to increase nodes

Clay on the Orkut craze

Dina on her blog as her social network (and why Orkut)

Update: additional references

Jeremy on why Google needs Orkut

Lee – another good rant on Orkut

Mary on building a social network site in 24 hours… on privacy… and on collecting baseball cards

Halley on Orkut invitation frustration

on compliments (musings)

I am notoriously bad at receiving (and giving) explicit verbal compliments. After two days of awkward compliment situations, i started thinking about the structure of compliments in the worlds in which i run.

This first obvious parallel is to Mauss’s “The Gift.” When a gift is given, it is socially impolite, if not offensive, to fail to receive it. Furthermore, to continue the relationship, the receiver is expected to reciprocate. The gifting pattern is affected by a variety of other things, including temporal rhythms and expected magnitude of gift.

Compliments are much the same way. My failure to receive compliments creates an awkward social situation because it sounds rude. Thus, my blushing and being squeamish to indicate my inability to properly receive said compliment lets me get away with a lot.

From here, it’s important to consider two different structures of compliments. First, if the complimenter has power over the recipient, the compliment is meant to empower the receiver and not necessarily be reciprocated. It’s a status compliment that makes the complimenter feel really good giving and often makes the receiver glow. My undergrad advisor had an amazing ability to do this. He’d say something simple like “good job” and i’d float for days.

Then there are the compliments amongst equals. Quite often, reciprocation is necessary, but it’s not appropriate to mimic the recently given compliment. [Think “i love you” “ditto.” Eventually, the “i love you” gets annoyed at the “ditto” and doesn’t take hir seriously.] Immediate reciprocation is not appropriate in this kind of relationship, but what is the appropriate temporal element? This is particularly tricky because often compliments are put forward to be reassured. For example, the “i love you” really wants to hear the same in return. Of course, s/he wants to be reassured now while simultaneously suggesting that the other person should initiate that same set of compliments later.

Hmm… perhaps another angle because this makes me think about what we compliment people on. When we, as an expert, compliment a novice on their movement towards our expertise, this is a really uplifting compliment (i.e. my old advisor). Yet, in the “i love you” example, we’re complimenting based on purported shared emotions. Perhaps that’s a bad example. Consider its cousin “you’re beautiful.” How often do people say “you’re beautiful” to hear the same in return? I think back to the middle school world where the less fashionable girls say to the cool ones “wow, you’re beautiful.” Of course, the cool girls might say “Thanks” or “I know.” But what would it do to the situation if the cool girl returned the compliment?

How often do we compliment others based on what we need to hear ourselves? Did this magnify the awkwardness of the reciprocation process? There’s a certain level of falseness if the cool girl reciprocates and tells the less fashionable one that she’s beautiful. Given the structure of how the compliment occurred, it seems false, not genuine to reciprocate.

Furthermore, i think it’s weird that we compliment primarily on our weaknesses in equal relationships given that there is a certain obvious awkwardness. Say the cool girl is far less confident about her intelligence than her looks. Assuming not a complete separation of status, if the less fashionable girl complimented the cool one on her question in class, this is far more likely to make everyone feel better. And reciprocation is not really necessary if that’s the giver’s strong suit. Of course, does complimenting via our strengths end up creating a different level of insult amidst equals?

juarez: a call to action

If you know me, you know how much V-Day means to me. Tonight, i spent a tearful night with Eve Ensler and gang at the San Francisco Premier of the movie. Absolutely moving. It opened at Sundance a bit ago and due to popular demand, a second showing happened. And then the press wanted a third showing. The movie with premier on Lifetime on February 17 (commercial free!).

Well, there are lots of V-Day events coming up (it IS V-Season after all). First, i’d like to strongly request that if you haven’t seen the play and you love me, you’ll find out where it is in your community and see it. Support your local community working to end violence!

Second, there are two major events that i’m doing my darndest to go to. First, there is an all-trans V-Day production in LA on February 21. But, more pressingly, there is a march on Juarez scheduled for February 14. For those of you who don’t know, hundreds of women have been abducted, raped and brutally murdered in Juarez. And the government is not responding. The march is to make the government take action against this ongoing violence against women, to create awareness of this situation. Juarez is just across the border from El Paso (think cheap Southwest flights).

If you aren’t able to get involved in any of these events, but want to support an amazing organization, help keep the movement (and safe houses) alive by donating what you can.

Join me. Join V-Day. Help end violence against women and girls worldwide!

[Update: One of my readers suggested the book Juarez: The Laboratory of Our Future. I don’t know the book, but i’m curious to learn more.]

neurotic pressure: from inside or out?

I hate having a backlog of things that i intend to post to my blog. And of course, me being me, i start thinking meta about that backlog. So, who am i posting things for? It used to be solely for me, but that’s just too haphazard right now… i feel like things need comments, not simply links. Of course, is that me thinking about how you might perceive me? Am i self-inducing my own neurotic state because of my wacked readings of the unknown audience?

Or am i writing because i should share the backlog because it may be of interest to you? But most of you already know half of what my backlog is… You all know about Orkut. And while i have interesting things to say on the matter, i’m still waiting for it to pop back up since i went offline only hours after it came up. You all know about Clay Shirky’s brilliant writings. You all know about Many-To-Many (and if you don’t, you don’t care about that segment of my posts anyhow).

So then am i feeling self-induced pressure to post links that you already know about simply to prove my own status within the blogging community, to show appreciation of others’ brilliant writings? Am i trying to be validated by validating? Even worse, by being untimely, am i only showing my lack of fashionability, my inability to keep up with the times (otherwise known as my decision to go offline for 4 days)?

God, it’s a neurotic day in the life of danah. Or, since i’m back in classes, let’s just call it a reflexive one.