Assignment 1 - Kathryn Chee

Kathryn chee
40989866

Social and mobile applications are numerous and diverse, serving the purpose of drawing people together with similar interests or those who just want to make new friends. In my experience looking at these applications I found watching how people communicate and keep track of each other interesting. Though we were asked to play around with several different applications I found it difficult to get involved with most of them as they just didn’t provide the kind of stimulation to keep me interested, either through poor site design or simply lack of interesting content. Of course the interaction between different people is always there and as I enjoy watching the way in which different people engage each other and seek out others with similar interests I found sites like Deviant art and Facebook most interesting. I will also look at the applications Twitter, Delicious, Flickr, Last.fm and Google calendar.

The communication and interaction between users of a site is an integral part of how a site functions and works. Constrained by the limits of the site this interaction can be in-depth can diverse or constrained and limited. Sites which allow the freedom to comment on anything are usually fun ever changing environments but they can be susceptible to flamers or unsavoury comments. Private circles which only allow approved friends to comment are often restricted and the conversations can be a bit dull or slow, but the user always has the advantage of knowing and controlling who is posting. Not only is interaction limited by how the users are able to interact with each other but also by the manner in which they are able to keep in touch with friends and strangers. Being aware of people who are friends or people with similar interests can help to network a site. While different applications may have different styles of keeping users connected, from those friend focused or network focused, there is always the element that people are in some way aware of who is around them.

Deviant art is a site primarily dedicated to the posting of art based content and as such I was drawn to this website. The reason I found deviant art so alluring is as a art based website I felt right at home, being able to interact with numerous people all who share similar interests and talents is a great way to socialise online and broaden artistic horizons. It is fun looking through pages and pages of wonderful art by many different people then being able to comment and post your own. As you browse you can favourite artists who produce interesting works, then explore their favourites and even friends. Many people on deviant art engage with their friends through pictorial means, creating small drawings or comic strips in response to comments or other artworks. Small fan communities have even developed around popular users with many diligent fans watching their every move and occasionally producing a drawing for them. Praising artworks will often result in a direct response from the artist. I enjoy viewing the banter between people on deviant art as well as the artwork that arrises from the communication between different people, many artists are inspired by friends or other users and will acknowledge them where necessary. I enjoy engaging in playful banter with friends particularly those whose artwork seems too good to be true. While it can be hard to build up a fan base on deviant art, and a certain degree of skill in required to achieve this, there is nothing stopping anyone from commenting on pieces they find interesting.

Twitter is a simple application that allows users to post what they are currently up to. While it can be interesting to look at what other people are doing on twitter the simple fact that no direct response can be given to a post means it is less versatile as a social application then say a forum message board. Even the function that allows text messaging from a phone so the user can update their status wherever they are fails to make this application one that I would readily and frequently use. I for one do not want to waste my phone credit in messaging to a site just to update my status, especially since I doubt few people would be watching it with interest. There is the option to follow people and be followed in turn, and the user is always aware of who is watching them. The twitter application can be added to facebook making the simple application part of a broader community and allowing the user to update without going to the twitter page, a useful feature and one that makes twitter more usable.

Facebook proved more interesting then some of the other applications as it offered a greater variety of features, several little applications and a variety of quirks to keep me interested, not to mention the fact that I was able to see who my friends were but also their friends. You can see who your friends are visually as users are able to upload display pictures of themselves, putting a face to the name. It is amusing to scroll through the friends lists of other people to see if there is anyone there that you know. From doing this I managed to add a few old friends from school I hadn’t talked to in years. A good factor about facebook is that it combines several features in one unlike programs like flickr or twitter which focus on one aspect and in my opinion do it badly. In fact face book can act much like flickr or twitter, in that you may add photos which your friends can view and even write messages displaying your current status. Face book supports a playful and relaxed attitude allowing friends to participate in virtual food fights, get mauled by virtual zombies and ask stupid questions for no reason. As a social application it succeeds in giving friends a virtual environment where they can have fun and socialise, make new friends and maybe even some old ones.

Delicious is a social bookmarking application that allows the user to mark and describe sites they find interesting and then see who else has book marked the site. While the social networking aspect of Delicious allows the user to share websites that interest them, I found the application is relatively useless in other aspects. It provides practically the same function as a regular web browser favourites list except the fact that the user must be online and then login to access them means they are less practical for the user. While I can see the point in being able to see who has similar interests, I don’t find it a particularly attractive way to look for interesting sites. When it came to searching for friends using delicious I found it difficult to find them, I could certainly find random people who liked the same kind of things I did but not personal friends. There didn’t seem to be any communication on delicious between users, of course you could access their links but there didn’t appear to be a way to comment on those items or talk to the user, for this reason delicious doesn’t seem to work as a social application.

Flickr is a basic photo upload site which serves its purpose, but on a social level I found flickr annoying and hard to navigate at times compared to a better picture hoster and social forum like Deviant Art. Users can post comments on photos uploaded to the site, see other peoples contacts and generally Since I was primarily posting my own drawings a site focusing more on the sharing of artwork is a better option for someone like me, not to mention the fact that nobody really cares about other peoples photos unless they are in it, it is funny, or cute. Not even my friends appeared interested in what I had posted. For this reason it seems a communal account would be much more likely to receive visitation, from people of similar interests. This feature is available but still I would rather interact in a social forum where the majority of viewers share similar interests.

Last.fm is a useful application in that you can play music from your regular media player and Last.fm will automatically start registering what songs you listen to. Being able to mark which songs you like is also a good aspect of the application, not to mention the fact that if you run out of songs or get bored of your own music you can also start listening to the last.fm radio to songs in genres you find interesting for free. The program is evasive, it opens when I open my regular media player and then keeps track of the songs I listen to without any of my direct interference. This suits me fine as I am able to choose when I want to interact with it. Based on the music you listen to Last.fm will generate a neighbours list of people who listen to music similar to you. Unfortunately you cannot listen to the full version of music displayed on other peoples’ pages only small snippets. Being able to search real usernames for friends is a good way to locate people you know on last.fm and see what they are listening to. Communication on last.fm seems limited and while you can see people who like listening to songs similar to yours communication is limited to a communal shoutbox and mail.

Google calendar is an application that allows the user to create a calendar and then share it with their friends, they can add events on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. For someone like me whose timetable practically remains the same week after week what with university lectures and work Google calendar is a somewhat useless program. With the same thing happening day after day on a predictable basis I hardly need reminding of what I am doing the next day. The process of adding each item is time consuming and if would be better if you could upload timetables to the calendar rather than having to add them manually. For someone like me who hardly needs a calendar the only use is as a social application and that isn’t very well achieved, combined with a program like twitter where it would automatically update what you were doing depending on your timetable it might be more worth while. Ie 850am train to Ipswich 10am social mobile lecture etc. In general I felt it was tedious adding new items for something I personally don’t need to use and quickly grew tired of it and gave up.

People using these different applications are very much attuned to the people and events happening around them. Using facebook is a perfect way for keeping in touch with old friends and finding new ones while a site like deviant art for people with an interest in anything arty will find its friendly and open environment amusing to browse through. Communication between people on these sites is usually relaxed and informal, people joke about their lives and what other people are doing, mainly because it is a free and easy way to communicate with friends. In many cases I have found that people who use social networking applications like those stated above often have complete personality changes when talking to others on the net. Perhaps mainly because they feel socially awkward in real life but with access to an online alias they can come out of their shell and speak freely without having to worry about people watching and critiquing their every move directly. One friend of mine was shy as could be, they rarely talked in person but when spoken to online they hardly stopped talking. In general many people seem to find it easy to communicate with people online as they do not have the same social expectations. Keeping track of friends and making new ones is half the fun of these online communities, digging through other peoples contacts to find people of interest can be a form of entertainment, adding to your hoard of friends. While you might not always know who is online at anyone time, people using these applications always seem to have a sense of presence, you are never know if the person you are talking to will respond, unless of course there is an online indicator. To finalise it is the simplicity and ease of conversation and interaction between users that makes or breaks an application’s usefulness.

Applications that are stand alone and have only a few limited functions like Flickr, twitter and delicious are annoying to navigate, having to have many accounts in different places is annoying and there is less chance that I would interact with them over a program like facebook which in most cases provides many of the same features but all together in the same application. Some people find the separate sites easier to use but in my case not so much. It is an application’s versatility and diversity that makes it fun to interact with not to mention the quality of communication between users.