Communication Reflection

By Harrison Rhodes: s41009864

Assignment1: Reflection on Social and Mobile Computing

COMP3505: Social and Mobile Computing

In this article a reflection of the use of social and mobile computing software will be made within the focus of conversation. The analysis of conversation will be made in regards to there effectiveness as a conversational tool, as well as how the systems leads to positive conversational outcomes. The social and mobile computing software that have been used in COMP3505 are Delicious, Flikr, last.FM, twitter, facebook, Google calendar and Blogger. For this reflection only Delicious, Flikr, Facebook and Twitter will be reflected upon.

Focus:
The focus of this article is on conversation. Conversation is a much more complicated event then one would initially think, and there are different processes that happen within a conversation. Generally two people conversing with each other take turns waiting for each others responses before responding. Takings turns in communication is discussed in a paper called a discourse model for interaction design based on theories of human communication.

“Conversation analysis focuses on sequences of naturally-occurring talk “turns” to detect patterns that are generally specific to human oral communication, and consequently such patterns can be regarded as familiar to the user during human-machine interaction.” [1]

But breakdowns in conversations can occur to disrupt this balance. Communication can take form through different combinations of time and space. Such as face to face, synchronous and asynchronous interactions. Social and mobile computing has many different ways in which conversation can take place. The questions surrounding the focus of conversation is designed to reflect upon how social and mobile computing software can be used to inform effective conversation, as well as the positive outcomes that can get gained from the conversation around these tools.

Delicious:
Delicious is a tool which allows users to save bookmarks about websites they enjoy or find helpful. Delicious then shows the user how many people have bookmarked the same site which gives an indication of the websites popularity around the world. Users can see what other people are book-marking such as friends or other users of the site. It can also be used a collaboration device for research or travel information.

As a tool for effective communications Delicious not have as many features as other social and mobile computing tools, as it doesn’t have the features to post detailed messages to other users directly. But what I found was a good feature for conversation on delicious was the use of collaborative book-marking. This would be especially useful for group assignments where lots of research would be done. This is also emphasised by the Delicious site.

“Vacation - Planning a trip? Save links to hotels, activities, and transportation and use tags like "travel", "vacation", and "to-visit". Collaborate with friends and family by using the "for:username" tag.” [2]

By adding the for:username tag the bookmark sends to other users Delicious account. The username part of the “for:” tag is replaced by the username of the user you want to bookmark to be sent to. A small description of the site can also be added which gives the other user information about what the website is about. By posting bookmarks for other users you are able to have simple conversations/communications in regards to interests or any other purpose you may wish to use for the site. Because of the nature of the conversations breakdowns don’t occur often, the only real breakdowns that could occur would be adding an incorrect description of the website, or entering a broken link. The overall effectiveness of “conversation” on Delicious is limited as users can only communicate what websites they have bookmarked, or within the description users could add more specific forms of conversation, but then the information about what the site is about is lost. From experiencing using Delicious the subtle conversations of sending bookmarks can be a powerful tool in trading information and collaborating research. As working together as a team is important and communication and conversation are critical in teamwork. Delicious can help in managing these communications by the sharing of bookmarks. The importance of teamwork and communication is told in the paper Organizing Communication in a Social Desktop.

“Modern work is a highly social process, and social cues are critical both for managing communications and for accessing information. Modern teamwork is communication-centred” [3]

Hence why collaborating bookmarks is a tool to manage communications. Descriptions tags could also be used to point out sections of a website of interest.

The positive conversation outcomes made possible through Delicious are primarily the easy sharing of bookmarks between different users forming small conversation groups. By being able to share these websites simply and effectively without having any real breakdowns in conversation makes the tool easy to have simple conversations. The positive outcomes are also for the user of the system as they can communicate with themselves by linking to there own tags to find all the information on a particular topic. Finding information without worry about loosing your bookmarks is also fantastic as it can be accessed by any internet connection which can ensure that users can always stay in a form of conversation. While there are positive outcomes in using Delicious they still limit the depth of conversation that can be had, but it has potential.

Flickr:
Flickr is a photo sharing application which allows users to view each others profiles and comment and give advice on photographs and photography. The organisation and privacy of photos are also elements of Flickr, the privacy allows for only specific members to view certain photographs. As told in the About Flickr section on there website.

“Maybe they want to keep a blog of moments captured on their camera phone, or maybe they want to show off their best pictures to the whole world in a bid for web celebrity. Or maybe they want to securely and privately share photos of their kids with their family across the country. Flickr makes all these things possible and more!” [4]

Flickr also enables photographs to be submitted and exported via mobile devices with an internet connection such as mobile phones.

As a tool for effective conversation Flickr has a variety of different functions which allow members to engage in conversations. The main aspect of communication form my experience is the commenting on photographs, whether they are your photos or other users. This can not only help users improve there own photography but also help others to do the same. The conversation can be as fast as synchronous distributed interaction as users can immediately reply to comments if they are logged on at the same time. Being able to create groups also increases the effective communication of Flickr as groups who share a similar interest can view and comment on photos in a more constructive manner. The user can also create discussion posts to talk about Flickr photos or any other subject in these groups. Such as when I used Flickr I joined the COMP3505 group I then posted a discussion post about graphic design and photography for everyone in the group to add to. Because users mainly join groups they are interested in the conversations becomes natural. Overall as a tool for effective conversation Flickr has various methods of communication which are all effective in creating conversation, with the privacy to limit your account to family and friends.

The positive conversation outcomes made in Flickr are primarily in the formation of groups with similar interests. These interests don’t even need to be interests in photography but other interests and hobbies as well. As Flickr is a powerful tool for social networking lots of positive outcomes can be achieved. Being able to invite friends via a simple email through Flickr itself makes it easy to extend the contacts list, which leads to the opportunity to learn more about friends and family through conversation as well as viewing some amazing photography. The opportunity to meet new people is also a positive conversational outcome as it’s as simple as commenting on other user’s sites which can lead to online friendships within the Flickr community. Lots of positive outcomes can be made through the use of Flickr.

Facebook:
Facebook is a social networking program that connects people with similar education information as well as email contacts together. It also allows for the installation of programs to add extra functionality, such as events, photos and movie programs. This tool makes keeping up with social networks easy and interesting.

Facebook is a great tool for effective conversation. Not only are users able to post messages on each others “wall” (a wall is an area on a profile in which messages can be added), but also private messages can be posted backwards and forwards. Conversations form a large part of using Facebook. Another aspect of conversation within Facebook are messages which appear on your profile, these messages display information such as which friends your contacts have added, and well as updates on wall posts. This allows for a user to see what other people are having communicating about, which can allow for you to add your views on the conversations. The interface of Facebook is shown below. On the right hand side the information about who your contacts are adding for friends and wall posts are shown.

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The small sub applications on Facebook called superpokes also allow for effective conversation between users. Superpoke allows for small messages such as a high five or throwing a sheep at different users of Facebook, while this may seem a small form of conversation, it’s a form of conversation never the less. Because of the extent of interactions on Facebook it’s the most effective form of conversation tool that I have used in a social and mobile computing tool.

The positive conversational outcomes are primarily in the locating of friends and old classmates. This is done by searching for people from the same school as well as graduating year. This leads to positive conversational outcomes as you can have conversations with people that you may not have met for awhile. For example in my use of Facebook I found a variety of friends from high school some of whom are now living in Japan and Sweden which I didn’t know before I began using Facebook. With the addition of the updates on my Facebook page about who has made friends with who as well as updates on who has posted on who’s wall also has positive outcomes for conversation as you can keep track on other users beside yourself. From using all of these different tools Facebook has achieved in my opinion to most positive outcomes out of all of the social and mobile computing applications.

Twitter:

Twitter is used to track what people are doing. This tool can be used to track your friends and family not only through the website but also through the use of a mobile phone. All that is required is that the user enters what they are doing at any given time. If other people have been added you into your address book then what they are doing is displayed on your screen and vice versa.

As a tool for effective conversations Twitter allows for the communication of what you are doing now. While it isn’t primarily based around synchronous distributed interaction it does give an indication of a current status. This acts sort of like msn messenger statuses but with the freedom to say exactly what you are doing. Conversations could take place from user to user however this would defeat the purpose of what this tool is trying to achieve. But status updates communicate in themselves such as if one user posts that they are driving to uni then you can predict a time that they might arrive. From personal experience using Twitter I found it good just to be able to see what everyone has been up and at what times as it list’s everyone’s status as well as my own. This is shown in the image below.

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As you can see the what are you doing box is where you update your current status, below is a list of all of these status’s from both myself and some friends. This is really the only forms of communication that Twitter has to offer.

As a tool for positive conversational outcomes Twitter has a nice system of being able to also find out what your contacts are doing via your mobile. This is great if you need to find out where someone is on the run. By simply logging onto to Twitter you can find out more information about what people are up to then msn could do and in a much shorter amount of time. It’s a great tracking tool but other then what is mentioned above additional communication is limited. But it’s a great social and mobile computing tool.

Through the reflection and use of social and mobile computing software I have found great uses for conversation in each of the tools Delicious, Flikr, Facebook and Twitter. All have different strengths in regard to the effectiveness as a conversational device, as well how well they lead to a positive conversational outcome. Each has there own unique way of dealing with conversation, which may benefit lots of users in different ways. But based on all of social and mobile computing tools Facebook has achieved the best in both of the categories of conversation.

Bibliography:

[1] Jürgen Falb, Hermann Kaindl, et al. (2006). A discourse model for interaction design based on theories of human communication. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Montréal, Québec, Canada, ACM Press.

[2] Delicious. "Delicious/About." Retrieved 17/08, 2007, from http://del.icio.us/about/.

[3] Steve Whittaker, Quentin Jones, et al. (2004). "ContactMap: Organizing communication in a social desktop." CM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI) 11(4): 445 - 471

[4] Flickr. (2007). "About Flickr." Retrieved 17/08, 2007, from http://www.flickr.com/about/.

[5] Facebook. (2007). "Facebook." Retrieved 17/08, 2007, from http://uqedu.facebook.com/profile.php?id=715639991.

[6] Twitter. (2007, 17/08). "Twitter." from http://twitter.com/home. (note this won’t be able to be accessed as you need to log in as me to see this)