My Reflection about Twitter and Last.fm

Name:Zhou Fei
Student Number:41282902


Introduction:
From Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, human beings play a more and more important role in the network. With the traditional web model, people could only seek information they desire from the internet, and the internet is nothing but the information storehouse to most people. As the Web 2.0 developed rapidly, the situation has been ameliorated. Vast human & social interactions have been linked with network. People are able to make friends, chat, share and date on line. “Social Computing has radically changed the way people interact with both information and one another on the Internet.” Because of the convenience and advantages it brings to people’s lives, this type of technology is becoming more and more popular today. The phenomenon with diverse aspects, such as human conversation, group coordination, awareness and so on, will be introduced in the following paragraphs.

Background:
In the last few weeks, I have tested and worked over some specific interactive software and websites. Based on my personal experience, two websites, which are prevalent in worldwide scope, were chosen in order to support my reflection.
Twitter is a different type of Instant Information, with which users are able to post their latest trend and their ideas in less than 140 characters.
Last.fm is the largest social music platform in the world. Users need to install software, which can be downloaded from the homepage of Last.fm, onto their computer to track what music they are listening to. Data has been recorded then be uploaded to the Last.fm website for data collection and recommendation. At the same time, some other functions are also available in the site of Last.fm to satisfy users’ social interaction and communication.

Focus:
In the following reflection, I am delighted to share my personal experience, my opinion and also my survey about these interactive websites. I will emphasize on some specific interactive functions of these websites, and also how those affects their users.

Reflection
Twitter

In terms of the software - Twitter, I have never heard of that before. However, it is quickly becoming one of my favorite social networks. Being different from most interactive tools, Twitter has the simplest interface. Novices just need to spend a few minutes to learn how to use it, and after that you can use it expertly. With the software, you could read all the announcements updated by your friends, and you can also upload your own.

First of all, I would like to talk about a special function of Twitter, which is that, the concept of ‘friends’ has been eliminated and replaced by the form of ‘followers’ instead. I have to say that I really love this design. As a social interaction system, the word ‘follow’ gives me a sense that somebody is following me or I am following others. Being different from ‘friend’, there is no relationship between a ‘follower’ and a person who is followed by others. They could be friends in real life, and they could also be strangers. For this reason, I will be happy to follow anyone on Twitter without considering the relationship between us, or whether they are following me or not. You can always find a group of people sharing same interests, activities, or achievements on Twitter.
Another fascinating function of Twitter is that users can bind their Twitter with their cell phones. Due to the restriction of 140 characters, which matches the character limit of SMS in cell phones, every update on Twitter can be sent to users’ mobile phones by SMS. Users do not have to sit in front of the computer, because they also could read the information of their ‘followers’ from their mobile phones. ‘Knowing who is around, what is happening, and who is talking with whom. ‘I think this function of Twitter is the most suitable example to demonstrate the awareness of social interaction system.



Comparing to individual users, the users who have their own groups have more advantage in using the Twitter. As I learned how to use Twitter, I invited my group members of IENV 3000 to have group meetings using this tool. Each one of us follows others, thus, all of us could be quickly gathered in the same group, and communicate freely. With Twitter, we are able to update any of our ideas come from our minds and do the brainstorming together, which demonstrates the concept of coordination in Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).
Considering the applicability and easiness of Twitter, Twitter could be used in different fields such as business, meetings, services, news etc. In addition, the social interactive system in association with mobile technology have an underlying advantage, and the future of the system is positive.
Last.fm

Last.fm is a website for music addicts sharing, recommending and searching their music tastes. Other than traditional music sharing websites, which publicize recommendation opinions that are brought forward by evaluation experts, Last.fm collects wisdom from the users instead. In other words, Last.fm represents music tastes of the populace.
Similar to Twitter, the Last.fm is easy to use as well. Users only need to download the small setup file from Last.fm’s homepage, then install into their own computer/laptop. After the installation, when you listen to the music, the software will record the information including artist, musical style, albums and so on. The recorded information will then be uploaded to the site, calculated and finally provided to other users as ‘Top Artists’, ‘Top Track’ and ‘Recently Listened Tracks’. The finalized data plays a crucial part for people to communicate with each other on the music platform. Taking myself as an example, when I browse other listeners’ sites, comparison to theirs will be indicated on the page. I am very happy to follow suggestions from the Last.fm’s to add those users as my friends, sharing them with my favorite songs, artistes and albums. If you want to recommend some music to your friends or discuss with them, you could talk to them via shoutbox and comments. All those functions demonstrate the social interaction of Last.fm.
Another social functionality of the Last.fm is the ‘Neighbours’ feature, which can guide people to other listeners’ sites who have similar musical tastes to them. Browsing other users’ profiles is like visiting their houses in real-life. When I browse my neighbours’ sites, I will also pay attention to the music they listen to even different to my taste. Involuntarily, their likes and dislikes will impact on my taste, and also some of my neighbours will be influenced by my musical taste. This only happens when people have interaction and communication together through network.
To meet other requirements of social computing and coordination of the users’, Last.fm also features ‘Journal’, ‘Groups’ and ‘Forums’ for individual users or groups. The ‘Journal’ function, which is my most favorite part on Last.fm, is really special. The function enables people to use multimedia elements, such as music and video to represent their mood. For example, if I have a really bad day and do not want to type too many words, I could insert a sentimental song into my journal. When my friends browse my journal, they may not read my words carefully, but when they are able to understand my mood with the music I illustrated. There might not be direct textural communication between two people. However, communicating with music is also another kind of social interaction.
Being contrasted significantly to other social tools and interactive websites, Last.fm provides an indirect conversation and coordination by using musical elements, which on the one hand is the strongest point, while on the other hand is the restriction of Last.fm. With the rise of Web 2.0 technology, varied social tools with musical feature start to appear, such as Blogger, MySpace etc. Comparing to Last.fm which only focuses on music enthusiasts, those other social tools are more open to all type of users. Fortunately, music will never ever be unfashionable or obsolete. Thus, although Last.fm may never be as popular as other interactive tools, such as Facebook, Blogger etc, it will still have a lot of immovable users who love music very much.

Conclusion:
Those two social websites both have simple interfaces, which do not need that much time to learn, and have specific interactive functions to satisfy users at the same time. Seen from the development of the two tools, it is easy to find out that every improvement on these tools is aiming to provide better and more powerful services of social computing and interaction for users. “Ordinary people are capable of directing messages through their network of acquaintances to reach a specific but distant target person in only a few steps.”As the rise of Web 2.0 technology, a lot of similar tools or websites are created. The competition is becoming more intensive. Thus the designers have to keep improving their social computing concept ceaselessly. However, no matter how the tools change, the soul of social networking and interaction is always about the human behavior. Meeting the requirement of users, then you will be successful.


References:
1. Rob Koplowitz, G. Oliver Young (2007) Web 2.0 Social Computing Dresses Up for Business
http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,41867,00.html

2. Duncan J. Watts, Peter Sheridan Dodds, M. E. J. Newman (2002) Identity and Search in Social Networks
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/296/5571/1302