My Reflection on Facebook and Last.FM

Student Name: Sam Wang
Student Number: 40967341

Introduction
Web 2.0 has brought ultimate possibilities to the modern websites. Many years ago, the majority of the websites were focusing on the published contents. That includes all kinds of news, articles, weather reports, star signs…etc. The intention of most web browsers is to browse the information they desire. In recent years, the social interaction between the browsers and the websites is becoming more and more popular; many websites were even created on the purpose of interactions of their registered users. Websites which were constructed before the rise of the Web 2.0, have gained success again after they renovated with the spirit of the social interaction. Therefore, it is important for people to understand why social interaction on the internet has become popular, and this phenomenon has indicated the great possibilities of online interaction.


Background
Some internet users prefer the old fashion way of browsing the internet. They do various things when they visit the website. They read the articles; download software they might use; have a laugh at the joke section and sometimes view photos of random girls/guys who they think are hot. I was one of these kinds of internet browser before I realized how interesting social interaction could be via the internet. Two of the famous modern websites – Facebook and Last.FM will be my main reflection.

Here is a brief review on the two websites:
Facebook – one of the most famous social interacting website that offers various functions (Photo sharing, minigames, events…etc) for their registered users.

Last.FM – People can share their music taste with others via the plug-in installed in their computers. Various socialize functions (events, friends, groups, journals…) are also available.


Focus
The focus of my reflection will be the privacy issues of the function that Facebook and Last.FM offers. Base on my personal experience, I will indicate how certain features needs improvement to avoid fear in further social interaction on the internet.



Reflection
Last.FM
Last.FM is a website that provides a unique feature while maintaining common social aspects for their registered users. The users will need to download a plug-in software from the official Last.FM website and have it installed onto their computers. After that, the software will update the user’s profile base on the music they played on their computer. The feature expends to the top artists, top songs and can automatically find songs that the user might be interested in. Base on that, the user can share their comments with the groups, friends, or write journals for others to read.

With the unique song-tracking feature that Last.FM plug-in provides, I was surprised and was happy to have the music that I played listed onto the internet. I thought it was a terrific way of displaying the music taste with my friends. The group feature has given me an opportunity of listening to music that I have not yet come to, which I found enjoyable when reading their comments and the responses of my comments. I also found the journal a great way to share your thoughts about the music with other users, and the comments they make base on the journal you make creates a sense of interaction, too. With these features that the website offers, I enjoyed listening and sharing the music more happy than ever.

However, there are some aspects about the features that have potential to get better once it is improved. These features include the journal feature and the recently listened track feature.

When I saw the journal feature on Last.FM, I was excited but was soon disappointed when I found out that there isn’t a way to set passwords to the journals. The journal feature on Last.FM is very straight forward, a title column followed by the content box. Underneath it lays the different insert buttons which allows the user to put videos, albums and etc. With music sharing as the main aspect, it is reasonable to see a simple enough journal editor on the Last.FM, but privacy of the journals should not be forgotten, considering the contents that some users might not want to share with others but do wish to put up in any cases. Anyone who goes into your Last.FM profile can just click on your journal to see everything you wrote. I have experienced the un-welcome visitors to my blog and read things that I wrote, so I personally have the habit of writing things down and lock those which I don’t wish to share with. One of my researches indicates the existence of internet users who wish to guard their privacy[1]. I am the type of person who writes my thoughts on the music just for memorial, so I have no desire to share it with others. There could be people like me, although might not be a lot, but is still a potential aspect that could take away their interests in writing things in the journal which can not be hidden or locked.

If the journal can be locked, users who wish to read the contents would only have two choices – ask for the password or crack the password. I believe most people on the Last.FM would kindly ask for the password when they really want to read the content of the journal. By locking the journals, it doesn't mean blocking the interaction with other users. People tend to discover things they have no authority in; therefore, contacting the journal author becomes a necessary thing to do. This is my opinion on how the journal feature should be improved and encourages the social interaction of the users on Last.FM.

The other feature I wish to improve is the recently listened track feature. This feature links to the unique feature that the plug-in provides. It lists all the tracks that the users have listened to, with details of song title, album information, date and time. This is a quiet interesting feature when you play different tracks, but would come to a pain when you keep listening to the same song, which many people do and that includes me.

There was one song that I found very enjoyable and kept listening for many times. I shared it with the other users. Without a doubt, my recently listened track was filled with the same song over and over. One of the users made a small joke about how I listened to the same song. I was not offended but it reminded me about how one of my real life friend made a joke on me when I had the song going on and on for hours in the room.

I do believe that this feature needs to be improved because it is possible that people get offended by the same kind of situation that I met. To be clearer, I personally think there is no need to track the songs with so much detail. If I were a sensitive person, I would have turn off the scrobbling function before I started listening to the same song. I would not be surprised if any one stopped using Last.FM plug-in when they find the recently listened tracks actually tracks every song that you played every single time. In this case, the most unique feature of Last.FM which encourages social interaction loses its purpose.

To improve this, I’d suggest a symbolized icon instead of the numbers that indicates how many times you have listened to the song. For example, when you listen to the song just for a few times, a smily icon with a normal smile will appear next to the song’s name. After a certain time of listening to the long, the smily icon becomes a happier smily. This way, people would not be frustrated by seeing how many times they have actually listened to the song. When people visit your profile, or track your rss feeds, they would have a good understand of how you like the song within a more pleasant representation. Doesn't this help the user in the aspect of their social manner?


Facebook
Facebook was originally designed by students within the campus as a interaction tool between the classmates. It has now become one of the largest social interaction website that offers many surprises. Facebook provides various functions (photo albums, event invitations, minigames, followed-up messages…etc) that encourage social interaction between the friends.

Before I started using Facbook, I never realized how text-based interaction could be so much fun over the internet. Most of the interaction offered by Facebook is texted with minor pictures. I enjoyed using the photo album, the events invitation, the minigames and inviting new friends. However, there is one small thing that bothered me and I still haven’t figured a way to solve it.

With the photo sharing function, people have the ability to share their photos or images with their friends, or anybody if they desire. One of the features in the photo sharing function is the tagged function. This means you can indicate your friend’s name in the photo, and when you move your mouse on top of the person, the name will pop up and tells you who this person is. This is a great thing when you want to know more about this person and perhaps do more interaction with him or her. Not surprisingly, I have experienced this function; I was tagged in one of the photos which my friends uploaded, the only thing is, it was a photo of us going out many years ago. Until today, I still don’t understand why he put this photo up, but I do understand that whoever sees this photo of me would laugh so hard that they can’t even breathe. I tried many ways to get rid of this picture, but soon realized that only the uploaded of the photo have this authority to do so. All I could do is to remove the tag on the photo, so when people move their mouse over, my name would not show up, which makes not much difference.

This fears me in the potential of someone faking an account and uploads all the bad photos with tagged names. This is very likely to happen when a friend hates a friend. This could also have a bad influence on the positive social interaction within the Facbook. Although there are report functions for whoever abuses the function to be banned, but anyone who was quick enough to see the photo would never forget what they have seen. I do believe this could come to a serious problem, here is an example. If a girl made her way from ugly Betty to the lovely pretty, she would definitely want to display her best photos with her friends. If another girl who hates her comes into the friend group, and start tagging this girl with her previous less pretty photos, what kind of influences would be made to her?

At this stage I have not yet come up with a solution to this problem, the best possible way to solve this problem would probably base on the mind-set of the user. If the user doesn't mind other people seeing his or her bad looking photos, then this issue would have no problem at all. However, I do look forward to see a solution to similar situations like this.


Conclusion
The interaction between the users has become the key aspect of a successful website that provides social interaction. Therefore, how to maintain a safe and comfortable interaction environment for the users is very important thing to consider. Providing a great interaction interface is the success of Last.FM and Facebook, but improving privacy that could benefit the social interaction of the users is also essential. As stated by Vanelsas[2], “The user would need excellent and easy to use controls to set privacy in a contextual manner.”


References
[1] McMaster University, “SOCIAL INTERACTION ON THE INTERNET, “ 2009.”
http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/soc/courses/soc4j3/stuweb/cyber9/privy.htm

[2] V. Alexander, “Design of an Open Social Interaction Network: Human needs,”
3 October, 2007.
http://vanelsas.wordpress.com/2007/10/03/design-of-an-open-social-interaction-network-human-needs/

[3] D. Catherine, “Trust and privacy concern within social networking sites: A comparison of Facbook and MySpace.” http://csis.pace.edu/~dwyer/research/DwyerAMCIS2007.pdf