Nabil Alikhan 40959805 This article draws on the experience of the writer and related literature to make conclusions about trust, privacy and identity in social computing sense. The Background outlines the nature of social websites and describes some of the more prominent ones touching on Twitter, Facebook, Last.FM, Blogger and Delicious. The Focus and Reflection discusses the central thesis of the article regarding how users define their identity on the internet and the implications of sharing their information. The Reflection covers this responding to three questions: 'Digital Identity and Trust; what are we saying about ourselves online?', 'Trusting "friends", is our personal information given in social network sites safe and secure? ' and 'What ever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas; do digital identities affect us in the real world?' Social websites are very different from one to the other but all contain four distinct traits; persistence, searchability, replicability and invisible audiences but these concepts are not understood by the general user who fail to realize the information they post into websites is not safe from the scrutiny of from law enforcement, government, employers and potential employers. Social websites are based on a system of trust; in order to facilitate communication between users there needs to be a degree of trust between them. The success of the social website is based on how well they build this trust. Trust is quickly developed from associating another user with a defined point in time and space and knowing this user's position in life, information like geographic location, education, employment, physical appearance and so on. Trust is not developed from knowing information like interests and hobbies. Social websites seem to mimic a social gathering; the difference between the two is that a social gathering is face-to-face interaction and a lot of the information we learn about someone is generated from their tone of voice, their mannerism, their clothing, their physical appearance. This information is lost through the social website medium. In order to compensate, social websites publish lots of other information we wouldn't get when we first meet someone, such as interests and hobbies. Social websites also introduce four new aspects to communication that is not present in face-to-face communication: (Boyd, 2008) There are many social websites available, below are descriptions of some of the more prominent ones: Facebook is the mother of all social networking websites. It provides numerous ways to interact and communicate with other users; through games, photos, messages, comments, quizzes, interests, listing hobbies and interests. Facebook provides groups for likeminded people with a particular issue. It allows users to organize events and integrates other social sites like Twitter, Blogger and Delicious. The amount of literature about Facebook compared to other social sites is amazing. Facebook is the Holy Grail for behavioral scientists everywhere because Facebook facilitates real life interactions and conversation but still maintains the aspects of persistence, searchability, replicability and invisible audiences. Facebook is discussed in detail throughout this article and is cited as the classic example for a social network site. On a personal level, Facebook provides a great way to keep in touch with friends and family. My grandmother who lives overseas (with some assistance) is able to look at recent family photographs. Facebook has a steep learning curve, it does not introduce tools properly and other users have to teach new users how to use the website. There privacy issues about the website, which are discussed in detail in the next section. Twitter revolves around a question, 'What are you doing?'. A user is expected to give a small 140 character message about what they are doing. Users can follow other users and receive updates on what those users are doing. Aside from the input of what a user is doing there is no other real information; there are no picture albums and no contact information about users. Twitter users have changed how Twitter is used. Most users do not write directly what they are doing but post messages about ideas, websites they like and messages to other Twitter users. Twitter is an interesting example of how the users have reshaped the application into something else (Mishaud, 2007). It is amazing how many uses users have found for a simple small message box. Twitter users tend to group into small interconnected circles; these groups are circles of friends who know each other in real life through one way or another. Some of these users have acquaintances and friends outside this circle who have their own group of friends on Twitter. These connections form branches between user clusters, facilitating the mingling of both groups. Twitter is highly popular in the United States and Europe and is relatively unknown in the rest of the world. (Java et al., 2007) On a personal level, Twitter indulgences both my ego and my curiosity. I get to follow what other people are doing and I also get to post up what I'm doing and pretend that it matters. Twitter allowed to learn more about my comp3505 peers and made it easier to approach them when I saw them in lectures and tutorials. Last.FM is based around the music tastes of the user. It sends information about the user's music to the site through a helper program called a scrobbler. It interfaces with iTunes and can also upload music that was listened on an iPod. This way it can form a genuine description of a user's music taste this can be cross-referenced with other users to see compatibility. Users can also see what music events are on and find information about bands. What makes Last.FM so exceptional as opposed to filling in the 'music' section in a blog or using an application in Facebook is the power of the scrobbler and the database behind it. The scrobbler becomes a passive element of someone's computer, it quietly sits in the system tray and monitors the music a user plays, the song and the band is identified through the Last.FM database and it can show the user information relating to the song they're listening to. The information about the song is generated by other users; if no information exists, users are invited to add information, similar to the concept of Wikipedia. Last.FM has become a large compendium of information about bands, music, gigs and music albums, its database also had an array of samples from different tracks to give a user an indication what a band sounds like. A band's albums are cross-referenced with Amazon.com to facilitate purchases. One of the best features of Last.FM is that not only does it show what users are listening to and recommend but the website itself has its own suggestion of what other bands a user might like given the information about all the user's music tastes and listening habits. The site also recommends which concerts a user would be interested in if the user indicates the city in which they live. On a personal level, Last.FM has given me a lot of information about upcoming gigs and allowed me to keep ahead of my friends in that regard. I've also been able to develop a good appreciation of French Ska from the recommendations Last.FM has given me. Blogger is the quintessential weblog provider. It provides users a space to write anything they want, at any length. Blogger does not provide the same level of searchability as the other websites, users are supposed to make contact with other users by reading their blogs and posting comments about it. The method of finding a blog a user might want to read seems to be outside the scope of Blogger. Blogger profiles do not contain a lot of information, presumably because information should be coming from the blog itself. It is very easy to hide one's identity on Blogger so on its own does not seem to have any problems with privacy; it is only when a blog can be cross-referenced with MySpace or Facebook account is it possible to determine who a user is. Blogger contrasts sharply to LiveJournal, which is geared towards building community between users. On a personal level, Blogger taught me how to write proper English, having to formulate ideas and write them in a logical manner, it also taught me how to proofread my own writing, something my English teachers failed to do. Although, I do wish that my personal blog was read a little more, something Blogger has never helped me with. Delicious is bookmarking website, the idea is to amalgamate websites into one single page of links. Delicious seems to have evolved from the ever increasing amount of information on the internet, this way it is possible for a user to collect links to all their favourite website and web content and categorize them with tags for searchability. Other Delicious users can subscribe to a user's Delicious page and be notified if a new link is posted. There is very little information about a Delicious user aside from the websites they link. On a personal level, I couldn't come up with a proper use of Delicious myself, although a lot of my friends link me YouTube and things and this would be an excellent place to put links like that instead. Delicious would be much more powerful if it was linked in with pipes and everyone knew how to use RSS feeds. This article discusses comparing and contrasting the real world to the digital world from the context of social networking sites through investigating concepts of trust, privacy and identity. When the Internet was in its infancy, the emails and messages sent between people were treated with a certain level of distrust. Users could behind screen names in IRC chat rooms and it was impossible to tell the true identity of anyone else. With the web 2.0 phenomena these messages are now sent with profile picture and the messages link back to a profile page with varied information about that person, so the identities we have online now reflect our real world identity. Do our online profiles and digital interactions affect our relationships and identity in the real world? This is the focus point of this article. This article will touch on three questions to best explore the topic: Social websites seem to mimic a social gathering; users are all there to meet other users and mingle, the users who sit in the corner and look at their feet are usually the users who are ignored. A good, complete profile or bio page is the digital equivalent of giving every visitor a big smile, a firm handshake. Users fill information about interests and hobbies because they want to talk to other users about that; even if they write "I don't really like books", they still want another user to talk to them about their apparent dislike of books. Facebook only requires a user to show a display name, an email and the network they are attached to; but users often fill all the fields in their profile. Why do users post this information? Because the entire point of the website for a user is to connect with other similar users. (Acquisti et al., 2006) By posting information about one's self, a user is implicitly saying they want to know about other user's information. The act seems friendly and incites trust. It is deemed friendly and social. One study into Twitter found, Twitter users who update often and follow many users are in turn followed by many other users. (Java et al., 2007) It is clear that a user's activity dictates how popular they are. The desire to be friendly and social to other users forces users to reveal parts of their identity and show they are a real person too. Humans instinctively seek out relationships with other people and establish networks of trust with people around them. The purpose of a social networking site is to facilitate and encourage this behavior. At the moment Facebook is the best social networking site for this reason. It has the most users and has the highest net worth because the site is geared towards eliciting a single human emotion; trust. A person needs to know certain things about a person before they can trust them enough to interact with them. The information a person needs to know about another's identity can be shown by comparing a site like Last.FM with Facebook. Last.FM does not contain information about a user's address or any real reference about their location, nor does it show anything about their career or education, and most profile pictures in Last.FM does not show the user's face. Since none of the associated friends give this information either, it's impossible to pinpoint who someone is. The user's information about what music they listen to is abstracted from the real world because there is no context about the user themselves. We see an aspect of a person's identity purely from the music they listen to. The music information Last.FM lists about a user is genuine; the user does not input the music they listen to, it is taken directly from the media player itself though the scrobbler helper program. The question is: Do we trust them? The answer is no. Facebook on the other hand make the profile picture a prominent part of the page and most profile pictures are the user's face, it is possible to show information about a user's career, education, location, as well as music, books, movies and so on. A friend's list in Facebook shows the all the other Facebook users the user knows along with their information. Again, the question is: Do we trust them? The answer is yes. What is the key element in eliciting trust? These bits of information are the same bits of information we need to identify someone in real life. For instance notice the clarification questions about whether someone would know someone else: The question could be "Do you know Sarah?" which would initiate the following questions: Once we know the answer to some or all of these questions we can say whether we 'know' a person or not. This information is key for us defining someone's identity. Once we have identity we can decide whether we will interact with them as friends and through more interactions we decide whether we associate with them or not. Facebook helps at all stages of this process by displaying information about someone to allow us to give them context. This is one of the reasons why Facebook is so popular today. The previous section discussed the level of trust in social network sites, this section and the next elaborates on how that trust can be abused. One survey found that 77 percent of Facebook users have never read the privacy policy and 67 percent mistakenly believe that Facebook does not collect information about them from other sources, nor does it combine information about them collected from other sources. 56 percent of surveyed users wrongly believe that Facebook does not share personal information with third parties and 76% of respondents said that the information on the Facebook profile is true and complete; when this was cross referenced with their profiles this was found to be the case (Acquisti et al., 2006). Facebook users do not realize that their personal information on display to the world, and they usually give genuine information. Most of social websites are based in the United States and as such are subject to the United States laws regarding privacy, these privacy laws are based around the Fourth Amendment which states: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." (Hodge, 2006) Justice Harlan in (Hodge, 2006) recognizes "there is a twofold requirement, first, that a person have exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy and, second, that the expectation be one that society is prepared to recognize as 'reasonable.'" In the context of Facebook and similar websites, a user posts their information on the website with the intention of it being read by others; with the assumption their audience is the selected group of friends. However, through the nature of Facebook and the vagary of the privacy policy any information users enter are open to scrutiny from law enforcement, government, employers, potential employers and a user's mother. Incidentally, the Fourth Amendment does apply to emails since this communication is between a selected group of users and is sent with the intention of being viewed by those users and those users alone. Since Facebook users usually do not qualify who should see their page and who shouldn't, the information is not protected by the Fourth Amendment and is essentially in the public domain. (Hodge, 2006) There is very little literature regarding privacy for social websites other than Facebook and Myspace. The reasons for this have been discussed in the previous section, 'Digital Identity and Trust; who are we saying we are online?'. Essentially, Facebook contains enough different applications, like photos, friends lists and profile information, in order to cross reference someone's true identity and geographical location. Websites like Twitter and Last.FM have very little input of who a user actually is; most of the users in the Comp3505 on Twitter were unable to identify other Comp3505 Twitter users even though they shared a subject with that person. Facebook carries the most important information about someone's identity and is naturally the website to cause the most privacy concerns. The information users post about themselves in social websites does not exist in a vacuum. There is a growing trend in criminal charges, termination of jobs, and penalties against users who post incriminating evidence about themselves and others. Most Facebook users are apathetic about their own privacy (Acquisti et al., 2006). They openly publish photos, information and comments that does not always portray them in a positive light. Some users even post up information about illegal activities. Here are some summaries of news articles about users being affected by the information they post on websites like Facebook and weblogs: The information users post into websites is not safe from the scrutiny of law enforcement, government, employers and potential employers and most users of these websites are clearly not aware of this. Social websites seem to mimic a social gathering; the difference between the two is that a social gathering is face-to-face interaction and a lot of the information we learn about someone is generated from their tone of voice, their mannerism, their clothing, their physical appearance. This information is lost through the social website medium. In order to compensate, social websites publish lots of other information we wouldn't get when we first meet someone, such as interests and hobbies. Social websites have aspects of persistence, searchability, replicability and invisible audiences that is not present in face-to-face interactions. When the Internet was in its infancy, the emails and messages sent between people were treated with a certain level of distrust. Users could behind screen names in IRC chat rooms and it was impossible to tell the true identity of anyone else. With the web 2.0 phenomena these messages are now sent with profile picture and the messages link back to a profile page with varied information about that person, so the identities we have online now reflect our real world identity. Humans instinctively seek out relationships with other people and establish networks of trust with people around them. The purpose of a social networking site is to facilitate and encourage this behavior. Social websites are based on a system of trust; in order to facilitate communication between users there needs to be a degree of trust between them. The success of the social website how well they build this trust. Trust is quickly developed from associating another user with a defined point in time and space and knowing this user's position in life, information like geographic location, education, employment, physical appearance and so on. Trust is not developed from knowing information like interests and hobbies. Users subconsciously know that they need to give information in order to have other users trust them but they forget that the internet is a public space and this information is available to everyone. Users expect a certain level of discretion with the information they give to social websites and expect their details to be kept private, however, this is not the case. Social websites do not respect that privacy and websites like MySpace and Facebook often shares user's information with third parties. Users are unaware that there is no real legal requirement of privacy on these websites. If they did know it would probably stifle the trust bonds between users and elicit a feeling of distrust towards the website. There are many instance where the information that users have posted on social websites that have been used against them. They were not aware the information was publicly accessible and in some cases have been arrested, fired from their job, deemed unacceptable for potential employment or even submitted to a mental hospital. There is a direct contrast between human's need to be social and a person's need to protect their vital information and this poses a problem for users of social websites everywhere. ACQUISTI, ALESSANDRO & GROSS, R. (2006) Imagined Communities: Awareness, Information Sharing, and Privacy on the Facebook. IN GOLLE, P. & DANEZIS, G. (Eds.) Proceedings of 6th Workshop on Privacy Enhancing Technologies. Cambridge, U.K: Robinson College. URL: http://petworkshop.org/2006/preproc/preproc_03.pdf#search=%22Awareness%2C%20Information%20Sharing%2C%20and%20Privacy%20on%20the%20Facebook%22 Last viewed: 21/3/2008 BOYD, D. (2008) Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life. IN BUCKINGHAM, D. (Ed.) Youth, Identity, and Digital Media. Cambridge: MIT Press. URL: http://www.danah.org/papers/WhyYouthHeart.pdf Last viewed: 21/3/2008 CZEKAJ, L. (2007) Workers fired over Internet postings. OTTAWA SUN. Ottawa, Canada. URL: http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2007/01/17/3394584-sun.html Last viewed: 21/3/2008 HODGE, M. J. (2006) The Fourth Amendment and privacy issues on the "new" internet: Facebook.com and MySpace.com. Southern Illinois University Law Journal. URL: http://www.law.siu.edu/research/31fallpdf/fourthamendment.pdf Last viewed: 21/3/2008 JAVA, A., SONG, X., FININ, T. & TSENG, B. (2007) Why We Twitter: Understanding the Microblogging Effect in User Intentions and Communities. WebKDD. URL: http://workshops.socialnetworkanalysis.info/websnakdd2007/papers/submission_21.pdf Last viewed: 21/3/2008 KHARIF, O. (2006) Big Brother Is Reading Your Blog. BusinessWeek. URL: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2006/tc20060228_241578.htm MISHAUD, E. (2007) Twitter: Expressions of the Whole Self. Department of Media and Communications. London, London School of Economics. URL: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/media@lse/mediaWorkingPapers/MScDissertationSeries/Mischaud_final.pdf Last viewed: 21/3/2008 SMITH, K. (2005) NCSU Students Face Underage Drinking Charges Due To Online Photos. WRAL. Raleigh-Durham Fayettervile, N.C. URL: http://web.archive.org/web/20051031084848/http://www.wral.com/news/5204275/detail.html Last viewed: 21/3/2008 STEINER, E. (2007) Facebook, Guns & the Virginia Tech Fallout; SUNY Student Sent to Mental Hospital for Posting Gun Photo. Washinton Post. Washington. URL: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/offbeat/2007/04/facebook_guns_the_virginia_tec_1.html Last viewed: 21/3/2008 Or – Does this profile make my head look big?
Introduction
Background
Facebook
Twitter
Last.FM
Blogger
Delicious
Focus
Reflection
Digital Identity and Trust; who are we saying we are online?
Trusting "friends", is our personal information given in social network sites safe and secure?
What ever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas; do digital identities affect us in the real world?
Conclusion
References
Last viewed: 21/3/2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
S40959805: Uploading ourselves digitally; Privacy, trust and identity issues
Reflection - Tara Einam
At which point in the last few weeks did my computer become similar to a light bulb? When did I become the moth, irresistibly drawn towards its beacon of light?
I can’t pinpoint the exact date, but I do know that it has happened. No longer can I walk from my lounge room to my kitchen without having to stop and check what my friends, and even some people I don’t know, are doing. My computer has become a friend, who just happens to know the gossip on everyone else.
Thanks to the technology behind social networking applications I can now ‘follow’ my friends, family, colleagues and acquaintances. There are many different applications out there however the ones I will be focusing on are Facebook, Twitter and Delicious.
Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg while he was a student at Harvard University. Launched in February 2004 it is now one of the most popular social networking sites with over 64 million users. It allows users to join networks, such as schools, places of employment or locations, and then find and connect with people in the same networks.
Delicious (or del.icio.us) was founded by Joshua Schachter in 2003 and then purchased by Yahoo in 2005. It is a social bookmarking web service used for storing, sharing and discovering web bookmarks. Users assign chosen keywords, tags, which are then combined with everyone else’s bookmarks so that it is possible to view all bookmarks listed under that tag.
Twitter started as an internal research and development project for Obvious in 2006. Users are able to send text based messages (or ‘tweets’) of up to 140 characters to the website and then these are displayed on the user’s profile and sent to other users who have elected to receive them. Twitter allows ‘tweets’ to be sent and received by mobile phones, instant messaging services and other applications, such as Facebook or Twitterific.
For a period of four weeks I have been using these social networking applications. Over these weeks I’ve noticed that my routine has changed and that I can group these changes into three distinct categories.
- my social connections
- my attitude towards the applications
- my behavioural routine
Before using these applications the only ways in which I kept in contact with most of my friends from high school was through unexpected face-to-face meetings, infrequent phone calls, short text messages and the occasional email. Obviously the level of each of these varied from person to person, however sadly, for the majority contact was minimal and often lost completely. But with the social networking applications it made contacting friends so much easier. As well as sending them messages I could find out what they had been up to, see recent photos of them, find out whether they were in a relationship, whether their interests had changed. I could also see which friends we had in common and sometimes found connections which we may never have know existed. For example, I discovered that one of my school friends now works with a friend who I once worked with.
My attitude towards these applications was previously relatively uninformed. While I knew that they existed I had never felt the need to create an account and join the frenzy. However, as my family and friends can confirm, I have now been encouraging everyone I know to sign up to these applications. At the end of the first week I had doubts about their purpose, and kept thinking, “Why would you use this?”, but as more of my friends joined I appreciated the applications more. Suddenly these applications were all I could talk about, and my routines started to focus on them.
Even though my home computer has broadband internet access, I would only ever turn it on when I had a specific purpose in mind, such as checking for an email or to look at a website which I had heard about. Now my computer comes on in the morning when I wake up and doesn’t get turned off until I’m about to go to bed. I will open a webpage and just refresh it every time I walk past to see what has happened. Has someone left a message, has some updated their status, has someone added new photos, has someone tagged an interesting website? My mobile phone has also become attached to my person thanks to the mobile capabilities of the applications. Now when I go out I keep my phone with me. I keep it in my pocket and even though it will beep and/or vibrate if I receive a message I still pick it up and check it anyway. After only a few weeks of usage my behaviour has already began to alter. Adjusting to allow my lifestyle to become closer linked to the social networking applications.
These three categories lead me towards the issue of addiction;
- Can we develop an addiction to using social networking applications?
- Who would be most susceptible to a social networking addiction? And
- Should we be concerned about this happening to us?
In an article published by the Herald Sun (November 05, 2007), journalist Darren Osborne interviewed Julian Cole, a digital strategist for Naked Communications. The article discussed the possible addiction of online social networking. Cole was quoted as listing university students or people new to the workforce as being more likely to be typical addicts due to their ready access to computer. Possible signs of social networking addiction included frequently visiting the site for longer than intended, experiencing negative psychological or physical effects when the activity wasn’t available, and scheduling other activities around online time. Although Cole stated that the ‘benefits of online social networking outweighed the negatives’ this attitude was lost in the article as it discussed the addictiveness of social networking websites.
The media is always keen to discuss the affect the internet and other technologies are having on our impressionable children and teens. So I found it interesting that, even though the article was titled, ‘Youngsters addicted to networking websites’, Cole did not list youngsters as among those most susceptible to the social networking addiction. I believe that the main reason for this, besides having a smaller amount of ready access to computers than university students and those new to the workforce, is that children do not have as wide a range of social contacts. While students/new employees have a list of friends, acquaintances and contacts which they have developed for many years, children only have their school friends and family members. Thus social networking applications will interest and benefit them less.
Addictive behaviour occurs in a large majority of the population. Whether an addiction to an activity (such as gambling) or a substance (such as tobacco) addiction is always considered as a compulsion developed by an individual to engage in a specific activity regardless of the consequences to the person’s health, mental state or social life. Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) is formally recognized as a disorder by the American Psychological Association and is concerned with the ‘problematic use of the Internet, including the various aspects of its technology’.
My own experience with these applications demonstrates that addiction could undeniably become a side effect of using these applications. Within only a few weeks of use my behaviour changed to allow my lifestyle to become closer linked to the social networking applications and I started to exhibit symptoms of an Internet Addiction Disorder;
- Losing track of time spent online,
- Fatigue from lack of sleep,
- Spending an increasing amount of time online and then having difficulty cutting down on this time, and
Thinking about previous online activity when not online and then anticipating next online session.
Interestingly one symptom which I most certainly did not exhibit was;
- Decreased investment in social relationships and activities.
Four weeks ago I had little to no involvement in social networking applications, four weeks later the have changed my lifestyle, both positively and negatively, affecting my social connections, my attitude towards them and my behavioural routine.
Can we develop an addiction to using social networking applications? Apparently so. Using these applications is an activity for which you can develop a compulsion and my own experience, even over a short period, has demonstrated this.
Who would be most susceptible to a social networking addiction? Not children but university students and people new to the workforce due to their ready access to computers and their wide range of social contacts with which to network.
Should we be concerned about this happening to us? Well that is up to each individual. For me, after considering it I have to say yes, for you, who knows? However I would recommend that you keep this in mind. It is the prevention method recommend for Internet Addiction Disorder. “If a person knows that he or she has difficulty with other forms of addictive behaviour, they should be cautious in exploring the types of applications that are used on the internet. In addition, it is important for people to engage in social activities outside the internet.” And no, I don’t think that receiving tweets when you are out would count.
A Quirky Reflection
A Quirky Reflection
One of the best things about social networking sites is that you can totally lose yourself in them - they are the ultimate time-wasters!
Perhaps time-waster is not the best word, since they can be very useful... oh, who am I kidding. I have lost many hours a week fiddling with these sites in one way or another.
After looking at the provided list of social websites to sign up for, I quickly realised that I regularly use many of them, and have at the very least heard of the rest. This presented me with an interesting situation - what is the best way to immerse myself in applications I am already familiar with?
I decided the best way is to reflect on my recent experiences with each of the social sites I am familiar with, and describe my first impressions of the ones I am not.
Facebook
Been using for: 3 years
Facebook is an entrepreneurial goldmine. Within one month of launch in 2004, three-quarters of Harvard students were signed up to the social website 1. Four years later, it is ranked as the 6th most visited English website in the world, up there with the likes of Google, YouTube, and Yahoo 2.
Unfortunately, one can get lost for hours in Facebook. There just seems to be an endless supply of pages to click to - one minute you can be looking at photos of last night’s pub crawl, and the next, you are deciding whether to add an application that will tell you who you should date!
While on the topic of applications, I should point out that they are a major annoyance to me. If I tell Facebook once, I should not have to tell it ten more times: I do not want to add the Vampires application! I have the notification settings down as low as they go, so at least my Inbox does not get flooded with emails - but it is still not enough.
The sign up process still sticks in my head - even though it was about three years ago! I am not sure if it is still the case, but it would not let me sign up using a non-University email address! This was very annoying, and took a long time to change once signed up. The idea of separating people by their educational institution still puzzles me - it does not seem to reflect the evolved concept of the mature Facebook.
Personally, it is a site that has sucked up an undeserved portion of my time for the last three years, and one that will not stop doing so for quite a while!
Last.fm
Been using for: 1 year
One word to describe it - awesome.
Many people (myself included) just think that Last.fm is a way of logging your music listening habits. After clicking around a bit, I found that there is a lot more to the application than initially meets the eye. The feature that makes it a very relevant social application is its ability to show you people with similar music tastes.
When I first signed up, this feature did not work properly. I have since realised that it requires a great deal of history on your profile (and other people’s profiles) to determine your compatibility. Now that I have around two years worth of history, this social networking feature works quite well.
I recently finished writing a Python logging program for Last.fm. Why you may ask? Well, I like reinventing the wheel. It can pick up songs from my music player of choice, log it to a local database, and then update my Last.fm profile from there. Writing this made me realise how well designed the internals of Last.fm are. Everything you see on my profile in the last month has been scrobbled by my own program.
Twitter
Been using for: Never
Up until this course, I had never used Twitter. I always thought it to be a pointless application, since most of the other social networking sites (Facebook and the like) allow you to do list your current status.
Being the go-with-the-masses person I am, I set up a Twitter account, and started... twittering? (I still have not found a verb that I like). What I found was exactly what I had thought in the past - I just honestly do not see a point in it. Why have a totally separate system that only shows your status to others, and nothing else?
If anyone disagrees, please let me know - I am more than willing to accept that I am wrong!
Google Calendar
Been using for: 6 months
The idea of keeping a computerized calendar is far from new. Google has taken a simple idea, and provided a way for people to access their calendars from any Internet-enabled computer or device in the world. Yes - even mobile phones.
I have tried many different calendar solutions over the years, and Google Calendar seems to be the best I have come across. Sure, it has its annoyances (such as having a web browser open all the time), however all in all is a very solid application.
The biggest difference Google Calendar has with conventional calendar applications is its idea of categories - there are none! Took me a while to figure out that the way to do it in Google Calendar is to create one calendar per category! This is very useful, since you can set notifications, colour tagging and sharing all based on each calendar.
Flickr
Been using for: 2 years; recreated this year
A photo sharing application. How original. I suppose you do not actually have to be original on the Internet, just do it well. Flickr is a perfect example of this.
I have had a Flickr account for quite a while now, but have never used it. I recreated it from scratch for this course, just to compare how the sign up process was two years ago to now. First impression? Same as it used to be. Still takes less than two minutes before you can start uploading. The ease of use is probably a contributing factor in why Flickr is such a popular website.
Yahoo Pipes
Been using for: Never
This site fascinates me. Apart from its slow Flash-based pipe designer, it produces an interesting result. I have always used a dedicated RSS feed reader (Liferea) to fetch all of my regular (and not-so-regular) feeds. I can definitely see the usefulness of ‘mashing’ together feeds based on categories, people, or any number of things.
I have set up the pipe for this course (see http://www.sjkingston.com/mash), but have also started experimenting with the other, more obscure features that Pipes has to offer.
Blog
Been using for: Various blogs over six years
For many years, I have had a personal blog - LiveJournal (back in 1999 when it was actually cool to have one), Blogger, WordPress, and most recently, a blog written and hosted by myself. I have settled on my own blog for various reasons, mainly due to my fascination with reinventing the wheel! I have (re)created by Blogger account for use with this course, however all of my old blog posts are long gone, so it is very blank at the moment!
In closing...
Social and mobile computing has certainly taken off in the last few years - and for good reason! With the continued evolution of the Internet, social sites will only grow in numbers. Some will use them, some will not. The most fascinating thing about social websites is that they allow people with similar tastes and hobbies to stay in contact 24 hours a day, 7 days a week - regardless of timezones.
And to ‘digg’ a self-hosted social system - come join myself and others on my IRC network: irc.sjkwi.com.au (channel #jicks) - we have a ball - err, sometimes!
A final quote you for to ponder:
‘Google is the modern-day Pacman - gobble, gobble, gobble!’
References
1 Ross, E. & Holland, A., 2007. 50 Great e-Businesses and the Minds Behind Them. Sydney, Australia: Random House Publishing, p. 44.
2 Alexa Internet, Inc. 2008. English - Alexa Top 100 Sites. [Online]. Available at http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?ts_mode=lang&lang=en [accessed 20 March 2008]
Sam ‘Kingo’ Kingston
41196616
Growing Up with the Social Internet
The Internet made its humble beginnings as a group of smaller internets (multiple networks connected together) in order to facilitate the sharing of research. It would take just short of 40 years for it to be adopted by the mainstream market, helped heavily by CERN’s World Wide Web project. Since then, consumer connection speeds have been slowly increasing, from the 28.8 kilobits/second connection of early adopters, to the 100 megabits/second Fibre to the Home (FTTH) 1 connections available in Japan (jealous much?). This gradual increase in speed has opened up the option for several different activities. While 15 years ago we were limited to merely browsing simple web pages with text (and maybe a couple of small, low resolution images), and communicating via email and IRC (Internet Relay Chat), today’s connection speeds allow us to view web pages with interactive content, play games with dozens of people simultaneously, and even hold video conferences, where you can both see and hear the people you are talking to (and they can see and hear you too!).
One trend that has been steadily increasing is the opportunities for keeping in touch with friends and making new friends. In the 90's, this had relatively humble beginnings and was quite limited, but has grown with the creation of PHP, Flash, JavaScript and CSS and various Instant Messaging protocols. As such, I’ll discuss each social application, my opinions and experiences in a chronological fashion.
IRC
I first began using IRC in the mid- to late 90's, and I guess this marked my entry into geekdom. In the space of 24 hours, I had talked to dozens of people, some in Australia, others from other countries as far away as the UK and Turkey. It was also my first introduction to a language that has since slowly been adopted into modern day language - phrases like, LOL, OMG and other abbreviations (GTFO), as well as l33t speak. Oh, and we have IRC to thank for that little gen that is bash.org, where an entire day can be wasted in what only feels like 10 minutes... God bless and damn it.Due to the number of networks and client programs available (across multiple Operating Systems, IRC is fairly easy to get started in, though there is a learning curve, and some circles aren't quite accepting of newcomers. For those interested though, install the Chatzilla FireFox add-on or grab mIRC (30-day evaluation period... I'm not saying anything ;-) ), then join us in irc://irc.sjkwi.com.au/#jicks. Most of us are UQ students, so there's plenty of common ground.
Instant Messaging Clients
Instant Messaging (IM) clients have been around since the Internet hit mainstream appeal, and today there are many clients and networks available, including MSN Messenger (now Windows Live Messenger, but more commonly known just as "MSN"), Yahoo! Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), and more recently than these three, Google Talk. I was introduced to MSN pretty much the same day as IRC, and since then it has become a staple in my life. IM clients are based around a contact list (unlike IRC), and each user has a unique user name, opening the option for each user to have a profile page, which many of these IM networks take advantage of.Over the time I've been using MSN, it has slowly evolved. Emoticon's (emotion icon's) have always been a staple, as has sending files to contacts. Webcam streaming was an early addition as is the ability to hold voice chats. There have been attempts to integrate MSN with Microsoft products and applications, like Remote Assistance, Whiteboard, and games. One good example of these games is Age of Empires - you could simply invite an MSN contact to start a game without going through the usual procedures of starting a game and tracking down your friend's room, though if my memory serves me correctly, this was only available in an additional package known as MSN Plus.
Customisable options such as Display Pictures, background images and setting a colour for your chat windows have also been included, some with more success than others. One feature that I use quite often is the plug-in Windows Live Messenger integrates into Windows Media Player which displays the song you are currently listening to next to your screen name. The song title is also a link to NineMSN's music store (at least here in Australia), so you could purchase a song a contact is listening to.
Forums and Message Boards
Over the years I have been a member of a number of forums, and have been witness to the rise and death of many. Much like IRC, forums have their own subculture, though it has certainly influenced and been influenced by IRC. Humour certainly abounds in forums, and, with the increases in connection speed, things like "thread bombs" (aka "image macros") have become commonplace... many for some reason involving cats...
Forums can be found for just about every area of interest, though many of the more successful (and longest surviving) are those found attached to professional news websites, such as Bit-Tech and IGN, as there is a constant flow of conversational topics and, lets face it... the staff get paid to keep the forum's alive. All of the forum's I've been a member of that have died have been those that have been run during the owner's spare time.
Again like IRC, many friendships that I have kept to this day have originated from forum's, a great majority of them going back to the first forum I was a member of ("Nintendo Cult" if anyone is interested, one of the first gaming related forums too I think - many similar forums have certainly spawned from its death, the members migrating from one to the next).
Blogs
Blogs just seemed to suddenly explode out of nowhere. One minute we were just happy browsing news sites and trolling forums, the next, world+dog is posting his opinion on anything and everything, telling the world what he did last night, and in some cases generally ignoring or forgetting the consequences - we've all seen the stories of employees being fired for comments they're put in their blog.In case you can't tell, I'm not a huge fan of blogs. It's not that I don't think they have their merits - there are many blogs I read frequently, and I myself have my own blog (even if I don't post much). It's just that the general majority of people seem to assume that they have no liability for what they post, or that world+dog even cares what they think about the girl/guy at work/on the bus. We don't. Maybe your friends do, but not the rest of the world.
Last.FM
I mainly joined this site so I could have a new experience to write about for this reflection, and as music plays (pun not intended) a large part in my life, it seemed like a good candidate (and like I said above, there's not many photos of me on the Internet).To be honest, my Last.FM has been fairly transparent. The scrobbling application sits down in my system tray, and I rarely go to the web site. Though I can defiantly see advantages to using the web site, particularly the Events section - I discovered a concert that is happening in a month that I am really keen on attending, and I'm sure I never would have known it was on otherwise. The "Taste-o-meter" appears a bit strange, not for what it's supposed to do, but for it suggesting my music compatibility with some of my friends is "Medium"... when we have no artists in common (though it seems to have fixed itself now). Maybe I haven't explored enough of the site yet, but it only seems to be of limited use to me, and doesn't have nearly the "sociality" of other sites like Facebook.
Having grown up with the Internet, it is quite interesting to see how it has evolved, and how it has influenced my life. Certainly, much of my life is now centred around the Internet, and not merely because society has begun a shift towards all things electronic. I still continually find it strange to see people in real life that I regularly talk to on IRC and MSN Messenger and how differently they look to how my imagination has pictured them due to their personality. Not to mention the first times I meet someone in real life that I have been electronically talking to for some time. I can only imagine how strange it might be meeting someone you know from World of Warcraft or Second Life for the first time, now that the Internet also allows us to assume another identity and appearance through these types of applications.
1 http://www.lonestarbroadband.org/technology/ftth.htm
Wayne Sebbens
s4117619
kthxbai
My Reflection
Name: Terence McKernan
Student Number: s4098298
Many people in today’s society depend on the internet for social networking. The concept of CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work) is very much in evidence with the use of technology in the social dimension framework. The trend of the internet with social networking first emerged with Friendster in March 2002. The founder intended the site to be a useful tool for networking individuals in a virtual community. In fact, the very basic human need to interact and connect with like-minded or similar types of individuals or groups is the cause and reason for the emergence of this phenomenon. In Sociology, various analyses of social networking and why humans need to do so is apparent here. The CSCW group time space matrix is applied where, there is the “asynchronous distributed interaction (different place/different times)” and the “synchronous distributed interaction (different places/same time)”. In addition, internet social networking is viral and instead of the limitations of face to face interaction (same place, same time) and forums, the possibility of reaching out and widening the extent of contacts is enormous. Due to this, Friendster immediately became a success and it didn’t take very long for others to replicate and improve on this technology. Since then, more similar services have emerged like Myspace which at present has the largest share of the market in terms of pageviews and membership and has more functionalities than Friendster for instance. In discussing this virtual social phenomenon and the HCI (Human Computer Interaction), Facebook and Last.FM will be examined and evaluated in terms of social networking and how they compare and differ with each other. It will also discuss the problems and benefits of the applications and functionalities within each system.
Facebook:
In 2004, Facebook was established by a Harvard student purely to provide a social information service unavailable offline for students within the campus. It was interactive and exclusive but due to its popularity and driven by the commercial value attached to it, the site was soon available to membership on a global scale using the “network” system. Facebook relies heavily on interaction between people as its main focus is to strengthen the connection between members.
Facebook’s success can be attributed to a few factors like its tools. There are a large number of different applications on Facebook which allow people to share photos, comments, as well as quizzes to connect individuals with one another from any geographical location. There are plenty of entertaining applications such as sending gifts and cards to friends which work quite well. Each of the applications being analysed serve different purposes within social networking.
There is an “events” application that allows people to find out what events are happening in their local area and also worldwide. This is very useful and popular amongst the members or users. It enables people to RSVP to the invite, so users can see other people who are also attending the event.
The “groups” application provides users to search and join groups which may be of interest to the user. Groups are created randomly by individuals on Facebook, which become visible to those (interested parties) through the search tool within the application. Some groups may be from past locations people have been for work as an example, while others are more hobby/music based. This application is useful because it connects those who share common interests and facilitates people to share ideas, photos and comments. This is much like the “events” application and leaves anything open for discussion.
There are however some applications that are problematic like broken links that require constant refreshing in order for it to work; or require the user to visit the page at a later date. For example the “pet pupz” application requires regular refreshing and constantly needs updating on the system’s behalf. Also the photos do not always show when they are uploaded. Pictures from friends in the system also have trouble appearing at times and are shown with a red cross instead. This can result to a diminished the connectivity between users due to a lack of communication.
The “edit” tool allows it’s users to upload photos to their account. A problem here is when a new picture is uploaded; it automatically becomes the profile picture. If the user does not wish to have this as their profile picture, they have to choose their previous one by going into their “my photos” and selecting the previous one. This is a run about way of performing the task.
The success of Facebook is attributed to the normal social human behaviour of wanting to socially interact. One example which is a positive outcome and clearly signifies the need to connect with peers is the notifications of what friends are doing and who they are contacting appear when signing-in. These notifications allow the user to see the brief actions and comments made from friends to others like new acquaintances. This further facilitates contact to someone who is currently not on the “friends list” but would like to add.
Many tools such as the “superwall”, “funwall”, hugs and gifts application can all increase the feeling of connection to friends and family. The “groups” application can increase the user’s feeling of connection to peers simply by being part of the group and sharing common interests. Regardless of the positives there are also some negative experiences in the same applications of the “superwall” or “funwall”. When these applications are added, strangers can randomly add posts that are undesirable and which also may be offensive. “Quizzes” that are sent by friends that request to reveal personal information do not mention that it will be placed for public view on the user’s profile or not. This may be information that the user does not wish others to see. This is when the user can experience an invasion of privacy.
Last.FM:
Another popular system with internet users is the site of Last.FM. The success of this virtual destination depended on a hugely popular interest which also brings people together i.e. music. Like Facebook, the ability to become connected in a social network due to similar interests is also evident. The user can join groups, a function that is very similar to that of Facebook. The visitor can find out which events are currently featuring so that those interested can go deeper into the pages and find out more information. This functionality is once again similar to Facebook. Both systems have fulfilled the social networking needs of people with common interests in order to bring them together.
Last.FM contains a program available to download off the site which provides members with a search function. It works well because it lets you discover a wide range of music artists which would normally be difficult to find when using a random keyword search with a search engine for example. When you enter an artist’s name or tag inside the search engine it will randomly select a song by that artist, or will play songs from similar artists of the same genre if the original artist cannot be found. Songs can also be tagged and added to a play list created by the user. Users can even share their interest of a track by posting comments on each track such as a blog. Other Last.FM users can also see your recent played tracks from either the Last.FM program or simply from the play list in windows media player.
A few limitations that were considered problematic with Last.Fm which may deter some users are issues like: When trying to play a song again from the Last FM’s song history, it only plays back the last 30 seconds of the track, rather than playing the entire track from the start. This can be frustrating as the user may have to then look for other systems/programs to play/find that particular song again. However no broken links were found such as that in Facebook.
The ability to receive things for free is another drawcard that Last.fm uses to connect people together. The “free downloads” button lets its users search for a particular genre of music and will display which songs are available at the time to download for free. This is a positive outcome for users as they do not have to pay for the music or have to search the net for hours to find it.
Facebook contains some complicated tools which may deter some users or may require them to music. Here you can see what they are listening to as well as their play list history. While this would seem like an invasion privacy, in my opinion, there is in fact a feeling of unspoken connection with these peers due to similarities in play list. This does not really reveal too much personal information but rather it provides insights to members’ taste and likes or dislikes. All tools are relatively user friendly in Last.fm. However, Last.FM does not provide a chat room therefore there is a limitation on spontaneous posting and exchange of ideas and opinions on a certain artist or genre of music.
The “users” button/tool at the top of the page displays a list of Last.FM users currently listening to usually the case when two users share a passion for underground music. Although this does demonstrate some connection, Facebook is much more adept in establishing connections between users. It is not only based on one site purpose like that of Last.FM, Facebook encompasses a larger array of applications which showcase more hobbies/interests for users to connect through.
The comments and observations made above on these two popular social networking websites are based on personal experience. In conclusion, the era of digital technology has provided individuals with a relatively safe and user friendly approach to social networking through the use of different applications. This phenomenon is proof of the extension and growth of the different applications in social and mobile computing.
http://social-networking-websites-review.toptenreviews.com/
http://social-networking-websites-review.toptenreviews.com/index.html#anchor
http://chimprawk.blogspot.com/2006/01/situational-relevance-in-social.html
My Relfections on Social Services
My reflections on Social Networking Services:
The internet in today’s world consists of three main things… Google, Porn and Social Networking Services. As part of the COMP3505 course, it was a requirement that I should experience many of these social networking sites first hand and reflect on my experiences with them. So I signed up to Facebook, Del.icio.us, Google Calender, Blogger and much to my disappointment…Twitter.
Facebook:
I had actually already been signed up to Facebook for a year before this course, I think it is a great way to keep in touch with friends, even though the site was confusing to use at first, I eventually become immersed in the idea and now it is like second nature for me to check my Facebook account daily, just like my email accounts. I think Facebook’s success comes from its large number of users, I have found people I went to primary and high school with, and as a result, we go out for drinks most weeks to catch up. I also found people that I met overseas through Facebook; it was really quite astounding who you can find. That being said, Facebook also has a serious downside in my opinion…in the form of game and app invites, I think at one point I had 75+ requests to become a vampire, become a zombie, get high, join the dive-man game, Play blackjack, play poker, sign up to this, sign up to that. It got really annoying to finally ignore all 75 requests, only to sign in the next day to see 100 new ones. Although there is now a block you can put up, some still manage to get through the filter.
To conclude, I am inclined to say that Facebook is a great example of how a Social Networking service can be useful, even though I have wasted many hours on its Tetris and poker games rather than on assignments or sleeping, it is still a great way to keep in touch with friends and family.
Blogger:
Seeing that you are reading and contributing to the COMP3505 blog, i can only assume that you know what a blog is...
I have always liked the idea of blogging, and Blogger makes it a lot easier than it used to be to set up a blog and write to it.I have been using Blogger for about two years now and still regularly write to them. The best bit is that you can choose who can read and contribute to your blog, so those ever annoying spam bots and negative people who oppose you for the fun of it can’t fill your blog with meaningless posts. I also found that blogger is a great way to get constructive feedback on current projects and assignments that I am working on. The only setback I found with blogger is that in larger blogs, some peoples posts don’t get read as there are about 10 more in the space of five minutes, and as a result for those who check a blog daily or every couple of days etc, would see the overwhelming amount of posts and just read the latest few. I know I am guilty of doing that, even with this COMP3505 blog, I saw the amount of “my reflections” posts and chose to read the latest two rather than all 15 that were posted. It is something that I believe can’t be avoided in said blogs that have a high number of contributing members.
Google Calender:
It seems that Google is slowly taking over the internet world, however, I welcome it. Google Calender allows you to schedule your whole year, if you’re that organised, and also allow it to be shared with the world. I would have been opposed to the idea; however, it does let you create a private Calender for your more personal schedule that only you can view, which I found great because there are times when I would like only certain people if anybody to know what I am doing at all times. However, I can see the public Calender becoming very useful in organising meetings for uni or work, or letting people know your uni timetable so events can be organised around it.
Twitter:
Great, I can pay to find out that my friend is getting nando’s chicken…why twitter was created I don’t know. Twitter is a waste of internet, essentially all it does is allow you to say what you are up to, and people can follow your status….just throwing this out there…lazy stalkers? And what’s more, you can get mobile updates via SMS for your local standard SMS cost, so essentially I spent about $5 the other night finding out that my friends were out partying why I had to stay home and finish an assignment. I think I will just leave the SMS message alerts off, and make an executive decision to use twitter as little as possible.
Well to conclude this blog, although I cannot say that I am a social network savvy, I find social networking services very interesting, even the bad ones like twitter, and with the internet’s constant advancements, I am confident that these services will be around for a long time.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Review of Social Programs - Jared Mallett 40998617
Over the last two decades, the internet has transformed from a simple ftp used only by the rich and powerful to a massive international network of data with over a trillion different websites and over a billion users worldwide (1). One of the more recent crazes to sweep across the internet is that of social networking, web services that allow a user to interact with other similarly-minded users through the various features of the website.
The way this interaction takes place varies as much as it would in face to face interaction; from allowing users to share their favourite music, to sending personal messages back and forth. These services are wide enough in variety to suit the needs of most users, whether they be business professionals who may use facebook to keep track of associates to the socially inept person who never leaves their home and spends countless hours creating a false identity so that they can hide behind the anonymity of the internet and validate their existence by accumulating over a hundred so-called ‘friends’ whose false identities share viewpoint on some trivial topic.
As part of the course requirements for COMP3505, I was required to immerse myself in social computing and sign up for several popular social networking websites, use them, and reflect on my experience. This reflection will focus on my experience with the course-assigned websites Facebook, DelIcioUs, Last.fm, Twitter, Google Calender, Blogger and Flickr, as well as well as making some observations from my experiences with other social networking websites and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs).
Facebook - I have been told that facebook is the largest social networking website on the internet at the moment. Signing up for an account is easy enough, though entering your personal details can be a little clunky if you do not wish to enter the school you attended or other similar details. I also found it difficult to skip the step of account creation where the new user enters their instant messaging email address and the system spams every contact on that account, attempting to get them to sign up for their own account, much to the annoyance of many MSN and AIM users (I personally have received 471 such emails). The functionality of facebook as fairly good, allowing users to upload and share photos, send messages back and forth, and allow or restrict how their personal details are shown as they see fit, among many other features. I can see facebook as a very usable service, just not one I want to continue using, as I much prefer to keep contact people through face to face interaction.
Del.Icio.Us - This is another social networking website that features all of the stock standard social networking features (uploading personal details, tracking friends etc), but largely acts as a repository for adding and sharing internet bookmarks. Another feature of Del.Icio.Us is keeping track of how many people have bookmarked the same websites as you, and recommending additional websites of interest based on the bookmark lists of others. The usefulness of this functionality is dependant on how and why you use Del.Icio.Us, but is interesting nonetheless.
Last.FM - Once again, Last.FM has all of the friend finding/adding/stalking capabilities of the last two websites, but this one focuses on music. By downloading an addon for their music player, users are able to record and upload the tracks they are listening to (lovingly nicknamed ‘scrobbling’) and find people who enjoy the same music. Last.FM also allows users to read and edit information about the artists and songs they are listending to, as well as create lists of their favourite tracks, and see the lists of others. The Last.FM system recommends additional music to the users based on the listening habits of others. I quite enjoyed some of the features of Last.FM, especially the easy access to discographies and biographies of the artists I was listening to. Once again, I wouldn’t use the friends lists so much, but I’ll definitely keep Last.FM after my course obligations are over. There are some things I could say about the usability of the Last.FM website itself, but that’s something for another long-winded blog post.
Twitter - This is the single most pointless thing I have ever seen. Twitter allows the user to track their friends and see short messages they submit via SMS, instant messenger or the website itself, answering the question: “What are you up to?” There is an option on the website to sign up for SMS updates on your friend’s messages for the cost of a standard SMS. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to pay 25 cents to find out that my friend is eating breakfast! The option to ‘twitter’ via sms or instant messenger seems nifty until you realise that you’re sending a text message, or going to a website every few hours to say “I’m taking time out of what I was doing to write this message and hope someone out there cares.” If someone deems it important enough for me to know what they’re doing at a specific moment, they can call me, save me the trouble of logging in.
Google Calender - Yet another splinter off the google monster. This site allows you to plan your schedule online and share it with the world. This feature would be handy in finding out when you and your friends are all free to do something, but isn't the core of social interaction actually contacting these people? Why can you not call them up and ask them? That being said, the interface is neat and intuitive, with a very user-focused design.
Blogger - One of many web-logging websites on the internet. It's simple enough, easy to use and allows for multiple-user collaboration through the use of collaborative blogs like this one(2). Being able to co-author articles and sections of articles, as well as provide feedback to your fellow users allows for a real sense of community when creating material for the blog. Personally, I prefer livejournal, but to each their own.
Flickr - This yahoo-run web service is basically a repository for pictures. Flickr allows users to store images there for viewing by contacts, or to be used with other online tools. A lot of blogging tools now have the option to integrate the user's Flickr or Photobucket account and allows them to use the pictures in blogs or on social networking profile pages. It was a pleasure to work with, if a little slow at loading on some different browsers.
The field of social computing has brought about many interesting and innovative tools to enhance our lives and help us connect with like-minded people all across the world. One thing that amazes me though is how much about themselves people are willing to divulge to complete strangers. Personally, I have experienced two such instances.
Approximately two years ago I ran a livejournal account writing hate-mail to the BBC about their show, Brainiac. In the height of its popularity I had about 50 readers. Three of them managed somehow to track me down and find my personal MSN instant messaging account and added me as a friend. All three of them had issues of some sort and told a complete stranger at length about their failing relationship, their abusive drunken parents, what have you. Only one of these people was nice enough for me to not block within seconds, and she remains a good friend of mine to this day, despite having never met her. It is amazing how much these three people came to trust me simply because I wrote humorous profane letters to a broadcasting company.
The other time this happened to me was while playing the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft. A player who I group up with frequently was having relationship issues and trusted me enough to divulge the details and ask my advice, despite us never meeting. I actually had the privelige of meeting this person last year when I visited Melbourne and I have been in contact with her since, but it doesn't change the fact that I earnt this much trust through playing a computer game with someone in another state.
WoW and other MMORPGs also raise another interesting point about social programs - the idea of proximity in a collaborative virtual environment. In an environment such as an MMORPG, a user’s avatar represents the user. The avatar’s location, orientation and appearance indicate where the user’s attention is focused. In the example below, I was having a short conversation with the aforementioned friend while in the game. She asked me about five minutes into the conversation where in the game world I was:
After finding out, she moved her character to meet with mine and continued the chat as we were doing before.
I tried to replicate this behaviour in other players, but unfortunately didn’t get a chance to screenshot it. I would start a conversation with a random person then start to run away, or turn my character away from them. Surely enough, they’d move to be facing me. The method or nature of the conversation did not change in any way, but this gave the impression that we were talking face-to-face, rather than from different parts of the world. This is similar to the conclusions from the HYDRA project in 1992 (3), adding the idea of eye contact and directed attention to a teleconference. For more information on this area of HCI, I strongly recommend taking a look at this article.
Social computing has made many advances over the last few years, and while I don’t use them very often myself, it is very interesting to observe people and their behaviour change over time as these social programs become a larger part of our everyday lives.
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1. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2153rank.html
2. Since I am also posting this to my personal blog, I should clarify that I am talking about the COMP3505 course blog.
3. http://www.billbuxton.com/hydra.html
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
examples from last year posted
but they appear down the page because the date of the posting is when I last saved it (I think). Here's a link down to it
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
The Internet is evolving; a reflection
The Internet provides one with the ability to approach an age-old problem with a fresh and exciting angle, this being the problem of interacting and communicating with others. Whilst this can provide new and exciting methods in which to achieve communication, these ideas come with their own sets of issues in a variety of areas. This posting will delve into these issues, along with an observation of the more positive outcomes that are provided through this adaptation of technology to a social setting.
In order to take an in-depth look at this concept, several different tools have been selected to ensure a variety of experiences are had. The tools that have been selected for this examination are Facebook, last.fm, and Google Calendar. These tools have different aims for the types of information they store, and the way users interact with each other, but they all provide a method for socially interacting with people, regardless of their location.
From both the extensive use of these tools, as well as interactions with other users, we will look at a selection of issues. This selection includes the increase in the feeling of connection to ones peers, some of the security issues and fears that have arisen, as well as some of the positive outcomes that have come from using such tools.
Each of the tools that are being examined here serves a different purpose within the spectrum of social and mobile computing, but a common goal is working towards improving interactions between users.
Google Calendar can be seen as being different from other applications in this class, as from the surface, the interaction layer is not prioritised, and is a fully functional application in a single user environment, as opposed to others, which require interactivity as a core component of functionality. However, once you begin to utilise the shared features that Google provides, the calendars that are shared can provide a wealth of information regarding others that you can then put to use. For instance, a shared calendar can provide the ability for a team to share a common set of tasks and deadlines, or a social group to share information regarding upcoming events. This ability to form groups, as well as being able to follow information regarding others and their availabilities, if they choose to share them, provides avenues to know more about a peer and their activities, increasing the feeling of connection.
Music is an almost ubiquitous part of society today. Apple sold over twenty two million iPod music devices in the final quarter of 2007 alone1, so it seems only natural that people can find a common interest in what their peers are currently listening to. Last.fm provides a service to upload details about the tracks a user is enjoying through a connection of a local media player, and the last.fm website. This detail provides graphs and suggestions based on ones own musical selections, but also provides a means to compare your taste in music to that of your peers. Through these tools, one is not only able to find artists that both you and your peers are commonly interested in, one is able to sample new bands that their peers are currently enjoying, through a sample service provided via both the website and the supplied end user client. With the ability to learn new things about peers, the connections one may feel can be increased with the discovery of a common interest; did you really know that your best friend also enjoyed the musical styling of Kylie Minogue?
Of the tools that we are examining, Facebook is comfortably the most well known, and is one of the largest social networking sites on the Internet. In comparison to Google Calendar, Facebook can be seen as almost a polar opposite, with almost all of its functionality dependent on the interactions between users. Without this interaction, the site is virtually featureless, and so even from this very high level; it can be seen as cementing the levels of connection between users. However, if we dig down into the program, many of its features are aimed at improving this feeling of connection. Logging into the site provides a news feed, which provides constant updates on the changes your friends have made, whether it is updating their status, declaring a relationship, posting some photos, or simply communicating a message to another user. Through these items, one is able to look into the changes their friends have made to their profile, and therefore feel more in touch with what is happening in their lives. These morsels of information provide a feeling of connection with a peer, and can sometimes provide details that one may not necessarily be made aware of in a normal social situation.
Ever since people began using the Internet, security has been an issue for many. Community sites, such as message boards or forums, have been around since a time prior to the advent of the World Wide Web, and have promoted semi-anonymous posting through hiding behind screen names, and not giving away personal information. This concept of promoting a different online persona has continued on many different websites, however, social computing sites have forced a change of perspective for many users. These sites rely on users providing personal information in order to function as a social tool, and with that comes a new issue of online security.
Facebook, for instance, attempts to force users to use their real names when signing up, and users are able to find each other using this information. Furthermore, one can provide all kinds of personal information as a part of their user profile, which can be visible to users that you are not friends with, depending on privacy settings. With this in mind, however, the fear of security issues are only there if you are careless with your information, just as in the past. Take the concept of personal domain registration. Your information may be as simple to access as a whois lookup, which may include your full name, phone numbers, and address. All of this information is required when you register a domain, but some people do not seem to think about where this information goes, despite the fact that it becomes accessible by anyone connected to the Internet. If you have posted a link to a personal website elsewhere, and identified it as yours, someone would be able to query this data. Also, the concept of anonymity on parts on the Internet can lull one into a false sense of security, and let one release information that is seemingly harmless, but someone determined can pick up on, and use to trace down your information. So whilst these new sites offer you the chance to place personal information on your profile, they can also be locked down as part of the site structure to people who would most likely know such information. So whilst some believe that their personal information is less safe because they have willingly placed it on the Internet, may have already placed it unwillingly on there previously, and without the methods to control access to said information.
Finally, we can look at ways that these items can enrich our lives. Whilst on the surface, it can seem that one is just pushing information into a black hole of the Internet, wondering who will actually use this, it seems that positive aspects have come out of the use of every tool talked about here.
Google Calendar has provided a method of managing events with multiple people requiring access to the information, for instance, the management of a shared household. Place a shared calendar item regarding a bill, add notes on what needs to be paid, and everyone is able to see the same information. A simple example it may be, but it provides a way to harness the power of a shared space to have a single point of management.
Last.fm can definitely be seen as pushing data out for the sake of it. Every time one listens to a song, the Internet is told that it happens. With this though, one can learn about not only the common musical interests one has with their peers, but can harness the data to expand ones musical taste. The last.fm site can provide not only recommendations of artists one may like based on the similarity to previously played tracks, but can offer the ability to sample this music through custom online radio playback, rather than taking the suggestions blindly.
Facebook has provided people with a very convenient way of keeping in touch. Whether it be a message to a single person, updating your status to let your friends know if something is going on in your life, or inviting a group of people to an event, it all has the ability to bring people closer than they may have been otherwise. This concept has extended from when Facebook was limited to certain groups of university students and changed into a open use tool, providing people with methods of keeping in touch with contacts from their past, even if it is in a limited form. Whilst it may not replace other forms of communication and connection, it can certainly supplement it in ways that did not exist in the past.
In closing, the era of social and mobile computing tools is an interesting one. Whilst these tools don’t directly provide a solution to a definitive problem that society faced, they have been able to deliver fresh and innovative concepts when trying to stay in contact with peers. Not everything that comes of these types of ideas can be positive, but, in general, the end user experience is positive as long as one is accepting of the shift in usage that these types of sites bring. That is to say, the user must be willing to typically share something of their own in order to find the true depth of them, as opposed to more traditional Internet forums that would allow someone to sit back and watch the ebbs and flows.
References:
1 - http://www.macworld.com/article/131874/2008/01/ipodsales.html