Reflection on
Social and Mobile Computing
COMP3505 || SOCIAL & MOBILE COMPUTING
By: 40818229 || David Andrew Whipps
The World Wide Web has been a continuously growing medium of data sharing since its public formation in 1991. It’s power as a source of mass-information over extended geographical circumstances has been long foreseen. Even artists like Nam Jun Paik coined the term ‘Information Superhighway’ back in the early 1970’s as he foresaw a future ability in the world of electronic collaboration. Now in the wake of the 21st Century the true use of the Internet as a dynamic, public shaped medium of information and data is truly taking form. Some refer to it as the second Internet Bubble; others are coining the style of social websites as the Web 2.0 revolution, either way the Internet is growing into a true social medium. As this mould however, is only just starting to take its shape, the websites and online applications that are being developed and hyped about by common users of the internet – are yet to be seen as flawless tools of the Internet’s future.
The sites that will be discussed in this reflection all share a commonality in that they are all recently successful social networking sites. Each differentiates from each other in that they each specialise in different aspects of user functionality. Some sites serve to share and organise information or data with friends, others act on a more stricter social function that purely serve to represent a person on the internet as an ‘online identity’. Either way the use of the Internet is evolving into a more user-driven experience, a big step since the days of it being a mere collection of online documents. And as new technological gadgets like Mobile Phones, PDA’s and ubiquitous developments take form; the Internet is better integrating itself into our everyday life. However, how successful certain social projects can be in becoming a user’s everyday routine and thus a successful social and/or mobile adaptation – involves a lot more than the programming of the application.
My experiences with the social and mobile computing projects involved for this course I deemed as an overall successful one, especially considering I was using most of them prior to the course. However the biggest challenge I faced in using them all were not technical usability issues but social. No matter how technically advanced the site/program was, it didn’t count for anything when it wasn’t designed to be seamlessly adopted by the user. Usability was what I found to be one of the most important factors contributing to a successful tool of social/mobile interaction. If users, in general, did not adapt their lifestyle (even ever so slightly) to the tool, then it would not become a truly effective/data-accurate application.
An example of this theory of ineffectiveness I found was the social and mobile tool, Twitter. Twitter is an attempt to be a truly effective asynchronous distributed interaction between users. It is a simplified version of blogging in that it is more a short phrase of reflection on your current status of activity in the real world, or the virtual. The biggest twist with Twitter is that you are able to update your status anywhere geographically, by texting an entry with your mobile phone. Whilst you also are posting your own status on the site, your friends can also be given live updates of your new entries by phone, wherever they are (in an area with network coverage). The problem I found with its use since I signed up 4 weeks ago is that no one seemed to effectively use it. Though I can’t really prove why it wasn’t a real success with most of my peers, I stand by the theory that blogging everything that you are doing just seamed too much of a task for most. The friends who, including myself, seemed to use it to an almost full extent were ones with laptops and had the Twitter dashboard widget. The thought of texting my updates all day was something I knew I just wouldn’t adapt too, not to mention not knowing the cost involved in the process. However with the widget on my laptop I was able to at least keep a rather constant diary of my actions, and with another peer doing the same I learnt quite a bit from reading into his life.
For a deeper representation of a user as a real person however, I found Facebook to be the most successful. As their website states so clearly.
“Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.” – Facebook website
Facebook is quickly become the world’s leading social networking site, with its members list almost doubling by the month. Its success is merited towards its ability to reflect the true identity of the user from the real world. Facebook serves to fulfil the networking of known people from the real world, and thus a more grounded experience is fulfilled.
“That’s why I think the website has been such a success. We don’t view the site as an online community—we bill it as a directory that is reinforcing a physical community. What exists on the site is a mirror image of what exists in real life.”
- Mark Zuckerberg
As stated by the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s success lies in its integration with the real world, with the user’s real social lifestyle. The ethical design of the system has thus been its unique edge over other social networking sites like MySpace and Hi5. My personal experience with Facebook was though it was a bit more restricting than other social sites; the strict functionality has kept it as the clean, professional social networking tool that it prides itself on. Also with the new ability to add third-party applications, the users are given greater choices in what they can do with their profile. A favourite of mine is one that actually promotes the aspect of social computing in that it visualises your friends network by creating a social wheel graph, that links everyone that knows each other on your list. This is just one example of the possibilities of the Facebook platform.
Another good example of a well built tool is last.fm, an online hub for musical enthusiasts, that, as the websites states:
“Last.fm taps the wisdom of the crowds, leveraging each user's musical profile to make personalised recommendations, connect users who share similar tastes, provide custom radio streams, and much more.” – last.fm website
To achieve this, the users’ music that they play must be ‘scrobbled’, this simply means recorded by last.fm onto the user’s account on their database. What makes last.fm so effective and usable is that you build up your data of musical taste with the ability to forget about it! The system uses a hybrid architecture that requires you to download a small program that runs in the background of your computer to record whatever music you play. Thus the tool becomes something that seamlessly integrates into your own lifestyle with next to no hassle of maintaining anything. Personally this has become my favourite tool for this very reason, it’s great to forget about it for a good week and then check the website to see who my favourite artists of the week were.
For a piece of technology to truly integrate itself into your social lifestyle it must answer to a lot of ethical and practical problems as well as the technical. One of my most favoured suggestions would be better integration between all these tools. Though Twitter could be a very useful feature, it by itself is a very acute tool in terms of so much sufficient time and thought into it. If the same features and functionality could be incorporated to Facebook’s status feature then you would see a lot more use of it. Thankfully now with Facebook’s third party applications system there are add-ons for Facebook to integrate both twitter and last.fm, but there’s definitely room for improvement yet.
Understandably the world of social and mobile computing has a long way to go, and these tools are mere pioneers of more advanced, ubiquitous and integrated tools that will shape the way we live life in the future. As good as programming and technology is developing, we must also consider the human aspect of tools like these, to which require so much more psychological depth than we first perceived. We have a long way in studying ourselves alone, before we can flawless utilise the power of technology we have birthed into our world.
References:
Facebook: www.facebook.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com
Last.fm: www.last.fm
Exclusive Interview with Mark Zuckerberg (MSNBC)- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6596533/site/newsweek
SAAM Interact – Nam Jun Paik’s Information Superhighway - http://americanart.si.edu/collections/interact/zoom/paik.cfm
Friday, August 17, 2007
Tyson Dudley 40969662 - Reflecting on Awareness in Social Applicantions
Tyson Dudley
This Post is here to reflect my experiences in using the social and mobile computing applications. The applications that will be looked at in this post are facebook, delicious and Google calendar. The main aspect of this post will be on awareness and how this affects the user, in this case me and how it affected my online social experience. How aware a user is, is only as good as the applications ability to show information that is relevant to you and your interests.
Facebook’s main focus is based on making you socially aware of other people around you. They do this through a profile that you create when you sign up then based of your country, state, university matches you to other people with the same details. Allowing you to ask to become their friend and extend your social network. The awareness aspect of this comes from the clever design of the facebook system, making it easier for users to find people with similar interests to your own. Another way facebook makes for a more aware social experience is through the use of statuses. Facebook allows you to edit your status allowing everyone on your list to see it. This status bar lets you type whatever you like so you can express anything from what mood you’re in to what you’re doing right now. This makes everyone on your list more aware of your current situation and lets them make an informed decision weather to talk to you or not. Poke is another good feature of how facebook makes you more aware by allowing you to poke people on your friends list. This allows for a more instantaneous response, letting you know if your friends are really there and able to talk. The news feeds are also a place of social awareness allowing you to view what people on your list are interested in and making you more aware of current news and social events that are taking place. The thing I liked most about facebook was how easy it made keeping in contact with everyone I know from high school through to work in the one place. Facebook is definitely an application I enjoy using and will continue to use in the future.
Google calendar makes for an easy way to plan your weeks. It allows you to add events within seconds by simply click and dragging over the time and adding a name. Once you have an event planned and it needs changing it is even easier to change. You can expand and retract the size of the event or move it to a different day. It also comes with all the typical functions of a calendar allowing you to repeat a task on a scheduled bases e.g. daily, weekly, monthly. What’s great about this application is that you can share your calendar with other people so you can see who is available when. This awareness makes for scheduling times to meet group members and friends a lot easier. The other strong point about Google calendars is that everything is stored online so you can access the information from anywhere making the information readily available. I use Google calendar to keep track of my uni timetable and that of my friends but not much besides that. This is because my work roster doesn’t have set days or times and I rarely plan more then a day or two ahead. Although Google calendar makes it extremely easy to add and edit your calendar I do not see myself using it for anything more than my class timetable.
Delicious makes interesting use of social awareness in the way they use tags. Instead of restricting a user to a preset list of categories to tag your bookmarks you get to type your own. Not only does it allow you to type your own tags but it makes you aware of what other people have tagged the same bookmark or similar bookmarks as. By allowing people to choose their own tags and making them aware of what is already out there is makes for a more enjoyable experience and are more likely to reuse the site. Again the other way it adds awareness is through the bookmarks themselves keeping up to date with current news and events.
The underlining trend in all of the applications so far is awareness. The basic idea in everything so far is that the more information you have about yourself and your life on any given application, the easier it is to create a social network. The more aware other people are that they have something in common with you the more likely they are to want to add/talk to you. The hard part about awareness is keeping all the information in sync with what is actually happening. The above applications all have their own methods in keeping as up to date as possible but so far I think that facebook has done the best job. The combination of social groups, pokes and the status bar have created a pleasant and playful environment in which to keep in contact with my friend. This makes Facebook the most fun socially aware application on the web.
Julia Goodwin 41205871
The use of social and mobile applications has risen over the years. As these new technologies are being made readily available to anyone, the issue of privacy should be considered. With websites such as Facebook and Flickr giving out personal details of its users, there is a need to determine how effectively they implement privacy and safety measures. For the subject “Social and Mobile Computing” we were asked to sign up to social networking sites and reflect upon them.
Background
Facebook is an online social networking blog. It allows users to create their own profile, which contains their interests, networks, groups, contact details and photos. The use of ‘Networks’ allows users to find people in their area, or from their high school or work place. Users can add ‘notes’ which serve as journal entries and other users in their friends list can comment on them. Other users can also post on your “Wall”, which is a message board on your profile. A unique feature of this site is, it allows the user to add their own custom ‘status’. This appears as “(User name) is ......”
Flickr is a photo sharing website. This site is principally used for uploading and sharing photos with friends and other users. Users also have the ability set up a profile with information about themselves, such as favourites, interests, contact details. Once you have uploaded a photo, other features can be added to it. Users can add a title and description, and also ‘tag’ the photo with keywords, so that other users interested in that tag can find your photo, and comment on it.
Focus
The issue of privacy online has become more apparent in the past few years, and should be considered an important aspect of social and mobile applications. A lot of users of the internet have a desire to keep their personal details private, however the increasing popularity of social and mobile applications means that users of these sites are often becoming unbothered by the fact that their personal information is made public. The aspect of privacy can be used to not only protect users from people they don’t know, but those they do know. Users of blog sites often create private accounts or conceal their identity in some way in order to make it difficult for friends and family to read their personal thoughts.
The downside of social and mobile applications being so public is that this makes it easy for people to find your personal information. Recently, an ACT student has attempted to highlight the fact that putting information on the internet can be dangerous, by plastering myspace user’s pictures all over his capital city. He states that, “profiles contain far greater potential for stalking, harassment, fraud and other misuse of their personal information … potentially dangerous individuals like me know where you live, what you look like, where you go to school, who your friends are.” (Sydney Morning Herald, 2007) However, a positive outcome of exposing certain information about oneself online can create new friendships. By waiving their privacy of their location and interests, users may find potential friends in their area they have not met.
Privacy is an issue that I had the most trouble with when I signed up for Facebook and Flickr as part of this course. This issue is present in my thoughts for every site I sign up to, and it seems only fitting that I reflect on my experience using social and mobile computers in relation to the aspect of privacy.
Reflection
Facebook’s effective or ineffective use of privacy is an important focus. An significant part of Facebook is setting up your profile. The main way of finding people – and them finding you – is through a user’s profile. This profile contains your contact information, your location, your personal details, your likes and dislikes, education and work information.
Figure 1.1 - Facebook. Personal details on my profile.
When I created my Facebook account, I was not a first time user of social and mobile applications, however I had not signed up to a site as casual about sharing my personal details. This site is heavily focused on networking, and this is the main way for users to find each other. In order for any potential friends to find me, I had to give out details that made me uncomfortable, such as my hometown and country, as well as birth date. I am a regular user of LiveJournal, and I did not have to give out these details on this site, because it is not absolutely necessary. LiveJournal is more focused on locating people by their interests, and communities they have joined. What I loved about this site is that it was not necessary for me to give out any information that I found uncomfortable in order for me to be completely immersed in this site.
What worked well in terms of privacy for Facebook was that it gave you the option to make your profile “private”. This means that it forbids those on your friends list from viewing your profile. However, they still had access to seeing your name, Display Picture and networks you are in (location).
Figure 1.2 - Facebook. Adding privacy to your contact details.
Despite having this option, not many users take advantage of it. The majority of people I looked up, did not have this set to “Private”. If I had made this account out of my own interest, I would definitely have had my profile set to “Private”, as it makes me uncomfortable knowing that anyone can view personal information about me. As I mostly use my LiveJournal account, I have made sure to make my account “Friends-Only”, which means only people I have selected as “friends” can view my details and journal entries.
Having a good deal of personal information readily available on your profile does make a stalkers job a lot easier; however a good majority of users of this website do not appear to be concern for their privacy. As I stated earlier, there is an option to set your profile to private, but many users do not take advantage of this option. I spend a good deal of time trying to ‘stalk’ old classmates, with great success. All I had to do was to know your name and your location (country or state) and search for you. The search brings up results of those sharing your name, and from there I simply had to select which user is the one I was searching for by identifying their photograph, and voila – I’ve found you. From there I have access to all your photographs, where you live and your school/work. I personally am glad for the lack of concern some users show for their privacy, as otherwise I would not have been able to track down so many childhood friends of mine. I am grateful that all of the old friends I’d found weren’t hesitant about placing photos of themselves on the internet, because I found it amusing to discover what they look like after so many years.
However, my innocent stalking can hardly be considered dangerous, there are users of Facebook that do not have as innocent intentions. The escalating use of social and mobile applications such as Facebook and Myspace, by paedophiles has only just been recognized. According to the Onion (2006) a 47-year-old paedophile has begun using myspace as a tool of locating his next victims. To find a victim all he has to do is locate the primary school’s myspace community within his area, and he has access to profiles and pictures of all the children in that community.
Flickr has more respect for privacy, in terms of their profile, then other sites I have used. Although profiles on this site are not the main focus, I was pleased to see that this site was not broadcasting my personal information. In this respect, I found that Flickr has used privacy more effectively then Facebook has. In comparison, it displays a lot less personal information about its users on their profiles. However, Flickr is not as concerned with your profile as much as Facebook is.
The main use of this site is for users to upload pictures and photographs. Users of this site upload their artwork, or photographs of themselves and others. When I signed up for this site I had two major concerns: art-theft, and random users accessing my photographs. For this course I was required to upload pictures of my choice to Flickr. I thought that it would be meaningless and pointless to upload random pictures that I did not create, so I decided to upload some of my own. As I have stated earlier, I enjoy my privacy and did not want to upload photos of myself onto the internet. Instead I decided to use my Flickr account for uploading images that I have created either in my own time, or for university. Nevertheless I was concerned that my pictures may be taken and used elsewhere, without my permission. Flickr does have effective privacy measures in this respect. When you upload a photo you can associate a Creative Commons license with it, which should legally protect others from claiming your artworks.
Figure 1.3 - Flickr. Privacy settings for my profile.
A downfall for Flickr in relation to privacy is it does not restrict users from uploading too much information about themselves. Users can post photographs of themselves, their house, their friends and their families, which makes them easy to find, if you know what area they live in. Another concern I had was people inappropriately using photographs uploaded to this site. This is a concern of many Flickr users, that people may be joining this site for the wrong reasons:
“So, I realize that flickr is an open site, and that everyone posts pictures by choice, but I'm a bit uncomfortable that there are folks who join just to get some free pics of
naked ladies. I am particularly uncomfortable with some users who register, and have hundreds of favorites marked (but no photos of their own, and no profile) of pregnant women. It just seems unfair to the fantastic models and incredible hotographers who did not put their photos up on this site to be used in this manner.” (Amelia, 2005)
Conclusion
In conclusion, I believe that both Facebook and Flickr have taken measures to keep their users safe and providing them with the means to do so, however the majority of people have not taken advantage of this. Personally I would not regularly use these sites if I did not have the ability to keep my personal details private. I am aware of how easy it is to find people I know who do not necessarily want to be, as I have done so. Anyone with as much commitment as a few hours could use these two sites as a means for contacting users with less innocent intentions then mine.
‘Amelia’, (2005). Flickr: “Creepy Flickr Users.” Retrieved August 16, 2007 from http://www.flickr.com/groups/central/discuss/33903/
Facebook, (2007). Facebook. Retrieved August 17, 2007 from http://www.facebook.com/home.php?
Flickr, (2007). Welcome to Flickr! Retrieved August 17, 2007 from http://www.flickr.com/
LiveJournal, (2007). LiveJournal.com. Retrieved August 17, 2007 from http://www.livejournal.com/
Sydney Morning Herald, (2007). The Sydney Morning Herald Blogs: Stay in Touch. Retrieved August 15, 2007 from http://blogs.smh.com.au/sit/archives/2007/01/embarrassments_he_knows_where.html
The Onion – America’s Finest News Source, (2006). Pedophile Less Interested the More he Views 13-Year-Old’s Myspace Profile. Retrieved August 15, 2007 from http://www.theonion.com/content/node/46453
Integration (Nathan Hoad, 40760104)
40760104
Firstly, I thought I'd mention that anything that comes out of the Google factory is bound to be awesome and Google Calendar is no exception. Google Calendar is, as it's name suggests, a calendaring application and is available to any Google account holder. Adding new calendars is as easy as clicking a button. Adding events to a calendar is similarly as easy; click the time of an event and give the event a name. There is a page full of extra options for events if a user needs them. For students entering their university timetable *cough* they can set the events to repeat by week and expire after the semester has finished. Once a user has a calendar they can share it to allow others to see the events it contains. Using the other side of the same process, users can find and view other people's calendars. Google Calendar integrates well with Gmail, another Google service by allowing users to send event information via email. When a user receives an email containing event data, they can simply click it to add it to their own set of calendars. Google Calendar also cooperates well with various desktop calendaring solutions, though some need extra plugins to work properly. The Mozilla Calendar project, in the form of Sunbird and Lightning, gives users a desktop interface to view and edit their Google Calendars through the use of the Provider plugin. Google Calendar users with blogs can easily incorporate any of their calendars into a little calendar application that Google provides. Google Calendar also kind of integrates with Sinet, and before you say “No it doesn't” read my story: I always put my proposed uni timetable into Google Calendar (I used to put it into Google Spreadsheets) once class times are available ready for signon. My fiancé used to just keep her proposed timetable in an excel file on her computer ready for signon. Then, last semester, we weren't at home during the first round of signons. I had my times worked out and available from Google Calendar whereas my fiance had to go back through Sinet and re-work-out her timetable before she could complete her signon. 
Twitter is for people who like to make sure that their friends know exactly what they are doing at any given time. When using Twitter, people are asked a simple question: What are you doing? Users can answer this in any way they see fit, as long as they keep their response under the 140 character limit. Users can update their Twitter status in a number of different ways. Twitter can accept status changes from Instant Messaging (with Google Talk, etc), from mobile phones (with SMSs), or from the user logged into the Twitter site. Twitter also has an open API and various other methods of updating your Twitter status have been created. Twitteroo and Twitteriffic are desktop applications that have been developed for Twitter that give users another way to update their status and perform other Twitter related tasks. I don’t use Twitter that often for one main reason: unless you keep updating your status, they become out of date. If there was some kind of calendar based software that integrated with Twitter to update your status based on your timetable I might see Twitter being more useful.
Last.fm is a music based social networking site. Once registered, users can download a plugin for most desktop audio players (some players, such as Amarok, have the plugin built-in) that ubiquitously reports what music they listen to and when. After the plugin has reported, or scrobbled, a few songs, users can begin to see their listening habits mapped out over time. After a while the user can begin to view extensive charts listing things like their weekly top artists, weekly top songs, monthly top artists, monthly top songs, etc. For example, my top artist for this week (5 August – 12 August) is Alain Boublil & Claude-Michel Schönberg after scrobbling the Miss Saigon album on infinite loop for a while. My top artist overall is John Williams after countless scrobbles of his countless soundtracks. Last.fm can take data like this and start to hypothesise about a users taste in music and give recommendations about other music that the user might like. If you like a lot of a certain kind of music and someone else likes a lot of that kind of music then, chances are, you would like most of the other music in their collection. Last.fm offers these recommendations in the form of a neighbourhood radio. This integrates well into some desktop audio players. I use Amarok, a desktop audio player for Linux, to listen to music. Amarok makes use of Last.fm to deliver the same neighbourhood radio. From within Amarok you can either start listening to your own neighbourhood or simply listen to any Last.fm within a given genre. Last.fm also contains an embedded streaming radio that users can listen to within the page itself. Although it has very little to do with integration, I think this also helps Last.fm to be a very useful tool. For example, while I am at work I just load up my Last.fm page and listen to my music collection using the embedded player. 
Facebook was built as a general tool to help users keep track of their college friends. The original Facebook wasn’t much more that a bunch of linked profiles. Over time it grew and more features were added and more people joined and so on and so on. In May of this year Facebook released The Facebook Platform, an API for developers to start making applications to interact with the various features of Facebook. In the few months since then, a plethora of applications have been created to integrate the data from other social sites into Facebook. At the last count, there were around 2200 applications. There are applications that provide interfaces to most of the other popular social networking sites. On my Facebook I have the Last.fm application installed which lets viewers see what songs I listened to recently and displays my favourite artists. I also sometimes use the embedded Last.fm radio stream to listen to music when I’m not at home. Delicious, a social bookmarking site, also has a Facebook application that displays users Delicious bookmarks as part of their profile page. Facebook recently announced its new iPhone integration feature that lets iPhone owners fill their hunger for Facebook even when they aren’t near a computer. Facebook has done a very good job of letting itself be connected to almost any other useful site that users can think of.Integration is an important factor in why some sites seem to be more popular than others. Sites that play well with others often attract a bigger user base and, when talking about social networking sites, a big user base can only make the site more useful. Some connections between tools come from places that you wouldn’t normally expect (eg. Google Calendar and Sinet) and begin to add more utility to the software than the developer could have imagined. Some pieces of social software present countless means of integration through the use of an extensive API which means more opportunities to integrate with other tools. Facebook is great because it acts as a central meeting point for all the other social networking sites. Facebook doesn’t really try to beat everyone at their own game; it just lets people bring their game to Facebook to play. My conclusion: Rather than trying to change people’s habits, sites should just make software that integrates into what people are already using.
Twitter – http://www.twitter.com
Last.fm – http://www.last.fm
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com
Facebook gets sued – http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2004/8/5/harvardGradsFaceOffAgainstThefacebookcom
Facebook for iPhones – http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=5353402130
API Information – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/API
John L'Estrange 40973883
Reflection on Social and
Computing Tools
Introduction:
As human society grows along with the vast structure and availability of the internet, certain websites have spawned a range of user friendly sites which help people in their everyday lives if required. The choices become apparent as people are more exposed to the web. These sites allow user to support them with either visual or text based information structured in a way which can form potential groups for similar online social tasks. Some of these tasks can contain information about the users’ daily activities to simply displaying a collection of the users’ photo/ image collection.
This article will be looking in detail at 4 of these programs located on sites all of which contain a catchy name. These sites listed are Flickr, Facebook, del.icio.us and Twitter. These have been chosen because of the seemingly high participation of people around the globe and the different uses to why people may use such sites.
They will also be studied through means of their purpose of use, how well the site works to succeed to fulfil a social aspect online and determine positive or negative outcomes that may be resolved.
Background:
The following list studies the mentioned sites in how they were intended for use and how well they complete this intended task.
Flickr (http://www.flickr.com):
This program represents similarities towards the widely famous site Deviantart.com but with slight social and cultural differences. Flickr allows a registered user to actively create an online photo album available for use in a global scale. The user is able to upload images and save them on the assigned page, this can potentially become a large list of images and therefore forming an online picture gallery type of page. Each of these images are available for any other registered Flickr user to view and add comments to the specified picture. The reason Flickr was created was to generally give the user an opportunity to display pictures focused more around the person. These usually include family pictures, personal pictures, holiday pictures and so on. This is the concept that separates Flickr from Deviantart.com. Deviantart was created as another social/ personal image site but with restrictions that these images were generally along the lines of manipulated images either by computer instead of posting simple photographs of the user or anything that depicts an online social aspect. There are a few problems that Flcikr illustrate in respect to social context and human behaviour. One of these problems in personal opinion is that Flcikr is a good site for compiling images online available for other users to view but the question of “Will people want to view other users’ personal photos?” ie family, personal, friends etc. there are obvious issues that arise after noting this. Flickr can be taken advantage of in this case, areas of online stalking are apparent. People may not use the site as intended and basically look up pictures which take fancy and spy on online users. This may be the worst case of use for Flickr however there are issues to overcome such fears for the user as they are able to specify wether a picture is considered private to the community or not. This can also be relevant to other group member/ online friends the user may be in contact with. By acting in this method the user is able to avoid such scary scenarios. The other problem is that the amount of public viewing may be too low for a user to be happy with their profile and pictures. It would be apparent that users may register for Flickr as a result in a need to be commented on via the public to share opinions about their personal life etc. these issues can only be assumed that Flickr is used at a regular basis as it was intended. Flickr overall becomes useful usually when a user becomes a part of a group and is more actively participating among their peers. This allows a majority of people have a certain degree of privacy and visible reflection on their photos which in the end should give an amount of positive feedback upon the users’ behalf.
Figure A (Screen shot of Flickr):
del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us):
Delicious is based of the idea of an online bookmark which allows the registered user to post url sites to themselves and write down small notes about them for future reference. These sites become available to the public for viewing and commenting.
The user able to create a list of cited sites, maximum limit still undetermined but still gives the user a sense of flexibility through its use. Delicious as a site is very easy to use as there are no real complicated options any user should really need. In respect to the social context of the site, it is lacking in personal interaction between other users. The only way people communicate are via comments on a posted url or url’s that others post themselves. Such methods could also be noted as ineffective attempts of communicating apart from communicating the bookmark at hand. Like social programs, the user is able to receive url’s specifically from another user only if the registered user name in known by the sender. This allows for simple friendship qualities to arise by very simple communication via interests and genres of the shared url’s. When a url is saved, the user is able to check which other users have the same site in their collection as well. This can lead to ideas of people with similar interests of web page thus iterating the idea behind social computing but also to determine based on Delicious’s registered users, how popular a site may be in the overall community. Delicious overall can be a useful site in the eyes of the user. It allows for simple communication via interests in web sites and knowledge on popularities of sites other people have bookmarked.
Figure B (Screen shot of Delicious):
Facebook (http://facebook.com):
Facebook is a site that allows the user to create a personal online profile which is available for display to any amount of peers within your network. The site relies on the user having some frequent participation throughout their accessing their personal profile and with other friends located on the network. Facebook can resemble strong social and mobile computing aspects as it depicts an archive full of the users personal material. These methods are enhanced by the addition of simple features like an avatar picture which is used to display on the users main page, DOB, area of location, etc. The user has a fine amount of options when it comes to customising visual and textual content. These are made apparent by the great design scheme Facebook follows including small text boxes indicating a minor topic in which the user has chosen to put up for public viewing. These text boxes are one of the main ways other people/ friends interact with the user. Boxes such as “The wall” allow friends to write a comment and post it which in the end becomes a new part of the profile. This conveys strong social aspects as people tent to like small cohesive messages from their friends and will in turn be implied to send a message back. This method of communication keeps both users active in supporting their Facebook profile and eventually can find or add new friends therefore add to the amount of social belonging to the site. The method behind finding friends becomes very clear as when the user views another persons profile, they are able to view each friend that person has but only to an extent of the picture (no viewable profile). The friends box is the base starting point for anyone to make new friends. It is basically a chain process that friends the user knows, knows somebody else within a certain range from them determined by either area of living, family, school friends and so on. Follwing this chain, the user is able to keep up with their friends and their friends-friends and so on. The fact that people cannot view other profiles except by adding them as a friend stops any threat of stalking inferences people may be afraid of whilst using Facebook. Overall Facebook can be seen as a highly structured and down to earth site for simple but effective use in personal profiling. The site is capable of keeping people in touch on a daily basis with new and unpredictable features yet to be uncovered which also add to small excitements of being a Facebook user.
Figure C (Screen shot of Facebook):
Twitter (http://twitter.com):
Twitter is a simple conceptual program based on a user’s real time status. Although the site design may seem of a poor quality, the use can be quite effective depending on what kind of person the user is or whether they are busy during the day. Twitter allows the registered user to define at a point in time “what they are doing”. Certainly this question highlighted on screen at first was quite confusing and confronting until the real purpose was revealed. The user can type in the activities they are currently progressing in or can set up a daily plan etc. basically the user can outline to other Twitter users and friends what they will be doing for a certain amount of time similar to a real time journal but more focused towards the users friends or work people. The other people are able to determine the exact notion of that users actions and can act accordingly or can be simply notified. Instances in which Twitter may be useful is if a user is expected online at a certain time but have been cut short and is required to go shopping. That user is able to leave a small message on Twitter notifying anyone in relation that they will not be back until a while later. There is but an obvious issue of stalking inferences as that people are able to view and know specifically what the other user is doing. A scary thought but is always a potential threat while using Twitter. On the other side is the idea of a user telling a simple lie. Users are not mistaken by telling small lies on Twitter as it is their right to say what they like but not so much as the users viewing the false message. Twitter can in the end save peoples time and will not need to worry about the where abouts or actions of their fellow peers.
Figure D (Screen shot of Twitter):
Focus:
A focus point to be clearly addressed throughout discussing these social computer sites is the idea behind Conversation. Each of the chosen sites mentioned have different methods of conveying a message but some not so greatly as the next.
As above the Delicious site was made for personal Url bookmarking specifically. Delicious cannot create a sense of conversing between peers but merely an assumption of what the user requires in the form of a hyperlink to a web site.
Twitter in respect to conversing has limits to whether or not the messages posted on screen can be classified as conversation. Users who use Twitter as how it is intended cannot give a strong conversation to another. Twitter is practically a global message board only readable by the people the user has added thus not a global conversation board. Users however may take advantage of Twitter in a way to produce a notion of conversing through twitter as long as they refer to one person only but this would only then become a more complicated and confusing version of instant messaging programs. Twitter overall has the potential to become a tool used for social conversation but only to a point in which it would become confusing and inefficient. Flickr forms areas for conversation while basically posting personal photos and actively viewing other users’ photos. The comment function is the central method of conversing with another person in Flickr. It allows each user to freely type constructive or simple comments surrounding the certain images posted. A simple picture is worth one thousand words they say but also produces a starting point for user to user conversations and may potentially gain a new insight from one another. Although this method may seem satisfactory to present a conversive mode, it still lacks real time functions and is usually restricted towards the photo itself.
Facebook provides acceptable functions for conversing but is still not at a high enough point to be considered a great conversive tool. The social communication about the users identity is the main priority of Facebook and not necessarily conversation. Again Facebook allows users to communicate via textbox like windows and make simple comments or questions about the person or photos they have of themselves. These comments however still fall in the similar category of email like messages as they will not be detected until the user checks their profile the next time they log in. Even though Facebook is not the strongest tool for conversing but the idea is still firmly present at least.
Reflection:
Through this article one question arises based on all of the discussed sites:
“What degree of awareness must the user provide to support these social mobile programs?”
A user who uses Facebook will vary in respect to time and consistency. Facebook tends to be a low maintenance journal with plenty of options. This does not interfere with the users daily life as even though they may have messages, they may not be inclined to check up on their status on Facebook to see whether someone has posted a new message or picture etc. this will most likely apply to the users on the other side. Facebook can almost feel like an email system at times but not as serious as emails usually are therefore a daily check on Facebook would be fine in most users book. There is more of a luxury sense to using Facebook than needing to be aware of individual status.
Twitter is a site that would have to keep running for the user to track the actions of their peers. Users don’t always have to check on what others are doing all the time but may be persuaded in possible cases of sudden change. Users can only assume that a user on the other end is currently doing what they say they are doing thus can carry on with their own business. The only time where awareness must take place is when a message changes within a certain timeframe therefore indicating new change to a user’s action.
A user provides limited awareness towards using Delicious. Users are not interested in what other people usually have to offer in Url form but only for what they need. Users can use Delicious as a search tool based around the degree of high rated sites and allows the user to search accordingly. The most awareness a user will usually need while using Delicious is to keep a track of which sites are important to them most and if a person has sent them another Url link.
Flickr stimulates users creatively while being able to post comments towards other users. A user should have a casual amount of awareness towards Flickr as some comments may be constructive feedback towards their images or even destructive in another case. Most users would be inclined to verify the status of their photos and comments and on the other hand are able to comment and view other user photos. a user can provide any amount of awareness towards Flickr if they use it for general purposes but if any greater ie. Groups or work, greater awareness must be apparent.
Conclusion:
In conclusion the four sites discussed in this article had been general social and mobile computing technologies, many of which are used by people world wide. The way people communicate, act and portray themselves in accordance to time and space can all be noted down by simply using such web sites. Any person can become a user and participate in these broad networks without having to sacrifice a majority of their day to verify their status for each site. Most sites are user friendly and influence a formal amount of social context throughout the network. These sites however do not offer full social dynamics of the real world, this includes formal face-to-face contact, emotional contact or other elements of communication which users loose while conversing synchronously.
Bibliography:
1. Twitter. (2007). Retrieved 17/8, 2007, from http://twitter.com/home
2. Facebook. (2007). Retrieved 17/8, 2007, from http://uqedu.facebook.com/profile.php?id=715841185
3. Delicious. (2007). Retrieved 17/8, 2007, from http://del.icio.us/A.Einstein
4. Flickr. (2007). Retrieved 17/8, 2007, from http://www.flickr.com/photos/53151484@N00/1142484496/
Social Awareness : Anthony Massingham [ 40960212 ]
Social Awareness
Anthony Massingham
40960212
Introduction
Social interaction has been a key factor to human development all throughout history. With the advent of Internet based communications, the idea of networking and awareness moved from the physical realm into the digital. “UseNet” ( “a world-wide distributed discussion system” ( What is Usenet ) ) can be described as the first online social network as it allowed users to converse and interact remotely over long distances. From there the many forms of computer based social interaction increased. From IRC ( Internet relay chat ), to instant messaging systems like ICQ or MSN, and finally on to the latest iteration of digital social interaction : The Social Network. Unofficially Starting with classmates.com in 1995, the internet social network revolution has boomed over the last few years. Juggernauts like Myspace and Facebook dominate the industry, while competitors build up steady followings in the sidelines. But what is it that attracts users to these networks ?
As the world around us speeds up, we find ourselves with less and less time to keep track of our friends, family, and the important ( or not so important ) aspects of their lives. One of the aims of Social Networking is to allow users to be aware of what other people are doing, and to bring a feeling of connection to a system that ultimately is sterile and artificial.
This article will aim to explore the sense of awareness and feeling of connection that Social Networking has brought to the Internet community. Examples will be drawn from a selection of Social Networking Tools or Systems that attempt in some way to complete this “feeling of connection”.
Services
The Services to be discussed in this article are as follows :
Facebook is “...the second largest social network on the web, behind only MySpace in terms of traffic. Primarily focused on high school to college students ” ( Facebook, Complete Biography ). Facebook is a networking site primarily for students, it has a custom developer API which allows for customised applications, and supports the creation of groups, events, and communication between other users. The Facebook website says : “Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet. “ ( Facebook.com )
Last.fm is a music related website which monitors a user's listening habits and displays statistics, offers recommended listening, and compares musical tastes with fellow users. Last.fm uses an external piece of software ( scrobbler ) to monitor listening habits. Last.fm describes itself as : “a service that keeps track of what music you listen to, and then produces a large number of features personalised to you. You can use Last.fm to listen to music, find out about artists you may like, other people with similar music taste, gigs in your local area, charts and quilts for your personal site, as well as much more.” ( Last.fm FAQ).
Twitter is an (not so) instant messaging system which broadcasts messages out to a select group of people. Twitter utilises SMS, Instant Messaging Services ( like GoogleChat ), and email. Twitter describes itself as “...a community of friends and strangers from around the world sending updates about moments in their lives.” ( Twitter Help Page ).
Pownce is a newcomer to the Social Networking Scene, it is essentially similar to Twitter, but sends files, events, pictures and links as well as messages. Pownce also has an external client running on Adobe AIR Software. Pownce describes itself as “...a way to send messages, files, links, and events to your friends.” ( Pownce Website ).
Finally, this article will use RSS and RSS readers ( such as RSSOwl, and Google Reade ) as ways of keeping in contact and maintaining user awareness. RSS ( Really Simply Syndication ), is a simple feed of data from a particular website. Blogs and News sites organise data into RSS feeds so that readers can automate content acquisition and view it from within a feed reader. Multiple Feeds can be viewed from within the one reader.
Awareness
All of the services or tools listed above are used by thousands of people in some form every day. So what is it that makes these communities so successful? Although there are many contributing factors, I myself believe that being aware of the other users and what they are involved in is what keeps the community connected. “Being aware” can be defined as “having knowledge” ( Dictionary.com), however this definition is lacking detail. Dourish and Bly, Best describe awareness as “knowing who is around, what is happening, and who is talking with whom”. One of the key aspects of social networks is this understanding of awareness and feeling of connection. There have been many social applications created recently that focus specifically on being aware of what other users are currently viewing. me.dium for example is a program that displays users who are currently viewing the same websites as you are, and allows users to chat about the particular site together. Immediately this brings a new depth to the feeling of connection one finds when browsing the Internet. Being aware of what other users are doing immediately takes a simple web-based application to a new level.
Social Awareness and Interaction
All of the network tools mentioned earlier allow some way for people to be aware of the status of fellow users at any one time. In fact, some of the tools are based entirely around the concept of awareness. To begin with however, a look at the music website Last.fm.
As mentioned earlier, Last.fm is a music orientated network. The music software analyses what a user is listening to and then displays that information on the Last.fm website. However leaving the website just as described would ensurea dull and uninteresting experience for the users. Instead Last.fm offer the users a chance to compare taste with other participants, as well as get updates as to what their friends have listened to recently.
Last.fm friend status
By adding in this extra functionality, Last.fm moves from being a collection of people's favourite tracks, to a collection of users being aware, and discussing each other's musical tastes. Upon loading Last.fm every user is presented with a screen displaying the latest movements of their “friends”, immediately making them aware of a variety of information ( music choice, time it was played, etc ). This sense of awareness immediately brings the users closer together as a group and helps to ensure users don't feel like they are on opposite sides of the world, but that they feel connected to one another.
Last.fm Taste-o-meterWhile using Last.fm during the first few weeks of the semester, I was instantly surprised by the musical tastes of some of my peers, and pleasantly surprised to find some common similarities. Immediately I knew the next time I saw that particular friend I could talk to them about a band we had never spoken about previously. This new connection was entirely due to the fact I was aware of what they had been listening to.
Twitter has a different approach to making users aware of each other: it is entirely based around being aware entirely, even to the point where, Twitter's catch phrase is “What are you doing?”. Even as I write this essay I am getting updates on where my fellow students are up to in their article progress. ( “1200 words.. time for a break” was the last message received on my mobile phone ). Twitter seems like a silly idea when you first hear about it; Why waste time sending messages over the internet/IM/phone when you can just tell people what you're doing when they ask you? However after a period of using it, one can see the advantages. It offers quick and easy access to a variety of distribution methods, as well as being able to receive messages no matter your whereabouts. On top of this, one certainly does feel connected, almost voyeuristic, hearing updates about peoples private lives at all hours of the day or night.
GoogleTalk Twitter MessagesPownce uses a similar system to Twitter. Users sign up as “friends” and then can exchange messages with one another. However Pownce goes one step further and adds the option of sending Messages, Links, Files ( up to 10mb for the average user ) and organising Events. In my opinion, even though Pownce does not have SMS or IM capabilities it is far superior in making myself aware of what the internet-based network is doing around me. However Twitter takes the idea of awareness away from the computer and makes it portable ( with sms updates and messaging ) and therefore has an element which Pownce has yet to capture.
Pownce AIR InterfaceThis “feed” of information can also be customised so that particular types of information are updated less, while other types are updated more often. This selective awareness is highly beneficial to people who only wish to know certain things, about certain people.
Facebook also supports the use of Events and Groups. Events ensure that users are aware which of their friends are attending a particular event. While groups are ways of connecting with people of similar interests or passions. On top of all of this, the Facebook system is supported by “networks” ( locales if you will ) which chop up the users of the world into geographical groups. Once in one of these “networks” you have access to basic information of anyone else within that network. If you want to feel connected, that is one of the best ways to do it.
Finally I would like to touch on RSS feeds as a social tool. Although not technically a social network, they can be used in such a way to give a website or network a social “feel” and help readers to become aware of the author and his/her habits. A large number of websites ( including all of the ones listed in this article, and this article itself ) use RSS feeds to provide data for users. Using an RSS feed reader ( like RSSOwl as depicted in the images ), a user can view all of this information from all of these social sites, and be notified as soon as new information arrives. On top of this, a user can be aware of new posts on Blogs, News-based websites and Forums. Although it doesn't allow for communication back to the original source, RSS does provide an excellent feeling of connection for the reader as well as a feeling of convenience.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is important when dealing with a isolated tool like the Internet to remain aware of what yourself, and others around you are doing. Awareness and connection with others is what turns a simple web portal into something more meaningful. All of the tools listed throughout the article use awareness to promote a feeling community and connection between users. Each of the various social network systems approach the concept of awareness in a different fashion. Facebook looks at community awareness, Last.fm looks at comparative awareness, Twitter and Pownce look at complete awareness, and RSS feeds are a good example of external awareness. Each tackles the problem in a different manner, but each succeed in their own right. This sense of awareness and feeling of communication remove the normally stark artificial nature of the internet and adds a more human element to the networks. It is this human network that keeps people coming back to various sites, where it is less like an online hub, and more like a place for friends and family to meet, greet, and be take part in eachother's lives.
Default or Passive Inclusion
By Ben Bradford
s4097064
Over the past couple of weeks we have been required to use and review the multiple social and mobile computing tools that we signed up to in week 2. These tools consisted of, Last.fm, Flikr, Google Calendar, Pownce, Twitter, del.icio.us, and Facebook.
Over the few weeks that we used the applications I have noticed a repeated thread throughout the applications that link them together. Each application has an apparent openness to either a select network of people or the public at large, of how two or more people interact with each other. This apparent openness between the applications can be defined as passive or default inclusion. Where people are able to view interactions between individuals by default or with little effort.
Facebook
I have been a user of Facebook for a few months now and from my experiences with it I can conclude that Facebook is practically an online social networking personal ‘web page’ in which the users can customize their page to suit their personality. Customisations include adding programs, changing the layout, adding pictures, display names and more. Facebook also has the ability for the to add all their friends to their page. This enables the user to view their friend’s page and the friends view theirs.
Facebook allows the users to view other users actions and interactions with from their own profile. News Feed, located at the Facebook home page allows the users to see what their friends have been doing either to their profile or others. News Feed notifies the users of things that their friends have been doing, such as adding photos, writing messages on other peoples pages, invitations to applications within Facebook, and recent friend adds between users. Such information can be classified as default inclusion, where the user is notified of these types of these interactions and changes.
The Wall is a default application with every Facebook page. The Wall enables users to write messages on each other’s page. The Super Wall is an additional application that lets users upload movies and pictures to their friend’s page. All the information posted on The Wall’s are available for other friends to view, although News Feed does not notify the users of unknown people commenting on the users friend’s pages, users are still able to view this information. When writing on someone’s Wall, the user is aware that the public will be able to view what is written, this makes the user more cautious, so the user writes in a way that the user is comfortable with the public seeing. If the user has a more private message for the user, they are able to send a message to their friend that they receive like an email in Facebook.
A Status can also be set by a user to inform their friends how they are feeling or what they are doing. This Status is posted on the News Feed every time it is updated, keeping the users friends up-to-date with what the user is doing or feeling.
Facebook uses many ways for peers to communicate formally and informally by using The Wall and by sending messages. These however are only the standard ways that the user can interact with one another but set the best example being the default ways of communication within Facebook. As mentioned, The Wall is able to be viewed by the users friends which enables them to view posts from other people which creates an informal style of gossip, giving the user the ability to read what others have written to their friends. Although the majority, if not all, of the users know that The Wall is a ‘public’ writing area, it would be useful if the user had the ability to restrict selected people from viewing specific things on their page, other than the existing privacy setting which limits people from viewing a default list of things.
Last.fm
Last.fm is a social music application that lets you share your music taste with the public, get information on the bands and tracks you are listening to and listen to personalised radio streams. Last.fm makes a visual representation of the music the user is listening to in the form of a bar graph on the users profile page. These bar graphs show the top weekly artists, top artists overall and the top listened to tracks.
Last.fm uses an application to read the music that the user is playing in their music player and uploads the information to the users profile page. After the information is gathered, bar charts are formed based on the amount of music and tracks the user listens too. The more an artist is listened to, the lager the graph grows, and this forms the users top artists and most listened tracks.
Last.fm users are able to search through their email addresses to add friends that are members of Last.fm to their friends list. Once friends are added to the users friends list, the Dashboard shows tracks recommended to the user from other users, friends that are online, recommended artists and full length tracks. This Dashboard function, more specifically users online, shows users that are currently listening to music or users that have listened to music last. Similar to Facebook, default inclusion is used to notify the user users that are online or have been online listening to music.
Users are able to view one another’s profile pages and see the same information that is available on their own individual profiles. This allows users to see recently played tracks, top artists and most played songs. With this information available to every user, Last.fm calculates on the Taste-o-Meter the music compatibility between users based on the artists listened to and the amount of times listened to. The similarities between Facebook and Last.fm occor here again where the users can read what others have written on profiles in Facebook, Last.fm users are able to view what music other users listen to and their top artists etc.
Overall, Last.fm is a fantastic application that I have been using for about three months and have enjoyed every moment of it. Every time I am able to connect to the Internet, I am uploading my music listening to Last.fm. The ability of seeing my musical listening in a graphical form with very little effort creates a want to continue uploading my musical listening. One thing that I think Last.fm could benefit from would be the ability to upload the album details, not just the artist and track title. When a compilation album is listened to, such as ministry of sound, only the individual artist details are added creating an individual artist graph. If the user had the option to upload the album details, the album would have its own graph along with the artists.
Twitter
Twitter to me is a personal status uploading application that informs others about what you are doing or feeling. The users are also informed on other users status either via the twitter site, email, or even SMS. Twitter enables users to upload their current status that can include what they are doing, what they have done or what they are feeling. After this information is posted on the Twitter site, friends are able to view what you have uploaded to the twitter site.
The user has the ability to update their profile via SMS or using dashboard widgets for OS X called twiget. This eliminates the hassle of having to go to the site to upload a changed status every time the users decide to. By doing this it makes the uploads not as tedious and the users status is able to be uploaded regularly keeping the users status as up to date as they want. Twitter also has the ability to send SMS to the users who are following friend’s statuses, notifying users of other users status updates.
Twitter posed no great desire to be used constantly as the idea of updating what I was doing thought out the day seemed unnecessary and a waste of time. Although feel no great want to use the application does not rule out that it is a good idea. Twitter can be fun when I have some spare time to post between friends. Although the application itself poses not great use to me, it does however illustrate default inclusion by notifying the users of updated statuses from other users.
Conclusion
Throughout the three applications mentioned Facebook, Last.fm, and Twitter, a common theme aforementioned treads between them, the inclusion the users have between user-to-user profiles and interaction. All three of these applications make information, data, and interactions an open source. Users have access to this information via notification or by simple searching. Although this may seem to be intrusion of privacy to some, others, including myself, knowing what someone is doing or saying is a guilty pleasure.