Group items tagged

6.8 million visits since Google Pages launched on G+ on 10/12/2011 as of 11/20/2011 (5.1 million prior to that); 63% of users are male

-majority of Google Plus users are between 25-34 and male *how does this correlate to early tech adopter numbers? -only 17% of users considered "active"

-"An interdisciplinary approach that brings together views and expertise from sociology, urban studies, interaction design, and related disciplines will assist with efforts to facilitate urban neighborhood community building, social inclusion, public consultation and debate, fair access to local information and services, urban sustainability, and healthier local economies." (66) *this interdisciplinary approach can work for libraries too! -""portfolio of sociability"" (67) *collection of virtual tools that help to establish and maintain connections (both close, weak and latent) -"The Internet has not substituted but supplemented off-line interaction with online interaction...the Internet as well as mobile communication devices such as mobile phones, laptops, and personal digital assistants (PDA) allow people to maintain social ties in different ways by taking advantage of new features." (67) *people use these devices to strengthen already existing ties, not create new ones, mostly -"Wellman argues that, while people become more accustomed with the features these tools offer, the nature of the social ties that people establish and maintain changes from "door-to-door" and "place-to-place" relationships to "person-to-person" and "role-to-role" relationships. He creates a holistic theoretical framework that builds on the dual nature in the interplay between community and the individual. He describes the emerging qualities of this behavior as networked individualism." (67) *as location becomes less important, networks become more important. People are less attracted to that which is in their geographical area, and more inclined to seek out like-minded people in similar areas of interest

-"The act of reappropriation (e.g., from the professional use of a pager to the social use of SMS) implies that there are opportunities to design and develop purpose-built systems from the ground up, which, instead of merely trying to make ends meet, take the unique requirements into account of the social- and place-based context in which they are used. (67) *tech can be re-purposed to market and develop community ties *people used to have to deal with geographical restrictions, and created social networks from geography, not interest or desire. This led, for some people, to an atrophying of interests, due to lack of community. SNSs allow people to find other people with shared interests, and develop them. Libraries can assist in shared communities over SNSs by providing links and resources to a variety of information. -"Place and proximity continue to matter in every socioeconomic context, because there are no Internet applications that can completely substitute real-time, co-located, face-to-face interaction" (68) *engage them online, bring them into the library proper *neighborhood ties still matter, but now they are place-independent. While proximity matters for some interactions, the majority of social ties can be maintained independently of physical location

-In the absence of a common enemy, a shared purpose or a pre-existing village-like atmosphere, are there other reasons and motivations for social encounters to occur and for the formation of residential networks in urban neighborhoods? (72) *the idea of urban tribes, still loosely held together by geography but now also united by common interest (people can find each other in large cities) -"The findings of these sociological studies provide essential insights for a new design methodology that can guide the successful development of interactive systems and devices that can stimulate local interaction and animate urban neighborhoods." (73) *bring people to libraries! (even if they just visit online at an eBranch) *in order to be effective, people must participate in the design and implementation of the project. They have to have a voice. *no more one-way channels of broadcasting, there has to be communication and an exchange of ideas between institution and people in order to foster that sense of community *where the author talks about the size, growth and critical mass of the perceived system, he is talking about FB (refers to it as an "urban tribe incubator")