Group items tagged

In this article there are real world examples of how mobile technologies are being used within the four walls of a bricks and mortar retail store. The article interviews two different people and investigates their use of Smartphone technologies while shopping for retail goods. It proves valuable not only because of its direct reference to mobile technologies in the hands of consumers, but for the first time we can begin to see the evolution in mobile device information sourcing. Although both the consumer and producer are slowly realizing these capabilities, it is fair to say that the ongoing process of experimentation reflects mobile device adolescence. There are connections between reoccurring themes such as changing business models, changing consumer behavior and the evolving development of mobile applications that are best understood when put into practice. More specifically just how could information be used and integrated into the everyday conditioning of mobile devices? One example as illustrated in the main focus of this article, are applications that are used in store by Smartphone owners in order to compare prices on stocked items. However depending on Smartphone user location settings retailers can push additional information to shoppers already sourcing product information from competitive brands. This reference to retailers also utilizing mobile technologies and information distribution is equally as valuable and shows a shift in business practice that surpasses traditional discount models. Bustillo, M., Zimmerman, A.(2010, December 15) Phone-Wielding Shoppers Strike Fear Into Retailers. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.retailgeeks.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/2010_1215_Phone-WieldingShoppersStrikeFearIntoRetailers.pdf

Yeah a good article pointing to a great opportunity for retailers. The big insightful learning from e commerce prior to this trend was that you did not have to be the lowest priced or the best quality. You just had to be most accessible with a good website, good shopping process, and let people pay. The early adopters were willing to sacrifice price and quality to get convenience. With the trend in this paper pointing towards the vast majority joining the automated shopping process now retailers will be able to more easily offload all their dead stock and the need for genuine end of season sales will be reduced. The retailers with good sales skills will make bigger profits. I see a trend here were businesses that do not keep up with online opportunities will go out of business. Is it possible for the immigrant bakery that has a competitive advantaged based on good quality and hard work to survive? With no website and a cultural belief that hard work wins business possibly they can survive when there is a local community that does not consult a phone to make a choice. Right now supermarket price dumping on bread is doing more damage to private bakeries than any social media app. When other varaiables come in that add to a drain on cash flow like increased rent, more mouths to feed, increased competition, etc then I see this brings increasing reasons to force people to start using social media to seek more business. Just like domain names. You buy one or two you will use for your business and then you buy 5 or 10 for defensive reasons. The last thing you want is to put a great effort in to developing your online position to then have someone buy a similar domain name and pour money at SEO and capture your market. www.carlislebakery.com.au as a prime web address could be undermined by www.carlisebakery.com if you do not buy them both. So the same is with social media. You might not be motivated to get more business but you are forced to the table to protect y

This article isn't about the common definition of mobile crowd-sourcing where data from crowds is aggregated. Instead, Bustillo and Zimmerman describe how mobile technology has brought about a shift in the consumer-retailer relationship which is "threatening to upend the business models of the biggest store chains in America." The article describes how in the past, American retailers (and I'll be bold enough to say retailers in other developed nations as well) could get away with selling items at inflated prices because consumers had no easy way to determine whether those prices were reasonable. Now, the article explains, the ability to compare prices with a smartphone has ushered in a "new era of price transparency". The article paints a bleak picture for the future of retailers who can't or won't make their prices more competitive. Articles like this highlight the fact that our increasing use of smartphones is heralding some fundamental changes in the way we live. And despite not fitting the normal discussion on mobile crowd-sourcing, changes in market dynamics like those described in this article are entirely due to the behaviour of crowds. After all, retailers depend on a crowd of consumers to buy their products, so when technology enables that crowd to shop smarter, it's no surprise the retailers feel a little anxious. The article doesn't mention any effort on the part of the retailers to aggregate data from online consumers in order to better market their products, however with web analysis software this is easy enough to do, and I suspect it's happening. So the transparency works both ways: the consumer has newfound clarity on prices, whilst the retailer gains clarity on consumer behaviour. This article, along with the Wisdom of Crowds Wikipedia article, has me considering mobile crowd-sourcing as a powerful means of market regulation. This could be a theme of my essay for module two.

Mercea, D. (2012). Digital Prefigurative Participation: The Entwinement of Online Communication and Offline Participation in Protest Events. New Media and Society, 14(1), 153-169. Retrieved March 25, 2012, from Sage Journals Database. http://nms.sagepub.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/content/14/1/153.full.pdf+html In this article, the authors aim to identify the use of computer-mediated communication prior to two offline protests, to determine the role and impact it plays on participants. Social media evidently played a strong role in the recent Arab uprising, but unlike the environmental protests studied in this article, there was a widespread urgency for change influencing the use of online resources. The study included FanFest, an environmental festival supporting change in Romania, and Camp for Climate Change, a traditional and direct style protest involving damage to property and blockades, in the UK (p.158-159). FanFest was considered a low-risk event, and Climate Camp was deemed a high-risk event (p.158), due to the level of activism involved. This article is valuable as it determines a correlation between individuals not associated with any activist organizations and their involvement preceding offline events. The idea that potential activists are more likely to attend low-risk events was reinforced, as a large percentage of people who attended FanFest fit this category (p.159-160). The online organization of the festival attracted new participants, as people were able to discuss the event online and collaborate, by offering suggestions to improve future festivals (p.163). The event aimed to engage the public in environmentalism, rather than demand change, like Climate Camp. This enabled people to freely discuss ideas online, without needing to meet in person. This contrasts with Climate Camp, as many participants d

In this article Mercea (2011, p. 155) observes how computer-mediated-communications are contributing to "participation in protest events run by social movement organisations". He aims to study specifically what role online communication plays in the relationship between online and offline environments in relation to activism. This article ties in well with the Kony 2012 campaign I am currently observing and has strong links to an article I read called 'Online Activism' by Guobin Yang. In the two cases Mercea presents, the power of the crowds mediated through computer-communication allows online activism to occur (Yang, 2009, pp. 33). Through interactions on Web 2.0 outlets, Social Movement Organisations have become a force for social change (Mercea, 2012, p.156). Mercea and Yang both agree on the idea that organisations that utilise Web 2.0 platforms are more successful at harnessing crowds, and in doing so promote discussions, real life meeting points, and ultimately plan towards a groups next step in action. The Invisible Children organisation is classified as a 'Social Organisation Movement' and is a prime example of how computer-mediated-communication combined with Web 2.0 platforms facilitates participation. Interactions on Web 2.0 outlets have allowed the Invisible Children's Kony 2012 campaign to become a force for social change. The Kony 2012 campaign reinforces Mercea's observation that interactions online can encourage activism to cross over into the offline environment. The Invisible Children's action plan, focused for April 20th 2012 dubbed 'Cover the Night', enables audiences to actively become involved with the campaign offline while engaging with it online. The success of the Invisible Children's campaign can be pin-pointed to how it was aimed at a particular audience, reinforced by social media platforms, and most importantly how it has harnessed Web 2.0 tools to deliver the mission of the Kony 2012 campaign, to make J

Beaumont, P. (2011, February 25). The Truth about Twitter, Facebook and the Uprisings in the Arab World. The Guardian. Retrieved March 24, 2012, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/25/twitter-facebook-uprisings-arab-libya?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487 This article discusses how political activists harnessed the web for their benefit, during the Arab revolutions. Unlike other resources, this article is of great value as it reveals that written tweets were not the only way that protestors and activists utilised the web. The people involved used phones to capture images and videos of the destruction around them, to not only inform their fellow protestors, but also to provide credible evidence to the outside world. People also contributed medical information and important phone numbers to assist and organise others involved in the uprising. This indicates the power of the 'other' described in "The Revolutions Were Tweeted: Information Flow during the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions" as ordinary people provide the bulk of the information. Each of these contributions demonstrates a form of collaboration, whereby; participants worked towards a common goal and participated in knowledge sharing (Blau, 2011, p.23). The article conveys that this provided a clear image of what was happening where, via specific sites. It is also noted that each uprising used the web differently, due to constrictions and organisation of the group. Facebook provided the voice to people in Tunisia as it was one of the only social networking sites that had not been shut down, despite the government's desire to do so, they feared it would cause more unrest. However, Egypt appeared to be the most organised group, as "details of demonstrations were circulated by both Facebook and Twitter and the activists' 12-page guide to confronting the regime was distributed by email" (Beaumont, 2011). The author also comments on the Western media's quick judgments on how social media was used

Lotan, G., Graeff, E., Ananny, M., Gaffney, D., Pearce, I., & boyd, d. (2011). The Revolutions Were Tweeted: Information Flows during the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions. International Journal of Communications, 5, 1375-1405. Retrieved March 24, 2012, from http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/1246/643 This article investigates how information was disseminated via Twitter during the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. It is clear that there were advantages in relying upon Twitter and social media during this time, because these sites provided real-time updates that mainstream media could not convey, due to the limitations of the platform, or censorship (Grossman, 2009; p.1399). The use of hashtags or key words assisted in the organisation of information, such as #sidibouzid and #Tunisia (p. 1376; p. 1395). However, the constant and rapid flow of content made it difficult to determine what is false and what is legitimate information - Twitter's strength and weakness in this situation. It is essential to understand how information can be organised and filtered through the positions of 'actor types' (classification of users in this study), making this article valuable to the study of political protests. There were many different actors mentioned but the most important contributors to the dissemination of content were journalists, bloggers, and activists. These actors had a tendency to retweet information from the same actor type or amongst the three aforementioned categories, to essentially create a sense of reliable organisation to the Twitter chaos (p. 1393). The study also concluded that individuals, rather than organisations, were considered more reliable during the uprising (p. 1398). This appears to demonstrate the scepticism associated with mainstream media in a society that no longer wishes to be talked 'at', but rather invo

This article relates my topic in its discussion of Twitter usage in online activism. The online activist group Anonymous (my topic of choice) also performed activist activities surrounding Egypt and Tunisia. Much of Anonymous' activities were organised through the use of Twitter making this article quite relevant. As suggested in the article, Anonymous did appear to have certain high powered actors who highlighted information of particular relevance to the operations, affecting the flow of information through the Twitter network. The article is published in a peer-reviewed journal making it a highly reliable source. It is also quite recent, written in 2011, which is a huge asset given the rate at which social networking technology progresses. The article is also perfectly relevant to the discussion of Twitter usage in political protests. The way that information flows and is determined critical or irrelevant through various actors' retweets is an important topic. I found the article quite useful as the topic is closely related to the online activism performed by the Anonymous group. This article contributes a great deal of value to this collaborative resource development project on a whole, as it is a reliable source, is very recent and it is highly relevant, dealing with Twitter as a collaboration and organisation tool.

Freeman, M. (2011). Fire, Wind and Water: Social Networks in Natural Disasters. Journal of Cases on Information Technology,13 (2), p.69 -79. A study of the increasing adoption of social networking tools (SNTs) as a channel for critical communication during disasters in Australia, is the platform used by the author to look into how society is accepting the use of SNTs as a whole for emergency management. Using recent natural disasters, the use of SNT's is traced from their limited use during the Victorian Bushfires in 2009 to their increased use and the reliance on SNTs by authorities and individuals, during the Queensland Floods of 2010/2011 and Tropical Cyclone Yasi in 2011 (February). During the fires of 2009, Twitter was used by the ABC radio station 774 Melbourne to provide as much coverage of the fires as possible. Followers increased from 250 to 1200 indicating the popularity of this form of communication, and offering an sight for future use. Two years later, the Queensland Police Service used Twitter and Facebook extensively to broadcast accurate information to those affected by the floods and correct misinformation. The same tactics were employed for Tropical Cyclone Yasi. Technologies are discussed as a medium of communication for accurate and timely information during disasters and for the sharing of knowledge, increasingly coming from the bottom up, but also utilised appropriately from the top down when required. Although this article was easy to understand, the author's discussion of the disasters and technologies, the extensive discussion of qualitative research, followed by a presentation of the case, lead to a repetition of information about the disasters. A more succinct and structured presentation of the results of this triangulated approach to research would have made it easier to appreciate the benefits of SNTs to communities.

Petray, T.L. (2011). Protest 2.0: Online Interactions and Aboriginal Activists. Media, Culture and Society, 33(6), 923-940. Retrieved March 25, 2012, from Sage Journals Database. http://mcs.sagepub.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/content/33/6/923.full.pdf+html This article conveys, that while it is necessary to utilize the tools made available by the digital age, they "should be used to enhance offline activism, rather than to replace it" (p.936). The author has studied an Aboriginal community in Townsville, and the difficulties that activists have faced in gaining momentum in a digital space. Unlike the young tech-savvy protestors in the Arab uprising, or the destructive youths in the London riots, the participants in this community are older and not comfortable with new technology. In this remote community, emails have been favoured when conveying information and organizing meetings online (p.927). However, this has caused difficulties in the disjointed fragmentation of messages, as well as, interfering with a culture that values visual storytelling over the written word (p.930; 927). Similar to, Climate Camp in the UK, the community may have benefited from using some Internet tools, however, face-to-face meetings were found to be more effective when collaborating and organising events. To further their presence online, the group created a Facebook page, allowing people to donate money and support them. However, the lack of success in gaining political momentum is linked to the participants and the current nature of online activism. Whilst the page can facilitate collaboration and organisation, it lost its momentum in the lack of group activity and recent updates (p.933). Due to the current nature of online activism, people can simply 'like' a page or sign a petition to show their support towards a cause, with little to no effort (p

Whilst I totally agreed with the concluding points of this article I found it very hard to identify just which topic this article had the greatest relevance to. It is a reliable source as it is associated with the James Cook University and the author has positioned themselves within the community they are researching. I could draw similarities with one of my articles, Public Radio's Social Media Experiments: Risk, Opportunity, Challenge, (Levenshus, 2007) in that they both reference a resistance to social media opportunities. The reasons for this 'resistance' in both articles could be put down to a lack of knowledge, resource allocation and institutional culture or 'cultural explainations' (Petray, 2011, p. 927). The understanding that 'push-button activism' was more of a feeling of evolvement rather than the translation of any 'real participation', supports the articles offer of a resolution. Any negative ideals about cyber-activism are squashed by the simple resolution of combining offline infrastructures with the online and not just relying on either one. Overall I thought this article was a breath of fresh air. Whilst I realise that 'cyber-activism' has been in the spotlight a lot lately due to the Kony 2012 campaign, I was delighted to read an article that turns its attention to local activism. Aboriginal cultures have always maintained my interest and just recently I viewed the 'Tall Man' exhibition that dealt with the Palm Island death in custody referred to in the article. It had a profound affect on me. I also appreciate that preserving oral histories and the rite to communicate in ones own language has deeply embedded social issues within Australia. This is another reason why this articles direct referencing of Aboriginal activism is refreshing and of great value. Equal access to social technologies is so very important in closing the digital divide both globally and locally. As the article points out only '25%' of the globe have such access (P

Reference: Levenshus, A. 2007. Public Radios Social Media Experiments: Risk, Opportunity, Challenge. Retrieved from http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/sites/default/files/public_radio_report3.pdf

In chapter three of Good Faith Collaboration: Culture of Wikipedia, J.M. Reagle Jr provides a utopian vision of Wikipedia's collaborative community. Reagle Jr uses the work of Cass Sunstein to demonstrate that the collaboration process is not free of conflict, and as with other types of communities both, "consensus and dissensus each have an important, and unavoidable, role in community" (Sunstein cited in Reagle Jr, 2011, para. 5). While referring to Wikipedia's policy and guidelines, Reagle Jr suggests that by applying a "Neutral Point of View" (NPOV) to the subject matter and practising good faith towards the other contributors, it is possible to achieve a successful collaborative culture (Reagle Jr, 2011, para. 103). This chapter is a useful resource for the study of Wikipedia as an example of an online collaborative tool, as it argues that collaborative communities can function effectively as long as they have a cultural framework to ensure productivity. I also believe this is a useful resource, as it provides a very positive view of collaboration and the work of the Wikipedia community, supporting Surowiecki's idea of 'the wisdom of crowds' (Surowiecki, 2004, p. 5). It is also interesting to compare this article's view on collaboration to the second resource I have chosen, Digital Maoism (Lanier, 2006).

References Lanier, J. (2006). Digital Maoism. Retrieved from http://edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier06/lanier06_index.html Reagle Jr, J.M. (2011). Good Faith Collaboration. In J.M. Reagle Jr, Good Faith Collaboration: Culture of Wikipedia (Online Edition, Chapter 3). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Retrieved from http://reagle.org/joseph/2010/gfc/chapter-3.html Surowiecki, J. (2004). The wisdom of crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Roy Rosenzweig's article Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past, discusses many issues regarding collaboration, with a focus on its historical entries. One of the most interesting points Rosenzweig makes, is that the contributors on Wikipedia, "do not come from a cross-section of the world's population. They are more likely to be English-speaking, males, and denizens of the Internet" (Rosenzweig, 2006, p. 127). Rosenzweig explains that as a collaborative medium, Wikipedia articles show bias towards Western culture and 'nerdy' topics such as computer science, physics and math (Rosenzweig, 2006, p. 127-128). This is interesting information to apply to Surowiecki's idea of 'the wisdom of crowds' (Surowiecki, 2004, p. 5). Is Wikipedia only representative of the wisdom of white, western, geek crowd? While this article was written back in 2006, I still find it makes some very interesting points about Wikipedia and the collaboration process, which are still applicable today. I also found this article valuable, as unlike a lot of other articles that focus mainly on the author's research which was generally conducted on a very small number of Wikipedia entries, Rosenzweig only discusses the research of others. Rosenzweig cites a range of academics that have compared Wikipedia with other encyclopaedias such as, American National Biography Online, Encarta, Columbia Encyclopaedia, and Britannica; providing the reader with an overview of the different research available and the findings made.

References Rosenzweig, R. (2006). Can History Be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past. The Journal of American History, 93, 117-146. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/ Surowiecki, J. (2004). The wisdom of crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few. New York, NY: Doubleday.

The many critiques in the article provide good fodder for the academic seeking to justify their position one way or the other. Us users of Wikipedia and traditional books know that Wikipedia works just as we know government process has major flaws. In my personal experience it is Wikipedia that is the most accurate source of information when compared to books on the subject of my father's country of birth. Prior to Wikipedia the books were full of misinformation or no information influenced by politics. So for the purpose of studying internet collaboration - I think this paper gives good argument. Even the people that experience history do not recall it exactly the same.

In the article, Collaboration in context: Comparing article evolution among subject disciplines in Wikipedia, the writers Katherine Ehmann, Andrew Large and Jamshid Beheshti, compare a small selection of articles - some newly created, and some well-established - from three subject disciplines - the hard sciences, soft sciences and humanities - in order to examine the article quality, how it differs from discipline to discipline and if it changes over time (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). One of the most interesting findings that was published in this article was that, contrary to previous research (Brandle, 2005; Dondio, et al., 2006; Lig, 2004; Stvilia, et al., 2005a, 2008; Wilkinson and Huberman, 2007), the articles used that had a greater number of edits than the others, were not the articles of the highest quality (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). Wikipedia articles on average retained 90.3 percent of their original text and in general, only small edits were made over time (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). I believe these new findings still support, 'the wisdom of crowds' theory though (Surowiecki, 2004, p. 5). Even though a large portion of the text remains from the original contributor, the small edits by other contributors over time, still help to fine-tune the article's meaning and readability. The authors' exploration into Wikipedia Talk pages is also of interest, especially how these places aided the collaboration and coordination process and how this in turn contributed to the quality of articles in Wikipedia (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). While Ehmann, Large and Beheshti only studied a small number of articles, and another study is required which examines a larger number of articles, in order to make more conclusive findings, I think this article is still a useful resource (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). It is constructive to compare this article's findings to the findings in the Rosenzweig article (Rosenzweig, 2006).

I think this article is interesting and pointed wisdom of crowd cannot bring high quality for Wikipedia's article. Talk pages are playing important role in Wikipedia, editors post their suggestion there and other active editors come and follow them or put other suggestion to make a more credible article (in Talk pages the most request belonged to the suggestion for editing and completeness had the less request followed by accuracy and accessibility) (Beheshti, Ehmann & Large, 2088). According to my own research, one of the important things, which mentions in talk pages is about sources of articles which can take a place as print resources, deep web resources external links and inexact references. Disagreement about content of articles is another important subject in Wikipedia and before an article edited, editors discuss in talk pages about adding controversial material or removing content, and then they get a decision to how edit the article. Talk pages may use to notify other users to know this article had recent edit or editors ask their questions there from other or they request for help. However, the author mentioned participation of contributors on different topics is different. There are many articles which have only one comment on their talk page and there is large number of articles who has various comment and suggestions on their talk page (Breslin, Passant & Schneider, 2010). Breslin, J, G., A, Passant. & Schneider, J. (2010). A content analysis: How Wikipedia talk pages are used. 7. Retrieved from http://journal.webscience.org/373/2/websci10_submission_80.pdf

Collaboration in Context takes an in-depth view at the collaboration which produces Wikipedia pages. I was attracted to this resource in that I imagined it would assist me in understanding how users interacted in a organised context - ie. the mindsets of users collaborating on a specific, and, in the case of many Wikipedia pages, complex, task. Whilst the paper examines the development of pages from a 'contributor's' point of view, it does this through statistical interpretation of a set of data the authors assembled on page edits. The result is that the paper doesn't so much uncover the nuances of collaboration in an organisational setting, as relate the nuts and bolts of page editing. Perhaps, the mores of collaboration might be inferred from this reading of Wikipedia's collaborative process, though I found it difficult to see this in numbers rather than testimony from wikipedians themselves. What this paper does do is highlight the efficacy of 'talk pages' in the process of building of 'rich' Wikipedia entries. These forums provide the engine of collaboration on Wikipedia - users able to get together as a group to uncover the most efficient ways to combine their work - the paper concluding, "Talk pages - in addition to article edits themselves - provide wikipedians with a powerful means of shaping the presentation of knowledge. (chap.8)" This information is useful to me in the way I will be able to compare it to the, say, simpler, and more spontaneous collaboration of strangers in bittorrent which does not require a 'talk page'. What I would have liked to have known is how the 'talk' on these pages allowed networks of 'equal' users to perfect articles on complex topics, and what the users themselves thought of the arrangement.

Digital Maoism, by self-confessed ranter Jaron Lanier, provides an alternative (and quite contentious) view on collaboration and the way it is used in Wikipedia. Unlike Reagle Jr, who suggests that collaboration can be successful with the correct cultural infrastructure (Reagle Jr, 2011, para. 103), Lanier argues that the best way to achieve successful collaboration on the web is to always cherish the individual over the collective (Lanier, 2006, para. 68). He expresses his frustration with the inaccuracies of his own Wikipedia page and speaks about the work of collaborative communities (or as he calls it, collectives) on wikis more generally, with disgust (Lanier, 2006, para. 33). Lanier argues that, "[h]istory has shown us again and again that a hive-mind is a cruel idiot when it runs on autopilot. Nasty hive mind outbursts have been flavoured Maoist, Fascist and religious, and these are only a small sampling" and that, "[i]f wikis are to gain any more influence they ought to be improved by mechanisms like the ones they have worked tolerably well in the pre-Internet world" (Lanier, 2006, para. 65). Lanier's essay is an interesting resource to view when thinking about collaboration and 'the wisdom of crowds' theory (Surowiecki, 2004, p. 5), and how this applies to Wikipedia. Lanier, a computer scientist and regular writer on the topic of computers and Internet-based technologies, portrays a controversial viewpoint that differs from much other writing on the topic. While I don't agree with most of Lanier's outspoken views which are often unsubstantiated, I think that there is some merit in the suggestion that there needs to be at least one individual, (as well as the correct infrastructure, as other theorists suggest), to guide the work in collaborative organisations. I also think this resource is useful as it is so far removed from other writing on this topic, which often glorifies the collective, allowing you to think about the topic in another way.

References Lanier, J. (2006). Digital Maoism. Retrieved from http://edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier06/lanier06_index.html Reagle Jr, J.M. (2011). Good Faith Collaboration. In J.M. Reagle Jr, Good Faith Collaboration: Culture of Wikipedia (Online Edition, Chapter 3). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Retrieved from http://reagle.org/joseph/2010/gfc/chapter-3.html Surowiecki, J. (2004). The wisdom of crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Digital Maoism is a rumination on the direction of online collaboration. Lanier examines this from a self reflexive viewpoint which begins with an examination of his own self as constructed by users on Wikipedia. In doing this he looks at online collaboration not through the empirical standpoint of participation, but the deeper reflection of having been 'produced' by it. The inconsistencies in the online record of his life introduce his perspective of measured criticism toward collaborative networks which increasingly attempt to function as overarching meta-narratives. Larnier's tone is personal, his perspective artistic rather than academic, he relates his arguments in language which brings it to life, "it's important to not lose sight of values just because the question of whether a collective can be smart or not is so fascinating. Accuracy in a text is not enough. A desirable text is more than a collection of accurate references. It is also an expression of personality." Seeing in Emily's introduction that Larnier was a "self-confessed ranter", I was a little concerned as to how balanced the article would be. He is a bit of ranter, but such is his passion for the subject, and I would say that it is a fair and insightful critique on online collaboration. Larnier's main thrust is reaffirming the importance of the individual as conscious participants within networks of online collaboration: aware of their own value as part of a diverse group rather than drones in a 'hive'. The relevance of this essay is its recognition that online collaboration is not smart merely by aggregation, that users must be empowered in their own beliefs for the group to benefit from the multiplication of which.

Based on a longitudinal study of five torrent hosting sites (Btefnet, e-tree, easytree, piratebay, torrentportal), this scholarly paper is an in-depth examination of cooperation in bittorrent communities. It relates that collaboration is a social activity. This paper is pertinent as it compliments its examination with data collected by its authors. Firstly, it explores the ethic of sharing central to bittorrent community - people who leech (download) files must later seed (upload) them so that they are available to other members of the organisation - relating this reciprocality as the main incentive for torrent users to collaborate (p.111). Comparing the five sites, the paper examines the different tools used to shape how sharing occurs, they find that the most salient of these is seeding ratios. Seeding ratios are used to ensure that users spend a fair amount of time seeding in comparison to the amount they spend leeching. These ratios are publicly viewable, it is as such that the user's contribution to the community is overt and users feel obligated to maintain this in order to preserve good relations within the group. Users in torrent swarms (collection of seeders and leechers linked via a common file) have minimalist identities (Kent 2012), however, they are not completely anonymous, linking their identity with download activity (p.112). In this way users in swarms are still connected to the physical world and individual identity through things like bandwidth speed, which determines how a user interacts with their peers. The paper relates how easytree, a network for bootleg recordings, had to have ratio enforcement emplaced as the site grew and received new users who were not familiar with the sharing culture of offline bootleg traders who had originally populated the network ( pp.114-5). We see that even within the diffuse nature of virtual entities, online collaboration is influenced by (physical and virtual) social factors (p.114).

Courtenay Honeycutt and Susan Herring discuss the collaborative potential of Twitter. This is of particular relevance to the discussion of Anonymous organisation tools, as Anonymous uses Twitter for a large amount of its public relations. @Anonops, @AnonymousIRC and @Youranonnews are twitter users with substantial followers, each with greater than 250,000 followers. Anonymous's favourite method of attack - Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS - works better with every additional participant. Anonymous must recruit members to participate in such attacks through Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. Twitter presents the most anonymous and easily digestible communication channel of the three, whilst also being extremerly active during past operations such as #oppayback. Therefore, Twitter plays a central role in the collaboration of anonymous, especially communicating with those who do not take an active role in IRC chats. Honeycutt and Herring examine the conversational and collaborative potential of Twitter with the use of the @ symbol to direct conversation. This activity is very prominent among the Anonymous Twitter account listed earlier. Anonymous Twitter feeds are full of responses to criticisms and answers to questions. It is worthwhile to note that Honeycutt and Herrings article was written in 2009, before use of the @ symbol became recognised by Twitter as a certified way of creating conversation. Now, it is easy to transverse conversation simply by clicking tweets with an @ symbol. During Anonymous operations, Twitter provides an invaluable resource in being able to address such a number of followers at once. Honeycutt and Herring also note similarities between Twitter and IRC channels, also noting that the hectic, crossing conversation are perhaps part of the appeal to some of IRC. This is certainly present in Twitter, but without the constraints of server based IRC channels. Twitter presents a global audience to which Anonymous reaches out, when recruiting

Matt Brian, mobile editor for The Next Web, discusses the popularity of pastebin.com among hacking (or perhaps more accurately 'cracking') groups. Brain notes that Pastebin is a tool originally designed for collaboratively editing code, but has since gained popularity among malicious security crackers as a method of releasing stolen data to the public. While there are numerous spinoffs of the simple text-sharing concept, pastebin.com remains the most popular. Searching the pastebin.com website for 'anonymous' or their (now disbanded and arrested) spinoff group 'Lulzsec' reveals a considerable level of Pastebin usage by Anonymous. Manifestos and anouncment seem to be a popular use of Pastebin by Anonymous. For example searching '#opegypt' reveals a list of sites taken down by Anonymous - perhaps it was collaboratively updated while the operation took place? The Anonymous group link to Pastebin.com pastes (or other equivalent websites) through blogs and twitter accounts associated with the Anonymous movement. Brain notes its utility in escaping the 140 character limitation of twitter, whilst still retaining anonymity with minimum fuss. If illegal material was posted on Anonymous blogs such as anonops.blogspot.com, youranonnews.tumblr.com or anonnews.org it would likely violate terms of service and result in blogs being closed. Pastebin.com therefore, provides a suitably nebulous zone for posting illegal content. Brain makes extensive note of the use of Pastebin.com to release sensitive, stolen information to the web. Although the hacking groups mentioned are not always directly related to Anonymous, it highlights the usage of Pastebin.com as a tool for sharing information. Hacker groups could potentially be working on releases or manifestos collaboratively with their peers, although this in not discernible in the final Pastebin product. Brian, Matt. 2011, June 5. "Pastebin: How a popular code-sharing site became the ultimate hacker hangout." The Next Web: Social M

This article provides an interesting (if somewhat brief) account of the Anonymous movement, and associated (as well as un-associated) hacktivist networks, using a relatively simple internet tool and altering the intended usage to suit the purposes of the movement. The article focuses mainly on the usage of Pastebin by an offshoot of the Anonymous movement called LulzSec, and how the group was able to use Pastebin to greatly aid their hacktivism efforts (Brian, 2011). Although now disbanded and with most of its members arrested (Apps, 2012), LulzSec very successfully utilised Pastebin for various leaks and links to their efforts of retrieving data from a number of high-profile organizations. This article touches on another example of the confrontational tactics for raising media awareness outlined by Andrews and Caren (2010), and thus the two articles may provide relevant references for discussions relating to the reactions to hacktivist groups such as LulzSec, as well as providing information regarding another tool used by such movements. In terms of my focus on the Anonymous movement, the article may not provide a direct reference to the divides between individuals within the movement based on motivation for activities under the Anonymous movement. The article does however provide a relevant secondary source for additional discussion relating to the way in which particular offshoots of the Anonymous movement operate. Andrews, K., & N. Caren. (2010) Making the News: Movement Organisations, Media Attention, and the Public Agenda. Retrieved from http://proquest.umi.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/pqdweb?did=2527572391&sid=1&Fmt=6&clientId=22212&RQT=309&VName=PQD Apps, P. (2012). LulzSec Arrests Hurt Hacker Groups, Anonymous Movement Hard To Kill. Reuters. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/08/lulzsec-arrests-anonymous_n_1331982.html Brian, M. (July 5th, 2011). Pastebin: How a popular code-sharing site became the ultimate hacker hangout. Retrieved fr

This is a page from BitTorrent.com's Idea Bank, a messageboard where people can post the ideas they would like to see adopted by BitTorrent's programmers. This page can be used as a text in the way that it demonstrates the user attitudes toward collaboration in bittorrent. The page shows conversation in fourteen posts. Firstly, we see something of the ideology of bittorrent, coming from the culture of Open Source software it actively invites the user's input into development. The conversation is interesting because it presents distinct 'for' and 'against' arguments on the inclusion of a 'thank you pop up'. The context of the page is salient, sitting at number two in popularity on the requests board, one realises that not being able to say thanks to peers is of concern to members of the swarm. The majority of commenters see the 'thank you pop up' as a good thing (nine 'for' comments to four 'against') stating sentiments of altruism, politeness and an intent to strengthen relationships within the bittorrent community. User Jp comments: "The world would certainly be a better place to live in, if only it's people would start to be kind toward those who share. To become more polite is a small step for man and a bigger one for humanity. I will surely pop one up (a thank you window) to the man who will spread the code for a better living." On the other hand the 'against' comments relate statements as to why a 'thank you pop up' is actually harmful to bittorrent community, Jimmy Hendrix posting: " I absolutely.......... absolutely do NOT want a feature to say thanks, chat, or get to know anybody that I'm downloading from. I want to stay as anonymous and impersonal as possible. Viren......you do know that this is still illegal? request/ban viren chocha." While the swarm is by nature anonymous, users do you yearn for a way to extend a warm hand to members they are collaborating with. Whilst the extralegal nature of bitorrent inhibits the devel

This suggestion combined with the much polarised reactions in the comments section is worth looking at and thinking about. Although the majority of the comments are positive and there are a significant amount of votes for this feature, five out of fourteen of the comments are either against it or express that they would not want to use it by bringing up issues like anonymity as well as legal issues. Unlike the interactions within the close social group looked at in the paper "BitTorrents and Family Guy: teenage peer group interactions around a peer-to-peer Internet download community", it seems that some of the users' who made comments about this suggestion do not want to make contact with other BitTorrent users, perhaps because the illegal nature of the exchange makes them feel uncomfortable. Their perspectives suggest that they just want to use BitTorrent for downloading and uploading, and not directly as a kind of community. I think they may have a point, and real life social groups as well as online communities seem to function fine without communication being possible directly within BitTorrent programs. It is interesting to think if file-sharing was less taboo, perhaps it would be more acceptable for social features like this to be directly integrated into the platforms.

Torrent etiquette is more than just good manners, it is a tool by which bittorrent sites promote collaboration and organisation between users. Torrent etiquette has many faces, it is frequently a formal mechanism such as seeding ratios needed to stay on site or the instructions of Admin on discussion boards, yet it is also something which users proliferate themselves purely through the course of interaction. Etiquette allows bittorrent communities to solidify user collaboration. There are 1,090,000 results for 'torrent etiquette' on google, this page presents one net user's guide to the subject. That bittorrent has evolved to the point of having a widely understood etiquette says something: strangers need just a very basic framework to be able to come and work together collaboratively. Before, people would download individually, now, with a little guidance a group of people from all over the world, with different intents, schedules and backgrounds can work as a coherent entity, each individual not only gaining his or her needs but contributing to the needs of the group. Aside from some specific information on ratios and multiple accounts, Brooks' advice is very simple, "If someone uploads something you happen to like, click the thanks button. If there's a forum, say hi. If a tracker has a list of requests to fill then see how you can help out." Etiquette provides boundaries to the crowd and by looking closely at its form we see that its is very close to the ethics we live by in day to day life. Thus, we realise the power the internet has in connecting people and concatenating the work of individuals into that of an organisation. References Brookes, T. (2010). Torrent Etiquette: How to avoid getting banned from private trackers . Retrieved 20th March from http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/bittorrent-etiquette-avoid-banned-private-trackers/.

This page, rather than looking mostly at rules like my articles, also addresses etiquette, at least for private torrent trackers. Although some of the etiquette described could be applied to public torrent trackers, it is mostly relevant only to the more exclusive private torrent trackers. Rather than this being a weakness of this page for the subject, it is useful to note that fair use and courtesy by people using BitTorrent is much more likely to happen in smaller communities, and doesn't necessarily apply to BitTorrent as a whole. The collaboration that occurs through BitTorrent becomes more like collaboration when it is governed by these kinds of social interactions between users in the same private community. This page mentions ways which users can help out other individuals, for example by looking at someone's list of requests, or hitting a "thanks" button on someone's torrent. These seem much more specifically collaborative interactions than what occurs through the actual BitTorrent downloading process, where everything is automatic. Overall this is an interesting page, but I would suggest keeping in mind that the etiquette described doesn't apply directly to all BitTorrent activity. Many users going through public torrent trackers likely don't feel any kind of reason to observe any of this etiquette and will share what the protocols of BitTorrent make them share.

Like the many articles that I looked at a few weeks ago, Brookes gives us a brief introduction into how private tracking helps to create mechanisms for interaction and how these websites promote a good social etiquette and overall community for users. He shows a similar opinion to many others in that people do not require much in order to feel part of a community. According to Brookes, the introduction of communities to the bit torrent world, has taken away the more individualistic downloader. Through the private trackers it has seen these collaborative communities sprout up and instead of individuals selfishly downloading for themselves they are now working and contributing for others and are helping the whole group function. His overall belief that the etiquette element of these communities is key and that if they are to function properly, that each person should be willing to help out when required. As I mentioned, many of the other articles that I reviewed, for example Incentives in Bit Torrent Induce Free Riding (2005) written by Jun, S., Ahamad are of a similar opinion that private trackers are improving the communal and collaborative features of bit torrent and have made it something that people are encouraged and enticed to participate in.