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Becoming friends with your car and making new friends through your car's social network. Interesting where social media is starting to go.

Interesting, it changes the whole meaning of the word "friends."

Great. First, my cat got more "friends" than me on Petbook and now there is a chance my car will get more "friends" than me too?!?! Why bother social networking anymore? It's not good for the ego.

The article I want to bring into the digital divide class discussion this week is about a project that is "creating Internet networks for eastern Afghanistan whose main components can be built out of trash" such as boards, wires, plastic tubs, and cans. Most importantly, the networks built "can be deployed by anyone anywhere where local infrastructure will not permit a conventional network" (they can even run "off-grid" via car-battery).

Social Networking is not really about networking; a brief history of social media websites (the timeline on launch dates still surprises me)

A paper on smart mobs (a group centered around an online social network, unified by a cause or goal, who have a time frame to accomplish said goal) and social capital and authority gets established and transferred

The best social network you've (probably) never heard of is one-five-hundredth the size of Facebook. It has no video chat feature, it doesn't let you check in to your favorite restaurant, and there are no games. The company that runs it has just four employees, one of whom is responsible for programming the entire operation.

Social informatics is not explicitly mentioned in this article. However, I think it gives us direct insight into crafting our own definition of the term and its application. Bates looks at the overall domain of information science, and how we, as members of that discipline, can break free of the idea (which may have changed a bit since its writing in 1999) that there's no content to LIS education and practice, just structure (i.e., the core of our profession is to organize other discipline's information). Most applicable to our discussion, at least in this point of the semester, seems this excerpt: "In comparison to other social and behavioral science fields, we are always looking for the red thread of information in the social texture of people's lives. When we study people we do so with the purpose of understanding information creation, seeking, and use. We do not just study people in general. The rest of the social sciences do various forms of that. Sometimes this can be a very fine distinction; other times it is very easy to see. In communications research, a cousin to our field, the emphasis is on the communication process and its effects on people; in information science we study that process in service of information transfer. For another example, there are social scientists today who are observing people doing collaborative work through new types of networked systems in the field of computer-supported co-operative work (CSCW) . The sociologist or social psychologist identifies and describes the network of relationships and the social hierarchy that develops under these circumstances. They may examine the impact of technology on those social relationships and on the work of the individuals involved. The information scientist, on the other hand, follows the information the way Woodward and Bernstein "followed the money" in their Watergate investigations. That's the red thread in the social tapestry. When we look at that social hierarchy, we ar

love common craft videos...this one breaks down the concept of social media, explained using the metaphor of ice cream. both helpful & delicious. so social media is always interactive, while digital media doesn't necessarily have user-generated content? trying to get my definitions set as i do more searching...

It does get a little confusing and this was a great way to simplify social media tools!

I definitely have to agree with the way common craft breaks down concepts and makes it understandable for the average Joe. When I'm trying to figure new techie things out or I'm trying to explain it to others, I often refer to this type of tool.

The social network lost users in America last month. Should Mark Zuckerberg be worried? = = = = = = = = = = Apropos of what Qraig posted below. I don't think Mark Zuckerberg is worried.

Howard Stern was talking about Facebook, and how they should have sold it when they had the chance, because soon the new new thing will come along. He pointed out that what makes Facebook so successful are all the users - the FB community has power that I never considered in that light.

It will have to end someday...but probably not too soon.

I thought this blog was very interesting because of the ideas for teacher guidelines it presents. These guidelines seem to be straightforward, but as you can see, not all people who commented agreed with them, arguing freedom of speech and people's ability to exercise their own common sense.

Good advice! I recently had a teacher post on facebook about one of her students. She didn't mention a name, but I had a few complaints about it. (She unfortunately friends some of her parents)

http://branchout.com/ is the new Facebook app that initiates networking for potential jobs...

I remember reading about the competition between cities that wanted to be chosen for this project (one even changed it's name to Google). This story is short, talks about the high poverty level in Kansas City and the possibility of bridging the digital divide.

This is something I am interested in...especially since last year when I had a online identity "breach"!

I was surprise to see Facebook received all the stars. I guess I always assumed it has issues because people are always warning me about privacy on there.

I thought about giving my cats their own FB page, but if they got more friends than me I would be very disturbed by that!

I never heard of this and had to look it up myself to believe it. It is a bit strange, but definitely entertaining.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001827272353 That's the FB page for our dog Nanook - friend him if you'd like. My younger son started the page; he's kind of protective of the house and barks a lot so I find it amusing that my kids' friends wanted to be friends with him.

I thought this was an interesting article after all of our discussions this past week. Is there a limit to our growing networks?

I liked this article, too. I think the reason some of my friends on Facebook have an excessively high number of friends is for business. I wonder how many people with a high number of friends actually communicate with their "friends". It makes me think about Qraig's post "It's all about me". People with that many friends can't possibly be connecting with all of those people; rather, I think it is more likely they post updates on themselves.

Yup, after Qraig's post I realized how much of facebook is about "me." I know that this is a good avenue of connection, but really the majority of what I see from my "friends" is all about themselves!

another way to use social media: social networks as support groups. this article describes the author's attempts to quit smoking, and how she used twitter to hold herself accountable and receive praise from followers, which motivated her.

Part of me completely understand the solidarity and support that social media can offer- the other part of me still finds it extremely odd. I'm still trying to put my finger on what exactly makes me think that using Twitter and Facebook to update and get support is strange. Perhaps its just a persona; preference for live interactions...

I see this as a very productive use of twitter.

The Time Magazine Techland blog reports on theories behind why France banned mentions of Facebook and Twitter on French TV (unless the companies are being reported on specifically). Following French blogger Benoit Raphael (whose French-language blog is linked to in the article), they argue that "both social networks are so ubiquitious as to essentially count as public space."

This seems to parallel (perhaps even extend?) Sarkozy's recent support for building up intellectual property rights and digital rights management on the Internet. Interesting to see what sort of opposition might grow from your example (if any) in light of petitions and other fallout from many civic organizations in his calls for action at the e-G8 summit a couple weeks back: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/defending_innovation_and_net_neutrality_at_eg8_video.php?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4ddffe33e2a44342%2C0

I am a big pop music/culture nut. Always have been...probably always will be. So, when I really started thinking about social media and all its uses, I began to wonder...who out there uses social media to it's fullest potential. The answer was obvious. Lady Gaga! When I did a quick search on Lady Gaga and social media, I got a lot of hits. But I wasn't surprised. She is the master when it comes to sites like Facebook and Twitter. Yes, she is out there wearing meat dresses and making fun songs, but it's her presence on social networking sites that I feel has really catapulted her to super stardom. What do you all think?

hmm. is it gaga or her p/r team creating the image? Is her voice really hers? How do we know?

I am sure it is more her "team" then her herself. But, still...it's rather impressive.

Very recent Q&A with Sherry Turkle on "Alone Together" about our plugged in lives making people more lonely and distant. Interesting passage about teenage culture midway through

This really highlights one of the bad ways that technology impacts us; texting and checking Facebook are gaining precedence over socializing with people in the same room. It's depressing to think of how widespread it is.

I loved this article! I see customers at my work (a restaurant in a hotel) checking their phones all the time. One of my coworkers told me a few weeks ago that he was working when a big game was on tv. He was bartending and his bar was packed. Instead of having their eyes on the screen during the crucial moments of the game, many of his customers were sitting right in front of those tvs and ignoring them while their eyes and fingers stayed glued to their tiny phone screens, playing Angry Birds for all he knew. It was just odd, but sadly this way of life has been becoming more of the rule.

I came across this article in First Monday where Erika Pearson compares Goffman's metaphor of performance to Granovetter's strong and weak ties and creates a context in which she discusses the relevance of online identity - The idea that online performance is relative to investment in a given network giving individuals the freedom to explore the function of mediated identities in building nuanced relationships.