Social Informatics

"The Internet doesn't steal our humanity, it reflects it. The Internet doesn't get inside us, it shows what's inside us. And social media isn't cold, it's just complex and hard to define."

Large groups with ignorant members seem to thrive in nature (and democracy?).

This is an interesting use of a social media tool to better connect four homeless men with the "community around them," to quote one of the people involved in this project. There are interesting comments, everything from someone calling Mr. Wiggins' followers "compassionless voyeurs," to others praising the fact that these men are given a voice that might one day help their plight. I think only good things can come from giving voice to people on the edges of the digital divide, but that's my opinion.

I saw my friend use an Android version of herself as a Facebook picture. Adroidify allows you to give your phone visual attributes of how you understand your personality. I immediately thought of SI, and especially the early video we watched about MIT projects making phones more interactive via robots.

"Sites that produce original content or information that Google considers valuable are supposed to rank higher under the new system."

Interesting article from The Economist about applying distributive creativity and group piecework to journalism. "Under the rubric "My Boss Is a Robot" they are testing whether it is possible to draw on the sort of distributed creativity that the internet has made possible-and faddish-to perform the equivalent of journalistic piecework. To start with, the group has chosen to bash out the kind of article with which Babbage is all too familiar: a write-up of a newly released scientific research paper. Rather than assign the task as a whole to a single person, their system will try to tease apart and outsource different elements of analysis and production."

interesting demographic info on users of top social networking sites

Sherry Turkle has a new book out...

interesting: in the new book, turkle, "takes a considerably darker view, arguing that our new technologies - including e-mail messages, Facebook postings, Skype exchanges, role-playing games, Internet bulletin boards and robots - have made convenience and control a priority while diminishing the expectations we have of other human beings."

A nice summary of the concept as it relates to style and functionality. Fashion was one of the first industries to capitalize on it, and as certain products such as computers do not noticeably improve, companies have to use style, rather than functionality, to sell them.

Young people are leaving blogs to run twitter and fb pages.... unique page views for blogger are down domestically (although up internationally). Tumblr & wordpress use remains consistent. Does anyone agree that blogger still feels like it's stuck in 2003 with its look, feel and usage?

Kayla Webley of Time (2011 Feb 18) wrote on the effect of a teacher's angry blog about students. While she tried to hide her full name and not directly identify with the school district, someone made the connection with her picture. Currently the teacher is suspended, but is pursuing a legal resolution.

Doug Gross (2011 Feb 21) discusses a new app for breakups and recent changes in FB friends' relationships.

This reminds me of David Weinberger's discussion of the Corbis and Bettman photo archives at the beginning of his book.

I saw this article too... Although we keep statistics on how many times a file was downloaded from a web site, a digital document does not record the same info or imply use the way a physical object can. We can extract more quantitative info from it now.

In case anyone gets as lost as I do learning the online shorthand of chat slang.

Interesting considering the role social networking played

An interesting article on how Google's search results can be manipulated from the Feb 13, 2011 NY Times Business section. Is our search engine research being manipulated in other ways as well?

Aboujaoude thinks the Internet harms us, while McGonigal (as we have seen) thinks the opposite. "If Aboujaoude is the Internet's Hobbes, McGonigal is its Rousseau."

A paper written by two technology professionals with recommendations on how to enhance community using technology tools. Basis of their article focuses on importance of interaction with content, interaction with instructor, and interaction with students.

This refers to how less restrained people feel on the internet v. real life. This might seem more related to internet identity, but it can have huge effects on civil community on the internet too. I thought of this when I read "One important social rule was built into the software that the WELL lives inside: Nobody is anonymous. Everybody is required to attach their real userid to their postings" (Rheingold, Chapter 1).

I kind of think that a movement can be a form of a community. In that it is still a group of people with common interests, knowledge, language and established rules. The prime difference I think is that movements are more action oriented to complete specific goals.