Profiting off another ‘lonely girl'

This week Monday’s MediaGuardian interviewed Joanna Shields the new commercial ‘driver’ of SNS Bebo – a woman now set to launch her own Social Networking-‘angst’ phenomenon. In the wake (quite literally in light of recent events) of lonelygirl15’s death on the SNS YouTube Shields, along with lonelygirls15 creators, is set to help to launch ‘Kate Modern’; the days, life and times of a fictional struggling arts student.

In The Guardian interview Shields outlines the marketability of such a ‘resource’ for SNS. As part of Bebo this is seen as a ‘natural’ and, moreover, profitable, extension of the ‘lifestyle media’ that Web 2.0 users are already a part of.

This is where there has been a shift in the algorithm of Web 2.0 content that has reflected user demands and behaviours. It seems ironic that precisely what has made SNS like Facebook so popular and a ‘premium’ when compared to other sites like MySpace is that they are ‘real’ people sustaining, managing and making connections to other ‘real’ people. In this context I am surprised that there is demand for such fictitious life-style and life-course accounts. Shields astutely points out that there has been a shift from Web 1.0’s more information-based searches, to a Web 2.0 connected life-style, which sees people (in particular young people) living out their lives online.

In part I agree with Shields. Lives are indeed being lived out through Sherry Turkle’s screen. These lives however are closely connected to their ‘offline’ counterparts, as individuals interact through the screen and then back out again.

So my question is this with lonelygirl15 and Modern Kate, what kind of ‘lives’ are these?

danah boyd the American doctorate student whose research is about social networking has (like myself) focussed on the ‘technosocial’ constructs that ‘real’ individuals are creating and the ways that they interact with one another on such sites.

Which returns me to my own question, not only ‘what kind of lives are these’, but what type of users are interested in them?

boyd's most recent publication ‘Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace’ has considered the possible class divides across the most popular SNS’s that reflect ‘real’ divides offline. Blog lives like Kate Modern represent a convergence of the ubiquitous social media that Web 2.0 has to offer, one that is mixed with a milieu of episodic and voyeuristic media representations.

For Shields’s Kate’s life merges the community engagement of social networking together with audience interaction that smacks of commercialability where the likes of Kate ‘can interact with you’. This returns us to the ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ lives that were the earliest domains of Web 1.0 – and where, to hark back to that classic cartoon, in cyberspace you were never sure if you really were interacting with a dog or not.

In the context of YouTube, MySpace and Bebo it seems there is demand for serialised and fictional ‘friends’. Perhaps boyd’s consideration of the American class divide on social networks should be reframed, or extended, in terms of a generational context that could shed some light on the kinds of users that Kate Modern appeals to.

In light of my own research, rather simplistically, a generational breakdown would look something like;
MySpace: the domain of school students and early teens – free to ‘hang out’ away from parental scrutiny.
Bebo: a forum for ‘cool’ college 6th form students, late teens and ‘young people’ keen to define themselves as more sophisticated than their MySpace younger brothers and sisters.
Facebook: the most savvy of them all. Originally the domain only of University students and post-grads with a ‘.ac.uk’ address. Since opening its digital doors to non-university users, their parents/extended family/friends and those in commercial organisations have clambered to join – (want proof, just see how many from the BBC you can spot!)

The generational context of SNS leaves a rather bad taste in my mouth, as the realisation strikes that it the pre-Facebook generations that are likely to be subjected to the most rigorous of marketing strategies and commercial manipulations. At its commencement Lonelygirl15 did not offer the caveat that its character was entirely fictional. In contrast, Kate Modern makes no pretence that her lives and loves promise to provide a fictional storyboard for her audience to enjoy.

Again there seems an irony here in the context of a SNS, where user lives are about their ‘real’ networks, or at least as real as the email address provided to connect such networks

Perhaps there is no issue here at all, the merger of lives, ‘real’, ‘fictitious’ or otherwise simply reflect the melting pot of digital content. This simply means that users need to be savvy about the ‘whom’ they are conversing with. But only if it matters that the ‘they’ are not a canine friend. Otherwise as Andrew Keen has speculated the ‘cult of the amateur’, or ‘fictional’ looks set to continue to form an integral part of our technosocial lives.

A Body of Networks

Where we are beginning to get used to be being channeled as part of networks of differing quality and ‘attachment’, and to the degradation of our own culture on Web 2.0 (see Andrew Keen) – it seems we are about to become part of an immersed, techno-ambient and fashion conscious world.

Whilst it is nothing new that supposedly ‘inanimate’ objects interact with us, just take a trot round Tesco and their video screens, the handheld price scanners and checkers at Waitrose, and even in York where I reside ‘helpful’ tourist information totems will start to ‘talk’ to you just as you walk past (yes thank you I do know that I am indeed on Parliament Street for the 9th time that day). What IS new will be how these WILL start to interact with us. We will become surrounded by technology that wants to think for us, that is a part of our homes, cars, appliances and even bodies.

What next a smart moisturiser that knows to increase the SPF when the sun’s out? Not such a stupid idea.

These observations have been prompted by the recent BBC news item about ‘Smart Fabrics’. Amongst the show-cased collection is the solar panelled bikini that allows its wearers to charge mobiles, MP3 players etc. Shame about the lack of actual swimming possibilities, but who cares when your strutting your battery charged, and MP3 plugged-in self by the poolside right?

So forget about those drab and static local area networks – this is about your body of networks.

Some of the fabric innovations are of a ‘smarter’ profile. One such garment are the eco-conscious accessories that charge themselves by day (as a handbag, fan, purse etc) and become a unique and stylish light by night with which to adorn yourself, or your home.

So it seems a new vision of fashion, functionality and aesthetics is taking place. And it is easy to envisage how for example MPS players, cameras and mobile phones will converge, and even become integrated into clothing; open to new levels of wear and tear.

Imagine for example, where that pesky MP3 takes up room in your handbag/causes unsightly bulges in your Levis, these devices will be integrated into the fabric. Picture it; its not an iPod, but an iBag, nay iGarment – how do you like them Apples?

However, as much as the future of technology permits an even more personalised integration of ‘man and machine’, this does raise some interesting questions in terms of ethics, surveillance, privacy and identity. Does this mean that I will be able to access others favourite playlists and contact information by wearing the same jeans? or will our own genes provide the key for boundaries between interfaces? and ultimately do we want this level of ‘cyborg’ mechanics attached to our organic selves.

Well we may be a longer way off from that level of techno-human integration. In the meantime I shall be coveting the latest iBag from Apple and hoping they do a Chloe version that can sort my emails. Nifty, not thrifty technology!

Web 2.0: Finally, a setting for social theory!

Web 2.0 just got theoretical ! or at least that is the idea.

Being hosted at the University of York 5th and 6th of September is The Social Science of Web 2.0 event - that intends to bring social theory and some serious social discussion to the Web 2.0 frontier.

One of the Key Notes is Andrew Keen whose recent book 'Cult of the Amateur' regards Web 2.0 interconnectedness as a detriment to social knowledge and user (or rather society) intelligence. But then isn't that what they said when ICT's first came into the home and placed users online for the first time?... Well no doubt he shall prove a very worthy Key Noter, and alongside George Ritzer, Charles Leadbeater, Scott Lash and Bernie Hogan this promises to be a very entertaining and thought provoking event.

Moreover I am looking forward to dispelling Keen's concerns that Web 2.0 is at the cost of our culture and is instead a milieu of activity and creativity - ok so not all of it 'quality', but there are some real gems out there!

So if you have an interest in Networks, Online Communities, Privacy, Identity , Trust, Community Media and Democracy this event should appeal to you too!