Having the last word on the latest cool thing.

Today's Observer Magazine from the Dear Mariella column has a 'modern day' dilemma about being reaquainted with an ex, an 'incredibly sexy man', now that both parties are married. Mariella's approach is one of quiet scoffing 'call me anti-social (...) but Facebook and its fellow sites offer teenagers a virtual social circle, and disassatisfied adults the chance to sit alone in a cloud of nostaglia'. Hmm, written like a true non-Facebook user. I was pleased that some are still disconnected in terms of digitial social networks. Even Granny Ivy Bean at 102 as the worlds oldest Facebook user has got to gripes with the Poke.

This is not to pooh-poo anyone who does not use Facebook, or any other SNS. Each to their own. This is a mere commentary as to the lag and revine between the perception of SNS users, and the reality. Recently SNSs have been responsible for spiraling society out of control, the source of, knife crime, identity theft, coronies as people spend time surfing, rather than real surfing. Such are the Facebook forays. But what is the reality?

the American SNS commentator/sociologist danah boyd has long described SNSs as a place for 'yoof to hang out', and 'why youth heart MySpace'. This is only part of their story. As you read this, Facebook and its affiliated sites are being increasingly occupied by the highest proportaion of new users, who are older demographic and most likely to be women. Not only a hang out for yoof, but essential networks for career development (in the UK Facebook is more popular than Linkedin), and is used by professionals for friend and work based contacts.

Mariella's article does show one important observation to note, and that is that we are still coming to terms with the who is using, let alone how to use such forms of technology.

The easiest (laziest) and media led take is that these sites are detrimental to everyday social life. Instead there are a range of complex social processes invovled that are only just beginning to be emergent. Who would have foresaw 102 years young granny Ivy Facing off on SNSs.

Despite Mariella's title of the column, the Last Word', this is not the last that we will be hearing, thinking and writing about SNSs. There's a loooooooong way to go yet as they continue to stand as the 'latest cool thing'.

FATbook

It seems that nothing is good for you these days. If it's not enough that we are a 'nation of fatties', we also lack motivation and will power, and thus have binged on social networking too. The day after Facebook was named as the 'world's number one social networking site', is the day the world's number one is also responsible for the obesity epidemic, as 'Facebook 'makes you fat''

Too much time surfing online and not enough will power to go the gym? Yes that will be FATbook's fault. Makes you wonder whether the metaphorical Poke could actually be a latent form of exercise action.

The image that springs to mind is the 'fat guy being poked with a stick'.

So FATbook’s caused an epidemic. But weren’t the fatties F.A.T. before Facebook?

This level of reportage is ridiculous, but what else does one expect from the summer time, lazy British tabloid press. The story will be straight from the 'fatty demographic’ who surf too much and don't get to the gym anyway. Buy an iphone and poke FATbook on the move I say.

At your fingertips. Let do this 2Gether.

Such is the connected up and accelerated presence of the Geek Chic world it is always interesting when one pauses. And can take stock of the consequences of overly excessive (so the media would have us believe) forms of communication. Recently, following such criticism (‘blogging and Facebook, isn’t that just the biggest waste of time?’) I had tried to explain how such an ‘excessive’ focus and attention to social detail was in fact an essential life skill (and style) for the grown up world of the web. And so it is with delight that I'm in attendance of the Channel 4 led 2Gether Festival this week that provides opportunity to take a look at how digital technologies are changing our world. For better or for worse?

One of the major sources of confusion is ignorance over the functionality of blogging lifestyle and a connected social immersion. Misplaced concerns about the lack of quality contact and content in the context of social networking still lacks a clear and workable theorisation. I’ll be speaking on the Thursday and hope to engage with not only the ‘problems’ of such lifestyle, but to offer some solutions too.

The transformations of our culture, social structure and personal identity is as much about the disputed distinction between ‘quality’ face-to-face encounters compared to the ‘poorer’ mediated contact on SNSs and the rest of Web 2.0, as a lack of understanding about how to use such social tools.

So lets define this as a social speeding up of encounters. Communication is of the moment and for the moment. Missed that wall post? To respond two days later you’re either too late, or labelled as ‘neglectful’ of friends and ‘careless’ with messages. The speeding up and compression of actions puts an increased pressure on time. Unlike networks and social networking resources rather than being available in abundance time holds everyone accountable making contact scarce and if we are not careful a more harassed state.

Meanwhile time shifting aside on Thursday I’m going to enjoy the opportunity to meet and greet some of the best in other networks and create possibilities for change.

Over-exposure

Friend’s of mine always travel with their camera. Extended lenses, polishing cloths and all. That’s a bit too 'camera geek' for me, but I’m aware that I do have an array of image capture devices on me at all times: From my 5mega-pix camera on my N95 to my newly acquired Panosonic camcorda (which for the geeky amongst you DOES ‘talk’ to my imac and mac book successfully, but only as I’ve the latest version of Leopard running).

You could say that such technology has become so well integrated it has morphed as an (expected) extension of various limbs. Attending events (I was at a wedding over the w/e), out and about, and even on nights out, there is always the means and expectation to ‘capture the moment’. The range of techniques employed is intesteing to watch and to take a part in.

Over the w/e wedding guests happily snapped away alongside the professional photographer and all with promises to upload to Flickr, some even had 'specially made' Flickr cards courtesy of Moo (and yes i was one of them!). The other hot topic for conversation was who was going to be tagged on Facebook. So visible were the range of camera’s and phones pointing, focussing and taking shots that by the end of the day potential subjects barely noticed the click and the flash.

The incorporation of the perfect shot and publication on Web 2.0 and SNSs means that images are re-contextualised; tagged, possibly photo-shopped and set out to networked others. In other words individuals are starting to show to others what they have been up to through the various lenses that they carry.

Commentators have called this the ‘information age’, the scale of which represents a new level of social inclusion as snapshots are commonly treated as effective capture of ‘goings on’. It is worth bearing in mind that these also involve the creation of new forms of content, action and opportunity for interaction in a new social world. We all comment on our friends images, and they in turn comment back.

Gone is the anonymity of ‘what I did at the w/e’, in favour of the ‘look at me, look at me!’ social tagging and content sharing of an over-exposure. Or is it?...

Google wants our health

In the 1990s we celebrated the free-reign of a cyberspace. With a freedom to create a ‘new’ persona that stayed online and traversed the technology only world. Today and in the era of Web 2.0 this approach has been replaced by the necessary replication of the ‘real’ person across various digital arenas; from SNSs, blogs, webpages amongst a whole host of other shared content. Now who we say we are has meaning and must reflect a true and trusted identity.

Trust, is an important issue. The latest from the Google giants is the launch of a freely contributed to (typically Google) Google Health platform. As the Dr health of data, with your Google account information about your personal health can be:

• Stored in one place; with notes from doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies
• Used to keep medical practitioners up to date with your health status
• Provide you with health information about healthy issues

And so we’ve reached a point of convergence: From focus on the material hardware of machines and technology to accentuation of software sorted content and information data. In view of this the repositories of information that Google, Facebook, YouTube etc hold, represent a new data materialism that means matter matters. The storage of personal data has become invisible, we choose to volunteer and to contribute snap-shots about ourselves that are stored, seen and processed by others. Consequently we are mostly unaware of what goes on in the ‘big black box’ of the web in terms of our data. The re-configuration of channels of identity information operate as an invisible system of secretiveness, silently running in the background.

Put simply; after Google we do not know what our information does, nor where it is.

But does any of this matter?

We select the types of data and information to share, and invest a level of trust to the sites and people to whom we give access. This means that we can’t just expect information to stay static, it moves and shifts as sites update and other users sift through data. The structures are self-concealing; put a new album on Flickr and where does it go?... And who is looking at it?

Perhaps we are better off unaware of the what and where our data goes and to have faith in the user-friendliness of our social software. Ultimately our data may not be strictly our own, but we have a measure of control with how we contribute and recreate ourselves across the web. And whether Google Health is the new Dr for our healthy needs.

Another version of this post was published at GirlGeekdom

That nasty little Facebook habit

The future social habits of Facebookers

Living, playing hey even ‘making out’ (both in the American 'pashing' overtone to the more British undertone of finding your own way) on SNSs has had unexpected consequences and influences in social life. More specifically it has been possible to see how the politics of social contact have changed as social networking went from connecting to Facebook friends, to peers, family and anyone.

Some of the implications of the use of such social resources hold particular opportunities between what can vary as proactive and defensive types of social engagement. Perhaps then we are entering a world that is informed by our social presence that affords new forms of social exclusion in the changing scape of Internet spaces.

Take for example any vague notions of attachment that you used to have to your email account. You didn’t have any? No neither did I. But pause for a moment. Reflect on the attachment and value that you hold of your Facebook account. Imagine if over night you were denied entry to all your connections and networks. Scary stuff. Perhaps more debilitating than losing a mobile phone and sim, or forgetting the password to an email account Facebook represents in a very emotive way not only the points of contact to others, but the ‘keep sakes’ and trails of communication as they have emerged from just one poke or wall post. These (sometimes very personal) precious instances hold an important place for You. Popular commentary in the media has debated that Facebook is ‘bad for the health of friendships’ as they damage the time spent together. More damaging would be the loss of such a resource and ability to instantly (and intuitively) connect, communicate and converse with one another. It used to be the case that one would ‘log on’, ‘enter’, ‘exit’ and interact only ‘within’ the gated walls of anyone SNS. In today’s Technology Guardian Kate Bevan speculates as to whether Friends Connect by Google that allows users to link all '(...) their stuff’ back to social networking profiles will be the downfall of Facebook. Clearly she hasn’t played around enough with Facebook’s Share amongst other applications that already congregate the latest moves and shakes of users.

The consequences for shared interactive flows of communication? Instead of being more ‘fragmented’ and ‘alone’ connections will be seduced by the sophisticated levels of immersion and convergence of all networking sites and user identities. Increasingly flows will overlap. This might sound repetitive, but it is worth drawing distinction between the more hungry side of Web 2.0 that will evolve into Web 3.0. A space from which one is never disconnected, and can think and feel enough to foresee for you what you will be interested in. Most importantly a Web 3.0 will continue to share what your friends are up to, live, as it happens in real time. Ultimately then things become more compact. More real. More about You.

Image: uwadmnweb

Theory of Facebook

Remember when you first discovered Facebook and SNSs and thought that you were the original one, just having a laugh and catching up with friends? Au contraire, you were (and now are) part of a whole cultural shift in social dynamics about how people meet, greet, stay in touch and interact on a daily basis.

SNSs have become more than just a way to indicate a 'high-school esque' popularity. Instead, they have emerged as significant collaborative social spaces that contain more important social connections and subtle cues for presentation and interaction. This could be viewed as a 'hyper' set of dimensions and intimacies. Hyper, because they are fast occuring and reflect the excessively active aspects of the social dynamics. But I would contend that they are more immersive and seductive than a hyper set of behaviours. Yes things occur in the fast lane of life, but these have real life (and real time) consequences.

What used to be part of an 'always on' mobile phone culture has evolved as a continuous social presence. You may log out of Facebook, but you're still there. Or at least your profile page is. Still there, interacting away on your behalf until when you next log in.

And that time that you accepted an even invitation or became a 'fan' you thought you were acting out of self interest? No, not at all: More likely you were proving you credentials as a socially compatible and active individual, or broadcasting your interest and friendship activity to others in your network.

And so we have new compulsion to act, reciprocate, communicate and keep our networked Friends close to hand.

From a sociological take this has consequences for not only how sociability is enacted, but the types of socially networked individuals that are 'out there'.

So here's my take on some key aspects of Facebook (and other SNSs) that together form a Facebook theory if you will:

Cheerleader
Typically over-buff in profile image, more photos than friends (both totalling over 1000s though!). Limited information about 'education' and 'work'. Other than looking pretty. Less interested in what their Facebook friends are doing and more compelled by the latest wallpost from another buff body.

Friend-farmers
User whose more natural territory is MySpace. Still at school the aim is to achieve friend status target of the alloted 5000.

Exposed
The type of person who is always online, always has updated their status update in the last ten seconds, always the first to accept invitations. Their life is there in all its glory, and only obscured by periods of cache time outs, broadband malfunction or lack of wireless. Of course then they are surfing via their iphone.

Poke battles
This is similar with how we behaved when we were back at school and in the playground. So when you had a crush on someone ignoring them and pulling their hair were prime indicators you thought they were cute! The poke is a bit like a signal that says ''hi' i'm here', but can also stand in for 'i think you're really cute, but can't think of a wall post/message etc to captivate your attention'.

Fan status
Being a fan used to mean paying homage to a particular band, singer, artist, author etc. in general you would have posters on your wall (real bedroom wall, not metaphorical Facebook one). On Facebook to 'become a fan' is to symbolise a part of our tastes, our likes as much as our dislikes. E.g. a fan of Gordan Brown is unlikely to think fondly of Boris Johnson.

Social networking is born
SNSs happened when they did for specific reasons: Individuals want to stay in touch, they like to stay in touch and enjoy sharing connections with others. Chat rooms were risky unknown situations, instead Facebook offers real friends opportunity to act like friends when they are not together too. This is a strange situation, as if friends are real, they will hold a connection whether on Facebook or not, but then people are always looking for reassurance about relationships and look for new (fun) ways to keep up to date with one another.

Profile performance
All profile pages have a level of staged performance about them. With images carefully selected and put in place and extra information and applications added to make pages look more interesting. Although all are staged, some are more staged than others with overall sense of the theatrical with too many 'which character are you' and 'rated or slated' profiles. This gives off the idea that the identity is all about being attached to other Facebook resources rather than the connections and friends in networks.

All together now
There's a level of emotionality at the heart of any connection; whether friend, acquaintence, family or peer. On Facebook there's a feeling of togetherness, put in place by accepted friend invitation and shared network membership. This is a ritualised part of daily social life already in place at school, college, university and workplaces. On Facebook rejecting a friend request carries as much social weight offline as it does on the site. So too the highs and lows of being together on a SNS can be comparable to the complex sets of connections with others away from these networks.

Another version of this blog appeared on blog pages : ProperFacebookEtiquette
Image: Mark Ainley.com

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.

Neighbours everybody needs good neighbours

Following on from my previous blog post ‘Identity on parade: come ShowYourself!’, the latest from the gizmo guys on Facebook have created an innovative application See Your Neighbours (or ‘neighbors’ as it originates from that side of the pond!). See Your Neighbours automatically displays your nearest (and potentially dearest) physically located top 50 members on Facebook. Creator Nathan Blecharczyk of the Harvard network informs the Facebook group that ‘See Your Neighbours’ is designed to show;

‘… you a directory listing of other Facebook users in your vicinity sorted by distance. It facilitates meeting others in your apartment building or neighbourhood who you might not otherwise get to meet.’

This has synergies with the ‘new’ experience of community that is being created by social networking sites such as Facebook where it seems that the value of shared experiences has replaced previous ‘traditional’ community or neighbourhood forms that were based on locality.

As social networks become more about locating people See Your Neighbours could help to reframe the mobile and digitally connected society that contextualise current Web 2.0 interactions. The next version of social relations (a Web 3.0 ?) may well represent a return to physical context and resurgence of neighbourhoods that are based upon a shared sense of place and geographic residence.

I am yet to be convinced at how much there is a real demand for this kind of application. Privacy already remains a priority and source of contention on Facebook, not only between individuals, but now in relation to the admittance of 3rd party users that exercise the ‘right’, and are permitted, to access your personal information.

As purely a search application nothing shows up on your profile so you can enjoy seeing your neighbours before they see you. Users can also re-configure their own privacy settings to allow what other Facebook members are permitted to see once they have been located.

One note, I would recommend that Nathan change the group picture – currently a rather ‘groovy’ man that would not look out of place on the front of a ‘It’s nice to knit’ catalogue; that amount of polyester and cardigan related smirk does nothing to dissipate the potential uneasiness of discovering someone who could be living next-door.

It will be interesting to see how physical locality and place may be an essential element for a new set of forthcoming community relations, and of course those cup of tea possibilities. Of course with only 876 users at the time of writing community pickings do seem rather slim, especially if you are based in the UK. My nearest and dearest are a mere ‘community; pop over for a cup of sugar’ 60miles away. But it’s still friendlier than sending a ‘free’ gift or poking, but for the time being you may have a long way to walk…

Perhaps this is what is really meant by living in the utopic rural idyll...

Identity on parade: come ShowYourself!

Its been 24 hours in web 2.0 world and that’s a long time...

And *puff* Oh look another social networking site, another profile to create, another set of passwords, profile tags, user names etc to remember. YUK!

There is on Web 2.0 an ever-increasing array of user platforms, sites, forums etc. that seem to slowly erode away one’s digital identity as profiles attempt to span the social space stratosphere. It is more than easy to get lost, or worse never found ‘out there’. With this in mind creative genius’s have come up with a new piece of techno wizardgery in the guise of a widget called ShowYourself. Basically (after a quick play around) it combines all your profiles that span across the web into one rather fetching widget that you can place on your blog, website, even social network profile to show ‘where’ you may be and in what form. Handy, if a bit fiddly to begin with, suddenly though you can expose yourself on multiple fronts.

Which brings me rather nicely onto my next query, does one want to indicate the multiple possibilities of your identity and where you can be hunted down? One of the reasons that I have numerous accounts in different places is that they are designed for different networks; I would rather my more formal Linkedin contacts did not know, or try to seek out, my more personal Flickr account etc. The complexity here appears to lie with, not only possible identity profiling options, but rather an disquietness about identity management and possible over-disclosure of the self.

In terms of the new widget in its favour it does let one select exactly which profiles to display so you can custom-tailor your possible web exposure.