The ‘outcome’ of SNSs has been widely researched over the past few years. By outcome I mean user-generated information, such as user demographics and statistics. All of these topics have been researched by using – what I call – ‘interface information’: the information you’ll find by examining a user’s profile. In (Re-)constructing Social Networking Sites: Examining Software Relations and its Influence on Users, I employ the idea that the ‘input’ of SNSs – the very construct: the software – plays an equally important role and must therefore be thoroughly examined.

The influence of software on the user is also addressed in this writing. By using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine I make use of a new reconstructive approach to reveal Facebook’s power (over users) by looking at their history of software changes and subsequent consequences for the user.

Here’s the abstract of my MA thesis:

This thesis examines the relationship between social networking sites (SNSs), software and its
influence on the user. Two frames of thought are employed here: (1) there is a void in software research. Especially when it comes to social networking sites, not much research has been conducted as to how profiles are constructed by software and what consequences these constructions may have. This seems paradoxical, since this input might be of great influence on a user’s output (by which is meant both user-generated information found on profiles and
the questions as to why and how these sites are used). It is argued here that thorough academic research on SNSs should look at both the input and output. (2) A user is able to shape himself within a profile, but he is also shaped by the software. Software relations and the influence on users are therefore also discussed. Additionally, this thesis makes a new attempt in conducting practical software research by using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to reconstruct the history of Facebook’s software changes. It is thus, that the influence and symbioses of software and the user becomes clear.

You are very welcome to read the rest here: (Re-)constructing Social Networking Sites: Examining Software Relations and its Influence on Users

As you can tell by the title, it treats both the software (the very construct) of SNSs and the influence this has on the user. One of the main claims in this writing is that software research – especially when it comes to SNSs – is still underdeveloped and more attention should be paid to the input just as well as the outcomes, which are now usually the subject of SNS studies.

Stay tuned!

First off, the class New Media Research Seminar required for us to read ‘Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization’ by Alexander R. Galloway and ‘Control and Freedom: Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiberoptics’ by Wendy Hui Kyong Chun. Both books were a very interesting read, although I must admit that ‘Protocol’ is more up my alley. For the final paper I’ve compared and contrasted these books, adding my own commentary and questions. I start off by summarizing and critiquing both books and finally take out a few of their main points for contrast and comparison.

Here’s the abstract:

This paper attempts to compare and contrast the main points of the books ‘Protocol:
How Control Exists After Decentralization’ by Alexander R. Galloway and ‘Control
and Freedom: Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiber Optics’ by Wendy Hui Kyong
Chun. By briefly discussing both ‘Protocol’ and ‘Control and Freedom’, I will map the
discourse in both books, thereby revealing the larger arguments of the authors.
I will then be able to compare and contrast them and finally come to a concluding
statement. The reviews of both books are not merely summaries: I will also address
unclear paragraphs and theories I came across and add to them with thoughts and
questions that came up while reading both texts.

The rest of the paper can be found here: Comparing and Contrasting ‘Protocol’ with ‘Control and Freedom’

The second paper was written for New Media Theories, a class that covered a lot of classical media texts and subjects such as Vannevar Bush’s ‘As We May Think’, Ivan Sutherland’s ‘Sketchpad’, Theodor Nelson’s ‘Xanadu’, Donna Haraway’s ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ and so on. I chose to write about digital obsolescence and made a link with both Walter Benjamin’s historical ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ and Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s ‘Constituents of a Theory of the Media’.

Here’s the abstract:

With this paper I attempt to answer the question why digital preservation in new
media and new media art is as important as it is difficult. It considers the relation
between digital obsolescence and digital preservation, and looks into several
strategies to preserve digital information; with a particular focus on emulation. This
contemporary issue is first linked back to the historical works of Walter Benjamin’s
and Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s and their ideas on reproduction, thus providing an
overview of the importance of (mechanical and technological) reproducibility since its
advent.

And the rest can be found here: The Battle Against Digital Obsolescence:
Exploring Strategies of Digital Preservation in New Media and New Media Art

She divides this Perceived Freshness Fetish into two parts:

1. The ‘internal fetish’, a wish or demand for the blogger himself to update daily.

2. The ‘external fetish’, the requirement from blog search engines to blog daily, thereby achieving a certain ranking.

Looking at my own experiences with blogging, I think this fetish could very well explain the need for bloggers to blog. Once my blog was up, I had to post. Of course, no one orders me to do this. But my blog is what represents me on the Web and since I’ve created it I HAVE to keep it up. It’s something I feel internally. Perhaps this makes it more about others (the blog readers in this case) and less about me. Which makes me wonder: why am I blogging in the first place and who am I blogging for? I think it’s safe to say that I’m not just blogging for myself, I hope to reach a certain audience and receive some feedback.

Not being a natural blogger, I constantly struggle with the question if I should blog randomly just to add a post (keeping my stats up) or if I should hold out until there’s actually something interesting to write about. It’s not that I don’t enjoy keeping a blog, it’s just not second nature to me. I have to make an effort to blog.

The external fetish is also something I’ve experienced. If I do not update my blog on a regular basis, the amount of visitors, stats and rankings will drop and eventually my blog will be deeply buried somewhere in search engine algorithms, nowhere to be found when requested. This raises the ontological question: do I still ‘exist’ when I can’t be found on Google? How important is it for my online identity to be established and found on the Web?

In any case, this lecture introduces some interesting insights in the nature of the blogger.

Note: this is not an ‘I’m sorry blog’ post, as Anne describes. I will keep blogging, I just don’t know when.

The microblog Twitter is a good example of what we all put on line in short sentences, with a maximum of 140 characters. Letting others know what we are doing and when we’re doing it. What have these aphorisms to contribute to society, and why are we all so eager to take part in it? Why do we use Twitter and what are the implications?

Alexandre Passant, Tuukka Hastrup, Uldis Bojärs and John Breslin wrote the paper “Microblogging: A Semantic and Distibuted Approach”, in which they describe ‘the features, methods and architecture of a distributed Semantic Web microblogging system, as well as the implementation of an initial prototype of this concept that provides ways to leverage microblogging with the Linked Data Web guidelines.’

Before we can look at the implications of microblogging, we must first understand why we use these sorts of tools. Passant, Hastrup, Bojärs and Breslin write:

‘The simplicity of publishing such short updates in various situations and in a fluid social network based on subscriptions and response posts makes microblogging a groundbreaking communication method that can be seen as a hybrid of blogging, instant messaging and status notifications, and that some already studied from a social point of view. Moreover, this way of publishing can be extended with more advanced communication means like video recording, as in Seesmic2, which is considered a video microblogging service. This communication method is also promising for corporate environments in facilitating informal communication, learning and knowledge exchange. Its so far untapped potential can be compared to that of company-internal wikis some years ago. Microblogging can be characterised by rapid (almost real-time) knowledge exchange and fast propagation of new information.’

I feel like this is just part of the answer. I too, have seen the advantages of Twitter in my own Twitter community. Like the exchange of knowledge through links to interesting articles, or pointing to new web features. Even drawing attention to job applications.  But I can imagine a part of it also derives from self explanation, or even self absorbtion. Especially when you consider that a lot of tweets are not professional or job related, and are very informal. This tool might be, more than others – at least in my opinion – blurring the boundaries between practical, formal and professional (like sharing interesting links with colleagues) and social and informal (like mentioning that you are about to start dinner and that you’re having lasagna tonight).

All of this information is being shared with the people in your Twitter community, if you are a part of that community there is simply no way around it. Which brings up the question if it is true that ‘this communication method is also promising for corporate environment in facilitating informal communication, learning and exchanging knowledge’, like the authors suggest.  What does informal information have to contribute in a formal, corporate environment? Is it getting to know the person behind your colleague? Is it bonding with them, thereby improving the professional relationship?

Another implication Twitter, and all microblogs for that matter, might have is the reduction and changing of our literary capabilities in reading and writing. Passant, Hastrup, Bojärs and Breslin write that:

‘Twitter users have adopted certain shorthand conventions in their writing called hash tags, but their semantics are not readily machine-processable thus raising the same ambiguity and heterogeneity problems that tagging causes. For example, the hash tag #paris could mean various things (cities, people etc.) depending on the context, and so cannot be automatically processed by computers.’

New ways of writing are introduced with these new applications. And with Twitter-like communication methods increasingly gaining ground – look at the status notifications in social networking sites like Hyves, MySpace and Facebook, or instant messaging for example – I can’t help but think that something might get lost in the process. Perhaps the idea of an information gap due to these tools isn’t such a crazy thought. With the Internet growing more and more into a semantic Web, are we now on the verge of a new kind of digital divide?

It is not my intention to cast a dark shadow on these new ways of communication. As I suggested, a lot can be gained from them. I am merely wondering about why and how we use these tools, and how they change the way we write and read. And I am also interested in seeing the added value Twitter might have. It is unfortunate that  a lot of questions like these are not yet answered in research papers. It shows that due to the relative newness of these tools, not many studies have been conducted in this field.

This analysis is also posted on the Masters of Media blog.

In their paper ‘Public Displays of Connection’, MIT Media Lab professor Judith Donath and academic danah boyd write:

‘Networks are the extension of our social world; they also act as its boundary. We may use the network to extend the range of people we can contact; we may use it to limit the people who can contact us. Most of the networking sites so far are designed to grow networks, not limit them. Yet costs and limits can add value. The expenditure of energy to maintain a connection is a signal of its importance and of the benefits it bestows.’

Especially the last sentence of this paragraph seems somewhat paradoxical to me. Isn’t the whole point of social networking sites that contacts (friends and acquaintances, either known in real life or not) are easily managed without the awkwardness of face-to-face contact, and possibly more important: without having to spend lots of time and energy in the maintenance process? It surely has to be easier and less time consuming than making appointments and ACTUALLY spending time with them in real life?

Still, there is something to say for Donath and boyd’s conclusion. Managing an online social networking profile usually DOES take time and effort. Not only does a profile have to be updated every once and again, contacts have to be maintained by writing comments or leaving kudos (this considering an active social networking user). Then, it’s very true when they say that ‘the expenditure of energy to maintain a connection is a signal of its importance and of the benefits it bestows.’ Taking the time to maintain a connection, whether online or offline, is basically saying that this person is worth that time and effort. It is a signal of importance and it can repay its self, most likely by having your contact putting at least as much effort into maintaining the relationship with you.

Limits can add value. At least for me, as a user of several social networking sites, I feel quite accomplished when a desired (esteemed) contact adds me to his circle of connections – especially when I’m one of few. This is, however, different for the various types of social networking sites. When I get accepted as a friend of my favorite band on MySpace, I’m proud to show all my MySpace-friends (and lurkers of my profile) that I am connected to them. Of course by adding them as a contact I’m also showing them my support and encouragement. But, knowing that this band probably only has a MySpace profile for self promotion – and that they are therefore likely to add (almost) anybody, fan or not – the novelty of being their friend actually wears off.

Knowing this, I’m might not add them so much as to be their devoted fan and friend, but to show others my interest in their music. It’s becoming more about me and less about them. This might seem as a very thin line, and it is, but there’s a distinct difference between the two.

Also, MySpace has a certain sense of anonymity. It’s easy to randomly add people because their picture looks nice or they share the same taste in movies. Sometimes there isn’t even an apparent reason for the add. I regularly get friend requests sent by people from all over the world, who I don’t know and have absolutely nothing in common with (not even contacts or interests). This may be done because of various reasons; perhaps the requester desperately wants more friends added to his profile (to enhance his status; having two friends on MySpace does seem a little sad), or there are commercial reasons (maybe the requester has a shop and wants to sell me stuff) etcetera. If I do not accept them to my profile, no harm is done. Feelings are less likely to be crushed, because there’s no real connection.

When comparing these MySpace connections to the connections on LinkedIn (a networking site for professionals), I personally feel that there is more to gain out of friend adds there (of course this has everything to do with my objective. A band would probably have more to gain through connections on MySpace). That is not to say that there aren’t people on LinkedIn who will add anybody and everybody – even if there are no apparent connections. Or that having a profile on LinkedIn cannot be considered as self promotion. But in general, LinkedIn users only want to add contacts to their profile that they know, or are in someway affiliated or connected to them or their field of work. And although anonymity is surely also present within the confinements of LinkedIn, it doesn’t nearly take on such a drastic form as it does at MySpace. If my contact request is denied on LinkedIn, my feelings are more likely to be crushed. Even if I do not know this person in real life, it is someone who I feel could be a significant add to my network. LinkedIn users seem to be more serious when it comes to their network – and adding contacts.

So, here we see that limits can add value and that networks can also act as a boundary, as Donath and boyd suggest. The added value can be seen as credibility gained. Besides that, I feel more valuable as a contact of a (relatively) small network – where my (online) presence is acknowledged and maybe even appreciated. It just depends on the online networks that you’re using and – moreover – with what objective you’re using them.

This analysis is also posted on the Masters of Media blog.

We got a brief introduction to the history of data and information visualization, and then started cutting and pasting and created our own data visualization graphics. We used different cards and figures to represent the data or ‘building blocks’ and tried to recreate existing data visualizations (charts, maps and graphs). This turned out to be a pretty hard concept to grasp, because it’s so abstract. We finally got the hang of it though, when we came up with our own data concept and a visualization to match.

Our data visualization creation (all pictures taken by Marijn de Vries Hoogerwerf)

The idea behind our data visualization was that we wanted to create a way to show how many babies were born in the entire city of Amsterdam from 1970 till now. As you can see, there’s a block called ‘surface locator’ on the Map Space (left side). This represents the city of Amsterdam. The ‘node’ on the Map Space (also on the left) represents the different neighbourhoods or city regions of Amsterdam (for example: Amsterdam Bijlmer, Amsterdam Osdorp, Amsterdam Centre and so on). These notions are embedded into the Axis Space, where the Time Axis (1970 till now) and Quantity Axis (the number of babies born) are measured. The ‘node’ on the Axis Space represents the babies born and the ‘connector’, connects the nodes, so a graph would occur. We were dabbling with this idea and it turned out to be a pretty good first effort.

Yuri Engelhardt and Christian Behrens will be leading this workshop at the VizThink Europe ’08 conference held in Berlin on October 14th, so this was not only very useful and interesting for us, but also a try-out for them!

Today’s themes in the E-Art Dome – presented by Virtueel Platform – are ecology, online life/social networking and mobility. The second presentation of the day is All Media, by Mieke Gerritzen and Koert van Mensvoort, which definitely fits those descriptions. Koert van Mensvoort starts off his presentation with a video of a bird making incredible sounds, some sounding not unlike a car alarm. He stresses that this video ‘is not media art, it’s an actual bird’. Next, is ‘the biggest visual power show’, an intellectual show that’s posed as a visionary statement, where the next nature is presented. Meaning that nature is increasingly controlled by man. Van Mensvoort calls this ‘a culturally emerged nature.’

Van Mensvoort says that our relation with nature is changing. Nature and culture are increasingly blending. He illustrates this with a few examples, like a picture he took on a nature walk of an odd looking tree, that actually turned out to be a cell phone antenne disguised as a pine tree. Or the fact that some people buy land from farmers and make this land look like it would have looked two thousand years ago. Nature becomes culture, and it’s also becoming progressively more of a product.

Later on in the presentation Van Mensvoort brings up several concepts like biomimic marketing and visualization. He claims that scientists these days are doing a lot of interesting things, like creating non-allergic cats or ‘victimless meat’ (meat grown in lab dishes). We are reshaping nature for commercial objectives. We are creating our own mix between nature and culture.

Van Mensvoort: ‘The born and the made are fusing. The born were already there, the made is what we are creating. We’re all messed up on our concepts nowadays.’

Then he comes with a proposal: a fresh definition of nature and culture. Being: culture is what we control, nature is everything that’s beyond our control.
We cause the rise of a ‘next’ nature. An example of this is the mobile phone. Without it – if we accidentally left it at home for instance – we feel like we’re missing an extension of our body.  If we go back to get it, we feel whole again, like we’re complete.

He concludes by saying that ‘real nature is not green’. On the All Media website he writes about this: ‘Human actions are not nature, but it can cause it; real nature in all its functioning, dangers and possibilities. In spite of all our attempts and experiments, it is still hardly practicable to mold life. Every time nature seems to have been conquered, it rears its head again on some other battlefield. Perhaps we should not see nature as a static given, but as a dynamic process. It is not only humans that are developing; nature, too, is changing in the process. Thus, I am proposing a new approach to distinguish nature and culture. At first– as is usual with paradigm shifts – it takes some getting used to, but after a while things become clear again. Real nature is not green.’

Even though Van Mensvoort raises interesting questions about the difference between nature and culture, he doesn’t quite seem to make a clear point on this. His presentation is somewhat vague and rushed and he has difficulty answering questions from the audience. Furthermore, is what he is saying right? Is culture actually what we control? And is nature everything that lies beyond our control? I for one, am not sure of nature being everything beyond our control. Perhaps it can very well be within our control, just as culture can be out of our control. Where are the boundaries, and how are they blurring? We should try to find concepts of nature and culture, but maybe the main focus in this question should be on the implications it might have.

This review is also posted on the Masters of Media blog.

Just four years later, in 2005, this idea of a Daily Me became reality when internet entrepeneur Eduardo Hauser founded DailyMe.com, a website that allows users to choose and sort their own content. They state: ‘DailyMe is changing the way news is read and delivered with its advanced news experience that meets the needs of modern-day consumers by combining the best of journalism, technology, and community. DailyMe is a news provider and content platform that allows you to customize, personalize, aggregate, share, and interact with the news, blogs, columns and stories that interest you. At DailyMe.com, users have access to three views of the news – editorialized, personalized and socialized.’

Creating an account is easy and free of charge. Just enter your e-mailadress and username and you can start creating your DailyMe. There are several categories of news that you can choose and add to your personal profile, such as ‘World news’, ‘U.S. news’, ‘Elections’, ‘Money’, ‘Technology’, ‘Sports’, ‘Science’, ‘Health’, ‘Entertainment’ and ‘Lifestyle’. All of these categories are divided into subcategories, from which you can also choose. Elections, for example is divided into two subcategories: John McCain and Barack Obama. Technology is divided into the subcategories Computer & Software, Gadgets, Gaming and Internet. Once you’ve created your DailyMe – with only the news you want to read- you can choose in what format you’d like your news brought to you; whether this be via e-mail (with or without a pdf attachment) or your mobile phone.

Now that we know how an actual Daily Me is created we can aks ourselves what kind of (online) culture DailyMe.com or other personalized (news)websites are producing. And we should consider if Cass Sunstein was right when he wrote that features like this can threaten democracy and fragmentize society. In an article published on the website TPM (Talking Points Memo) Cafe, Sunstein writes: ‘Many people are now using the Internet to create something like a Daily Me. And many people are now celebrating the rise of countless niches, of long tails, and of collaborative filtering, all of which promote personalization. What is wrong with countless editions of the Daily Me? One problem is an absence of shared experiences: diverse nations need some social glue, and shared experiences can provide that glue, because they give people a sense that they are involved in a common enterprise. National holidays are important partly for that reason. Shared communications experiences, as opposed to information cocoons, have a similar function. (Think of a presidential debate.)’

But should a website for personalized news really be viewed as something that causes absence of shared experiences? Somehow this seems a bit drastic to me. I can’t help but think that people have always chosen their own content. Even before most of us had Internet acces, we could choose whether or not to read a newspaper article or to watch newsreports. Of course, in this day and age it is even easier to select and divide. But does this really mean we deprive ourselves from the social glue that keeps us all together? And what will happen if the stickyness has gone?

I think it is important to keep society’s best interest in mind and really consider what consequences certain Web 2.0 applications may have. But I also think we should not get ahead of ourselves and realize personalized (news)websites can be a huge benefit. With the objective of bringing custom news to those who want and seek it, DailyMe can be considered a news sharing experience, that might even glue some of us back together.

This analysis is also posted on the Masters of Media blog.

I’m very curious to see what you all think about it.